Commitments, partnerships, and hope: The Smithsonian at the Our Ocean Conference in Panama

The 8th Our Ocean Conference concluded with 341 commitments worth nearly $20 billion, including the expansion of Banco Volcán Managed Resources Area in the Panamanian Caribbean that led Panama to protect over 54% of its oceans.

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Text by Leila Nilipour

Fisheries and Marine Conservation Marine Biology Ecosystem Ecology Biodiversity Ecosystem Ecology Exploration Life in Deep Time Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet purple Hector M. Guzman Mark Torchin Rachel Collin Matthieu Leray

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“Python of the Sea” study highlights marine biodiversity underestimates

Most ocean life remains to be discovered. Because fish and many other animals that live in the ocean often have larvae or other, microscopic life stages that drift freely in ocean water, counting species by genetic barcoding of plankton samples adds to counts of species recorded as adults and is a highly efficient way to understand what lives in the ocean and how biodiversity changes as we modify the ocean environment.

Marine Biology Zoology Biodiversity Natural History Origins of Species and Societies Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet Bocas del Toro purple Rachel Collin

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Unique dinosaur-era fossil bridges a gap in the evolution of crabs

The oldest and most complete fossil crab ever discovered suggests that these animals ventured onto land at least 25 to 50 million years earlier than previously thought

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Panama
Text by Leila Nilipour, Spanish translation by Sonia Tejada

Paleontology and Paleobiology Taxonomy Geology Evolutionary Biology Life in Deep Time purple Carlos Jaramillo

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Is this the oldest
cashew on the isthmus?

A fossil tree discovery in Panama offers clues regarding the establishment of the genus Anacardium in Central and South America

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Text by Leila Nilipour

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Women in science propose changes to discriminatory measures of scientific success

The scientists advocate shifting the current value system, which is biased against women and minorities, towards a more diverse and inclusive model of science

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Panama

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Dolphin-Watching affects
whistle frequency modulation
in bottlenose dolphins

Picture this: What to do at a party when you try to carry on a conversation, but the music is too loud? A Panamanian doctoral student is trying to figure out how dolphins communicate underwater during heavy boat traffic in the Bocas del Toro Archipelago.

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Text by Sonia Tejada

Animal Behavior Fisheries and Marine Conservation Marine Biology Conservation Biology Global Change Zoology Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet Bocas del Toro purple Rachel Collin

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First Sightings of Lek and
courtship behavior in
wrinkle-faced bats

Male Wrinkle-faced bats lower a flap of skin resembling a face mask when they are ready to mate according to a rare sighting of a lek of bats in Costa Rica.

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Gamboa

Animal Behavior Natural History Zoology Biodiversity Conservation Biology Origins of Species and Societies Gamboa purple Rachel Page

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A journey of growth
and discovery

The first time Dumas Gálvez saw the ant species Ectatomma ruidum under a microscope, he was just a little boy. He was immediately fascinated. A few decades later, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), a professor in the entomology department at the University of Panama and a mentor to young scientists, he does research on that same ant species. Listen to him narrate every step of his academic journey: his experiences, mentors, mistakes and lessons learned.

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Panamá

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Fossil trees on Peru’s Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental change

As the Earth’s surface transforms, entire ecosystems come and go. The anatomy of fossil plants growing in the Andean Altiplano region 10 million years ago calls current paleoclimate models into question, suggesting that the area was more humid than models predict.

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Panama

Paleontology and Paleobiology Exploration Botany Ecosystem Ecology Life in Deep Time CTPA purple Carlos Jaramillo

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Two Panamanians in the service of the common good in Bocas del Toro

Carolina César and Viviana Bravo radically changed their work rhythm: from going out daily to the archipelago, to keeping a research station afloat.

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Bocas del Toro

Bocas del Toro purple Rachel Collin

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