Staff scientists

Stephen Hubbell

Language English

Ecology

Better theories of biodiversity are urgently needed to inform our efforts to describe, manage and protect it. Understanding biodiversity and its origin, maintenance and loss on Earth is of profound significance to the future of humanity as we know it.

Surviving in a Cosexual World: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Dioecy in Tropical Trees, 2017

Adult mortality in a low-density tree population using high-resolution remote sensing, 2017

My primary research interest is the ecology of tropical rainforests, plant-animal interactions and theoretical ecology. Along with Robin Foster (now at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago), I founded the 50-hectare forest dynamics plot on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal. The plot became the model for the Center for Tropical Forest Science, which is now the Smithsonian Institution’s Forest Global Earth Observatory, or ForestGEO, a network of more than 60 forest research plots that follow identical protocols to study forest function and diversity. I am the author of the unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography, a hypothesis that aims to explain the diversity and relative abundance of species in ecological communities.

Please note: My lab is currently not accepting new applications for STRI internships.

B.A., Carleton College 1963

Ph.D., UC Berkeley 1969

D.Sc., Theoretical Ecology, Carleton College (Honorary Doctorate) 2006

Hubbell, SP, "Foreword", The Ecology of Lianas, Schnitzer, SA., Bongers, F, Burnham, RJ, Putz, FE(Eds.), Oxford, UK Blackwell 1-4 (2014).

Cushman, KC, Muller-Landau, HC, Condit, RS, Hubbell, SP, "Improving estimates of biomass chance in buttressed trees using tree taper models", Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Schnitzer, SA., Bongers, F, Burnham, RJ, Putz, FE(Eds.), 5 : 573-581 (2014).

Inman-Narahari, F., Ostertag, R., Asner, G., Cordell, S, Hubbell, SP, Sack, L., "Trade-offs in seedling growth and survival within and across tropical forest microhabitats", Ecology and Evolution, Schnitzer, SA., Bongers, F, Burnham, RJ, Putz, FE(Eds.), 5 : - (2014).

Schnitzer, SA, Mangan, SA, Hubbell, SP, "The lianas of Barro Colorado Island, Panama", In: The Ecology of Lianas, Schnitzer, SA., Bongers, F, Burnham, RJ, Putz, FE(Eds.), Oxford, UK Blackwell 5 : - (2014) .

Chisholm, R. A., R. Condit, K. Abd. Rahman, P, J. Baker, Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin, Y.-Y. Chen, G. Chuyong, H. S. Dattaraja, S. Davies, C. E. N. Ewango, C. V. S. Gunatilleke, I. A. U. N. Gunatilleke, S. P. Hubbell, D. Kenfack, S. Kiratiprayoon, Y. Lin, J.-R. Makana, N. Pongpattananurak, S. Pulla, R. Punchi-Manage, R. Sukumar, S.-H. Su, I.-F. Sun, H. S. Suresh, S. Tan, D. Thomas, S. Yap., "Empirical variability of forest communities: empirical estimates of population change in 4000 tree species", Ecology Letters, Schnitzer, SA., Bongers, F, Burnham, RJ, Putz, FE(Eds.), 17 : 855-885 (2014).

Marquet, P, Allen, A, Brown, J, Dunne, J, Enquist, B, Gilloly, J, Gowaty, PA, Green, J, Harte, J, Hubbell, SP, O'Dwyer, J, Okie, J, Ostling, A, Ritchie, M, Storch, D, West, G., "On theory in ecology", Bioscience, Schnitzer, SA., Bongers, F, Burnham, RJ, Putz, FE(Eds.), 64 : 701-710 (2014).

Muller-Landau, HC, Detto, M, Chisholm, RA, Hubbell, SP, Condit, R., "Detecting and predicting changes in forest biomass from plot data", In: Forests and Global Change, Coomes, DA, Burslem, DFRP, Simonson, WD(Eds.), Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 64 : 381-414 (2014).

Stephenson, N. L., A. J. Das, R. Condit, S. E. Russo, P. J. Baker, N. G. Geckman, D. A. Coomes, E. R. Lines, W. CK. Morris, N. Roger, E. Alvarez, C. Blundo, S. Bunyavejchewin, G. Chuyong, S. J. Davies, ?. Duque, C. N. Ewango, O. Flores, J. F. Franklin, J. R. Grau, Z. Hao, M. E. Harmon, S. P. Hubbell, D. Kenfack, Y. Liu, J.-R. Makana, A. Malizia, L. R. Malizia, R. J Pabst, N. Pongpattananurak, S.-H. Su, I.-F. Sun, S. Tan, D. Thomas, P. J. van Mantgen, X. Wang, S. K. Wiser, M. A. Zavala, "Rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size", Nature, Coomes, DA, Burslem, DFRP, Simonson, WD(Eds.), 507 : 90-93 (2014).

Gowaty, PA, Hubbell, SP, "Bayesian animals sense ecological constraints to predict fitness and organize individually flexible reproductive decision", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Coomes, DA, Burslem, DFRP, Simonson, WD(Eds.), 36 (3): 215-216 (2013).

Chisholm, R. A., H. C. Muller-Landau, K. A. Rahman, D. P. Beber, Y. Bin, S. A. Bohman, N. A. Bourg, J. Brinks, S. Bunyavejchewin, N. Butt, H. Cao, M. Cao, D. Cardenas, L.-W. Chang, J.M. Chiang, G. Chuyong, R. Condit, H. S. Dattaraja, S. Davies, A. Duque, C. Fletcher, N. Gunatilleke, S. Gunatilleke, Z. Haom R. D. Harrison, R. Howe, C.-F Hsieh,, S. P. Hubbell, A. Itoh, D. Kenfack, S. Kiratiprayoon, A. J. Larson, J. Lian, D. Linn, H. Liu, J. A. Lutz, K. Ma, Y. Malhi, S. McMahon, W. McShea, M. Meega, "Scale-dependent relationships between tree species richness and ecosystem function in forests", Journal of Ecology, Coomes, DA, Burslem, DFRP, Simonson, WD(Eds.), 101 : 1214-1224 (2013).

shubbell [at] eeb.ucla.edu

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Stephen P. Hubbell

Name

Stephen

Last name

Hubbell

Discipline (Private):

Long-term monitoring

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Staff scientists

Stanley Heckadon-Moreno

Language English

Anthropology Sociology History of Natural History

The Panama Canal’s watershed, in essence the Chagres river, is one of the most important in the world, on par with the Nile or the Rhine. Every year, its waters move some 14,000 ships through this vital interoceanic trade route. It is also the source of fresh water for 80% of Panama’s urban population and industry.

J. Dow, P. Prestan y las armas abordo del SS Colon, 2017

Notas sobre el antropologo Francisco Herrera, 2017

During the 1970s and 1980s, I worked in community development, land-tenure and environmental projects with rural and indigenous communities in Panama and Central America. It helped me gain lots of hands-on experience and to work, within the government, towards the creation of Panama’s National Parks System and legalize the status of the country’s indigenous territories. From 1987-1990, I was senior social scientist at the Tropical Agronomic Center for Research and Teaching (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

I became affiliated with STRI in 1983 as a research associate. In 1989, following the U.S. invasion of Panama, I served as director of today’s environment ministry. From 1996-2000, I led STRI’s Panama Canal Watershed Natural Resources Monitoring Project. I was part of a small team that worked toward the creation of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) and the key decision of turning the forest of the former Canal Zone into protected areas.

Since 2000, I have been responsible for STRI’s Galeta Point Marine Laboratory in Colón. Galeta does research on tropical coastal habitats, carries out a dynamic education and public outreach programs, and since 2007, trains Panamanian teachers on how to do and teach science. I have authored and coauthored books and hundreds of articles, some on the environmental challenges facing the Isthmus of Panama, others on history of natural history in Panama and the Americas.

In a country of merchants, commerce and trade, how do you make science important?

A 'natural' disaster does more to interest decision-makers in science than any number of publications. After devastating floods on Panama's Caribbean coast, in the port city of Colón, people began to ask if it had been a good idea to destroy the mangroves and landfill its estuaries. Disasters underscore the importance of the research on tropical coastal ecosystems at Galeta and educating the citizens.

Can development and conservation coexist in the Panama Canal Watershed?

It is hard for conservation and development to coexist. However, the case of the Panama Canal Watershed proves it can be done. This small watershed, only 3,300 square kilometers, provides fresh water in astronomical quantities so the canal can move over 14,000 ships yearly between the Atlantic and Pacific. It also provides hundreds of millions of gallons of high-quality water daily for eight aqueducts that supply 80 percent of the country’s urban population and industry. The canal’s economic success and the quickly expanding economy of canal-connected activities are placing great pressure on the watershed’s and particularly on the coastal habitats on both entrances of the waterway. The health of the canal watershed is not up for discussion. The future of Panama’s economy and the health of 80 percent of the population and industry depends on protecting the forests of the Chagres river basin and Panama’s coastal ecosystems.

Who were the first naturalists to study the plants and animals of the Isthmus of Panama?

Life leads you in unexpected turns. By the 1990s, the Smithsonian had been in Panama more than 80 years but Panamanians knew little about STRI or what it did. In 1995, the director of Épocas, a local historical and cultural review, asked me to write four articles on how STRI came to Panama. These articles well received — especially local teachers who had no resources on the history of the early naturalists who visited the Isthmus— so Épocas asked to keep up the monthly articles. By 2017, I’d written 250 articles. It’s been fascinating to learn about these men and women (not uncommon in the sciences in the 19th century but often overlooked); this quest of these pioneers led me beyond Panama to Central America, Mexico and South America. These articles can be accessed via SRO, Smithsonian Research on Line.

How do we make STRI research relevant to Panama’s schoolchildren?

Making Smithsonian science relevant in Panama has been a challenge. For much of its history, the Smithsonian was confined to Barro Colorado Island in Gatún Lake in the U.S.-run Panama Canal Zone — a bubble within a bubble. Visiors needed not learn Spanish.

When I came to STRI in the 1990s, few Panamanians knew what the institute did. Bridges had to be built. One, providing schoolteachers with resources such as the history of natural history articles; they were published in books and are now used by school teachers. When I came to Galeta, on finding that teachers hardly knew anything on corals, mangroves, sea grasses or the creatures that live there, in 2007, we started a two-week intensive teacher training course on tropical coastal habitats. We take in 40 school teachers yearly. So far, more than 450 teachers from all over Panama have graduated from this program. This is an effort that joins forces of the Ministry of Education, STRI and the International Community Foundation, our donor. We evaluate docents at the start and at the end of the course and the differences are stunning. They learn a lot on how to do science, in the field and the classroom, and how to make if fun. The Ministry of Education considers the Galeta course the best in Panama.

How do we make private companies good environmental neighbors?

Panama’s second city, Colón, is at the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal and home to Latin America’s busiest ports and a massive free-trade zone. Rapidly expanding infrastructure places considerable pressure on the mangroves, reefs and seagrasses. To protect Galeta we have had to engage directly and face-to-face the companies, some of them very large. We have been able to obtain a buffer zone for the protected area around the Galeta Point Marine Lab. Companies have also provided scholarships to 60 financially limited senior college students so they can carry field work at Galeta, analyze their data, complete their thesis and graduate. Many have gone on to graduate studies.

How can our research and education programs contribute to the conservation of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves?

At Galeta conservation started with our environmental education program, based on our scientific research. To save these coastal habitats teachers and students needed to know how valuable these habitats are. One needs realize almost 90 percent of the country’s population lives on the coast of both oceans or within a few kilometers. So, in 2000, we began our education program aimed at the Colón public schools. Our first guests, 60 children from Casa Esperanza, a Catholic institution working with children in situations of social risk. By 2015, over 110,000 students from all provinces and indigenous territories have participated in our education program. Now we have a growing number of schools that look to Galeta as their place to field work and learn. Dozens of students do volunteer work at the station, many go on to become guides in training, guides and later senior guides. Some earn scholarships and do their undergraduate or graduate theses at the station. In 2004 we began our public outreach program, the Charlas Smithsonian del Mes, our monthly talks by STRI researchers. These are held in town at Fort De Lesseps inside the Morgan Battery firs gun emplacements to protect the canal back in 1910. Our audience is made of nature and tourist guides, flower lovers, taxi drivers, college students, members of nongovernmental organizations, port workers and professionals.

B.A., Universidad de los Andes, 1970.

M.A., University of Essex, 1973.

Ph.D., University of Essex, 1983.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley y Alberto McKay. 1982. Colonizacion y Destruccion de Bosques en Panama. (174pp).

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1983. Cuando se Acaban Los Montes. (172pp)

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley and Espinoza Gonzalez, Jaime. 1985. Agonia de la Naturaleza. (327pp).

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1986. La Cuenca del Canal de Panama. Actas de los Seminarios Talleres. II volumes. (380pp)

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1990. Madera y Leña de Las Milpas. Los Viveros Comunales en El Salvador. (88pp)

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1990. Panama y sus Usos y Costumbres. (650pp)

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1995. Agenda Ecologica y Social Para Bocas del Toro. (150pp) STRI-Paseo Pantera.

Panama: Puente Biologogico: las charlas Smithsonian del Mes 1996-99. STRI (233pp) Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2001.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1998. Naturalistas Del Istmo De Panamá : Un Siglo De Historia Natural Sobre El Puente Biológico De Las Américas Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Fundación Santillana para Iberoamérica. 215 pages.

Heckadon-Moreno, S. 2004. Naturalists of the Isthmus of Panama. A Hundred Years of Natural History on the Biological Bridge of the Americas Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2006. Selvas Entre Dos Mares . Expediciones Cientificas al Istmo de Panama, siglos XVIII-XX. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, (312pp)

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2007. Cuando se acaban los montes Panamá: Editorial Universitaria. Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2009. De Selvas a Potreros: La Colonización Santeña en Panamá: 1850-1980. Exedra Books, Panamá, 300 pages.

Heckadon Moreno, Stanley. 2011. A Creole from Bocas del Toro: The story of Carlos Reid. Panama: ExedraBooks.

Exploraciones del geólogo Robert Stewart en Darién, 1947. Épocas, 28(3): 10-11.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2012. Neville Harte y las piedras pintadas de Panamá. Épocas, 27(8): 10-11.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2012. El último río del último pueblo. In: Chen Barría, José, Ser Chiricano. David, Panamá: Impresos Modernos, S.A, pp.103-120.

Heckadon Moreno, Stanley. 2010. Alexander Wetmore y Armagedón Hartmann en el Golfo de San Blas, 1957. Épocas, 25(9): 10-11.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2009. Alexander Wetmore y Armagedón Hartmann en Coiba y Coibita, 1956. Épocas, 24(11): 2-3.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2008. Alexander Wetmore y Watson Perrygo en la Serranía de Majé, 1950. Épocas, 23(9): 10-11.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 2006. Las Tres Décadas De Fausto Bocanegra En Barro Colorado. Epocas , 4: 10-11.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley, Ibáñez D., Roberto and Condit, Richard S. 1999. La Cuenca Del Canal: Deforestación, Urbanización y Contaminación Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. 120 pages.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1998. El Naturalista y Americanista Tadeo Haenke En Panamá, 1790. Epocas , 5: 2-3.

Heckadon-Moreno, Stanley. 1997. Spanish rule, independence, and the modern colonization frontiers. In: Coates, Anthony G., Central America: A Natural and Cultural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 177-214.

heckados [at] si.edu

+507 212-8068

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Stanley Heckadon

Name

Stanley

Last name

Heckadon Moreno

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

Ecosystem Services

Fisheries and Marine Conservation

Long-term monitoring

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Department:

Staff scientists

Jefferson Hall

Language English

Forest Ecology Reforestation and Silviculture Conservation Biology

The more we learn about tropical reforestation the more we realize how beneficial it is to a diverse set of ecosystem services that we have come to depend upon and take for granted.

Liana effects on biomass dynamics strengthen during secondary forest succession, 2017

A hyperspectral image can predict tropical tree growth rates in single-species stands, 2016

Agua Salud Project

Smart Reforestation®

Panama Canal Watershed Experiment

My research interests span a broad range of subjects from conservation biology and restoration ecology to collaborations with social scientist and economists on subjects related to human behavior and land management. The common theme is the applied nature of my work and the effort to provide information in a form that is useful to policymakers and practitioners.

The Agua Salud Project that I direct includes a 700-hectare landscape-scale laboratory where we quantify goods and services provided by a seasonal tropical forest and how they change with land use. Through a series of core monitoring networks and controlled manipulations we strive to understand the role of biodiversity in regulating stream flow, sequestering carbon, and other ecosystem processes with the goal of developing the next generation of models that will allow us to make projections in a future dominated by global change.

How can degraded landscapes be restored to productivity?

Not all lands can be protected and conserved as national parks. However, both rural land owners and city dwellers derive benefits from the land. Too often though, lands are not managed for long-term productivity, be it the more classical ecological definition of productivity as it relates to vegetation growth and carbon cycling, or producing water-related or other ecosystem services. For a rural land owner, productivity might mean profitability. We study different passive and active reforestation interventions that will help restore forests on nutrient-poor soils to meet different stakeholders’ definition of productivity, including the trade-offs inherent to managing for one objective over another.

What is Smart Reforestation®?

At the broad scale, we study how forests and other land uses produce ecosystem services. Smart Reforestation takes advantage of this knowledge to promote better land use planning across landscapes and watersheds such that priority areas of ecosystem service production are managed for the efficient delivery of these services to the people who depend upon them. At a more localized scale, Smart Reforestation entails informed species selection for reforestation in a way that optimizes the management objective.

Is the forest a sponge?

The sponge effect relates to the forest’s ability to regulate stream flow, be it enhancing dry season flow or mitigating peak flooding. The Agua Salud Project has found evidence for a sponge effect, with dramatic consequences during extreme weather events.

How will global change affect ecosystem services provided by forests?

One prediction of global change for which there is little dispute is that we will experience more frequent, extreme weather events. Be it entirely coincidental or linked to global change, we have experienced the three biggest storms in the last 50 years in the Panama Canal Watershed in just six years. During the El Niño of 2015-2016 we experienced one of the driest years ever recorded. In the Agua Salud Project we are able to take advantage of both extreme weather events and land use change to look into a future of global change. Our research suggests that forests will play a key role in mitigating and adapting to global change.

What is the optimal mosaic of land uses in tropical watersheds?

The optimal mosaic of land uses is one that takes into consideration the diverse needs of stakeholders to optimize the production and delivery of ecosystem services. It should not simply take into consideration short-term economic gain but rather balance resilience to extreme weather events and ensure the conservation of biodiversity.

Yale University, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Ph.D. in Tropical Forest Ecology / Silviculture, 2002. Advisor: P. Mark S. Ashton

Yale University, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
M.F.S. in Tropical Forest Science, 1992. Advisor: Florencia Montagnini

Miami University
B.A. in Zoology with Minor in French, 1983

Hall, J.S., Ashton, M.A. 2016. Guide to Survival and Early Growth in Plantations of 64 Native Tree Species to Panama and the Neotropics. 160 pp. ISBN 978-9962-614-37-1.

Hall, J.S., Kirn, V., Yanguas-Fernandez (Eds.). 2015. Managing Watersheds for Ecosystem Services in the Steepland Neotropics. Inter-American Development Bank Monograph, 340. 186 pp. https://publications.iadb.org/handle/11319/7233.

Plumptre, A.J., Nixon, S., Kujirakwinja, D., Vieilledent, G., Critchlow, R. Nishuli, R., Kirkby, A., Williamson, E.A., Hall, J.S. 2016. Catastrophic decline of world's largest primate: with 80% loss, Grauer's Gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) population is critically endangered. PLOS ONE: DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0162697.

Battermann, S.A., Hedin, L.O., van Breugel, M., Ransijn, J., Craven, D., Hall, J.S. 2013. Tropical carbon sink depends upon N2 fixation and biodiversity. Nature 502:224-227.

Ogden, F.L., Crouch, T.D., Stallard, R.F., Hall, J.S. 2013. Effect of land cover and use on dry-season river runoff, runoff efficiency and peak storm runoff in the seasonal tropics of Central Panama. Water Resources Research

Van Breugel, M., Hall J.S., Craven, D., Bailon, M., Hernandez, A., Abbene, M., van Breugel, P. 2013. Succession of ephemeral secondary forests and their limited role for the conservation of floristic diversity in a human-modified tropical landscape. PLOS ONE: e82433.

Breugel, M. van, Hall, J.S., Craven, D.J., Gregoire, T.G., Park, A., Dent, D.H., Wishnie, M.H., Mariscal, E., Deago, J., Ibarra, D., Cedeno, N., and M.S. Ashton. 2011. Early growth and survival of 49 tropical tree species across differing soil fertility and rainfall gradients in Panama. Forest Ecology and Management 261, 1580-1589.

Hall, J.S., Ashton, M.S., Garen, E.J., Jose, S. 2011. The ecology and ecosystem services of native trees: Implications for reforestation and land restoration in Mesoamerica. Forest Ecology and Management 261, 1553-1557.

Hall, J.S., Harris, D.J., Medjibe, V., and Ashton, P.M.S. 2003. Effects of selective logging on forest structure and tree species composition in a Central African forest: implications for management of conservation areas. Forest Ecology and Management 183, 249-264.

Hall, J.S., White, L.J.T., Inogwabini, B.I., Omari, I., Morland, H.S., Williamson, E.A., Walsh, P., Saltonstall, K., Sikubwabo, C., Bonny, D., Kaleme, K.P., Vedder, A., and Freeman, K. 1998. A survey of Grauer's gorillas (Gorilla gorilla graueri) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the extension of Kahuzi-Biega National Park and adjacent forest in eastern Congo. International Journal of Primatology 19, 207-235.

hallje [at] si.edu

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Jefferson S. Hall

Name

Jefferson

Last name

Hall

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

Department:

Hector M. Guzman

Language English

Marine Biology

Rapid change and lack of pristine marine environments skew basic research. Instead of studying tropical systems unchanged for millennia, scientists must ask questions about ongoing human impacts and conservation to inform policy.

Movements and Habitat Use by Southeast Pacific Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) Satellite Tracked at Two Breeding Sites, 2017

Short-term recovery of humpback whales after percutaneous satellite tagging, 2017

Climate Change at Sea

Satellite whale tracking

Migramar

Misión Manatí

My lab currently focuses much attention on marine highly migratory species including whales, manatees, sharks, sea birds, billfishes and turtles to better understanding their basic movement ecology and to encourage scientifically supported conservation policies. In the Pacific Ocean from Chile to Mexico, I am satellite tagging humpbacks, blue, orcas and other whales to learn about their little-known migration and movement ecology, and to detect how global change in oceans may be changing their behavior. In Panama’s western Caribbean, I am studying threatened manatee populations and leatherback turtles. My research has also focused on coral reefs in both the Pacific and Caribbean, with a special emphasis on the taxonomy ad ecology of little-known octocoral species of the Eastern Tropical Pacific.

Can we halt degradation and restore marine ecosystems?

"Illuminating the path to marine ecosystem restoration requires knowledge of the marine realm's natural processes and how these have changed. We do this with real-time monitoring of sensitive marine habitats and species populations. The combination of scale and spatial data analysis available now may rapidly inform conservation and policy to halt degradation and start restoring marine ecosystems."

Why are some megafauna species changing their behavior in the tropics?

Some highly migratory orcas are changing their movement patterns, home ranges and habitat use. We don’t know if this is due to climate change, or the collapse of fisheries and the rise of new food sources, such as humpback whale calves, which have increased in number as the whale population recovers. One trend we have documented with photography is that humpback whale flukes have shown a steady increase in bite marks associated with orcas over the last few decades, suggesting that orcas may be increasing attacks on calves as a food source. We’re also looking at reports of possible increases of orca attacks on fish caught by commercial fishers. But to get at these questions we need to start with understanding their basic movement ecology: what are they eating, where are they moving, where they come from, and what are they doing? We need to work on the genetics and morphology of orca subspecies (or potentially separate species) and track whales with satellite technology.

How is marine bird behavior changing in response to fishery collapse?

Marine birds are apex predators and they are facing increasing competition from commercial fishers and the impact of climate change on their food sources. In the Eastern Tropical Pacific, an El Niño event can exacerbate these problems and lead to mass mortality and mass migration of groups of birds numbering in thousands. To address these issues, we need to understand the basic ecology and life histories of these birds. On islands in the ETP, we’re using drone technology to measure colony productivity along with satellite tracking tags to learn how far they must travel to find food sources.

Can we track marine ecosystem degradation and natural restoration by monitoring the soundscape or acoustic changes in habitat and animal populations?

Our preliminary research on coral reef habitats show dramatic changes in the marine soundscape as reefs transition from degraded to healthy. Healthier reefs have notably “better” sound that degraded ones, which tend to produce a dull whining sound. We have also deployed sonar technology to track behavior of manatees in threatened Caribbean populations. We are also deploying instruments to study how commercial ship traffic impacts communication and behavior of humpback whales.

What is the most effective approach for implementing research-based policy: scientific lobbying or sharing burdens with NGOs?

I find that engaging policymakers directly is important since direct communication lines with authorities are important to decision-makers and nongovernmental organization focused on conservation might not necessarily have the ability to influence and inform policy on their own. Our role as scientists is to offer technical advice based on our best scientific research and to act as ambassadors for the importance of research in creating successful conservation policy.

1979 B.Sc. Biology (Marine Biology), University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica.

1986 M.Sc. Biology (Marine Biology), University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica.

1994 Ph.D. Biology, Newcastle University, United Kingdom.

Guzman, H.M. Beaver, C.E., & Diaz-Ferguson, E. (2021). Novel insights into the genetic population connectivity of transient whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) in Pacific Panama provide crucial data for conservation efforts. Frontiers Marine Science. 8: 744109

Urban J.R., E. Jiménez-López, H.M. Guzman, L. Viloria-Gómora. (2021). Migratory behavior of an eastern North Pacific gray whale from Baja California Sur to Chirikov Basin, Alaska. Frontiers Mar. Sci. 8, 235.

Guzman, H.M., N. Hinojosa & S. Kaiser. (2020). Ship’s compliance with a Traffic Separation Scheme and speed limit in the Gulf of Panama and implications for the risk to humpback whales. Marine Policy. 120: 104113.

Breedy, O. & Guzman, H.M. (2020). A revision of the genus Psammogorgia Verrill, 1868 (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Octocorallia) in the eastern Pacific. ZooKeys 961:1-30.

Merchan, F., A. Guerra, H.E. Poveda, H.M. Guzman, J.E. Sanchez-Galan. (2020). Bioacoustic Classification of Antillean Manatee Vocalization Spectrograms using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks. Applied Sciences 10(9): 3286.

Guzman, H.M., Capella, J.J., Valladares, C., Gibbons, J., Condit, R. (2020). Humpback whale movements in a narrow and heavily-used shipping passage, Chile. Marine Policy. 118: 103990.

Guzman, H.M., S. Kaiser & E.Weil. (2020). Assessing the long-term effects of a catastrophic oil spill on subtidal coral reef communities off the Caribbean coast of Panama (1985-2017). Marine Records. 50:1-19.

Guzman, H.M., S. Kaiser, V.J. van Hinsberg. (2020). Accumulation of trace elements in leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) eggs from the south-western Caribbean indicates potential health effects to consumers. Chemosphere 243: 125424.

Guzman, H.M., G. Rogers, C.G. Gomez. (2019). Behavioral states related to environmental conditions and fisheries during olive ridley turtle migration from Pacific Panama. Frontiers Mar. Sci. 6: 770.

Merchan, F., G. Echevers, H. Poveda, J.E. Sanchez-Galan & H.M. Guzman. (2019). Detection and identification of manatee individual vocalizations in Panamanian wetlands using spectrogram clustering. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 146:1745-1757.

Guzman, H.M., R. Cipriani, A. Vega & J.M Morales-Saldana. (2019). Fisheries and conservation assessments of shark in Pacific Panama. Aquat. Conserv. Mar. Freshw. Ecosyst.

guzmanh [at] si.edu

+507 212.8733

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Publication Search

Héctor M. Guzmán

Name

Hector

Last name

Guzman

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

Ecosystem Services

Fisheries and Marine Conservation

Department:

William Eberhard

Language English

Behavioral Ecology Entomology

Females are often mistakenly thought to play relatively passive roles in copulation and reproduction, but their cooperation is often crucial in determining whether or not a copulation results in reproduction.

Species-specific differences in the behavior of male tsetse fly genitalia hidden in the female during copulation, 2016

Post-copulatory Sexual Selection in Two Tropical Orb-weaving Leucauge Spiders, 2015

I have worked on the behavior and natural history of diverse organisms, and have generally allowed them to guide me to interesting questions rather than attempting to impose my own pre-planned questions on them. Other than a general emphasis on natural selection, behavior and its functions, and evolution, my research “focus” has varied substantially (including the evolution of intra-cellular competition among plasmids and organelles, the evolution and function of spider webs, beetle horns, and genitalia in general). Some of the general questions on which I have worked more recently are listed below in the Rearch Questions section.

Please note: My lab is currently not accepting new applications for STRI internships.

Basic theme: Why do tropical animals behave as they do?

The great diversity of organisms in the tropics means that it is possible to choose particularly appropriate species for answering questions about how behavior evolves. For instance, tiny orb-weaving spiders that are capable of weaving complex webs, teach about body-brain scaling relationships. The diverse array of parasitic wasps that manipulate the behavior of their spider hosts to increase the survival of their pupae make it possible to trace the evolution of the wasps’ abilities to manipulate their hosts, and gain insights into how behavioral capabilities are organized within the spiders.

What is the role of behavioral mistakes in evolution? How do transitions to new behavioral traits occur in evolution?

The electrical activity of nerves and nervous systems is intrinsically imprecise. One possible source of new behavioral traits are such imprecisions. The more crucial the behavior, the more strongly natural selection is likely to act to correct deviations due to such imprecision. Tests of the importance of these ideas for behavioral evolution involve measurements of rates of errors in orb web construction, and rates of evolution of construction behavior in groups in which the selective importance of precise performance varies.

How do males use their genitalia? Do they use them to stimulate females to favor their own paternity?

The hypothesis that genitalia diverge rapidly due to cryptic female choice predicts that many species-specific structures of male genitalia function to stimulate the female during copulation. This prediction can be tested in several ways: checking for otherwise mechanically superfluous movements of such structures during copulation; checking for specialized female receptors in the areas contacted by such structures during copulation; blocking or otherwise inactivating such female receptors; or eliminating or otherwise inactivating the male structures.

How are the modular components of spider web construction behavior organized, and how has this organization influenced the evolution of webs?

Comparisons among related species of spiders suggests that behavior modules have been added, subtracted, and shuffled in various ways during evolution. Selective elicitation (and repression) of particular spider behavior modules by parasitic ichneumonid wasps also favors this view. The unusually detailed knowledge of the probable behavior of some ancestral forms allows testing the prediction that such division into semi-independent units facilitated evolutionary change by allowing shuffling in lineages of spiders descended from orb weavers.

Is there a positive relationship between body size and behavioral capabilities? Are tiny organisms behaviorally handicapped compared with their larger relatives?

The brains of animals that evolved miniature body sizes have lower numbers of neurons and connections between them; corrected for body size, their brains are larger than those of larger relatives. Miniaturized species might be expected to be behaviorally inferior, but several aspects of the behavior of one group, tiny orb-weaving spiders, were not simpler, slower, or less precise than those of larger relatives. Nervous tissue is relatively expensive to maintain, so the relatively over-sized brains of tiny spiders are probably energically costly, with several expected ecological consequences. Careful tests of the behavioral consequences of miniaturization have not yet been performed in other groups.

B.A., Harvard College, 1965.

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1969.

2015. Briceño, R. D. & Eberhard, W. G. Species-specific behavioral differences in tsetse fly genital morphology and probable cryptic female choice. Pp. 403-430 In Peretti, A. V. & Aisenberg, A. (eds.). Cryptic Female Choice in Arthropods. Springer, New York.

2011. Eberhard, W. G. & Wcislo, W. T. Grade changes in brain–body allometry: morphological and behavioural correlates of brain size in miniature spiders, insects and other invertebrates. In Jérôme Casas, editor: Advances in Insect Physiology 60: 155-214.

2010. Eberhard, W.G. Recovery of spiders from the effects of parasitic wasps: implications for fine-tuned mechanisms of manipulation. Animal Behaviour 79(2): 375–383

2009. Eberhard, W. G. Postcopulatory sexual selection: Darwin’s omission and its consequences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 106, suppl. 1: 10025-10032.

1996. Eberhard, W. G. Female Control: Sexual Selection by Cryptic Female Choice (book) Princeton University Press.

1994. Eberhard W. G. Evidence for widespread courtship during copulation in 131 species of insects and spiders, and implications for cryptic female choice. Evolution 48(3): 711–733.

1985. Eberhard, W. G. Sexual Selection and Animal Genitalia (book) Harvard University Press.

1982. Eberhard, W. G. Behavioral characters for the higher classification of orb-weaving spiders. Evolution 36(5): 1067–1095.

william.eberhard [at] gmail.com

+506 2228-0001

Bill Eberhardt

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Scientist Type:

Emeritus

Publication Search

William G. Eberhard

Name

William

Last name

Eberhard

Discipline (Private):

Neurobiology

External CV:

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Department:

Staff scientists

Stuart Davies

Language English

Ecology Forest Ecology Plant Taxonomy

Forests vary in tree diversity over two orders of magnitude across the world. What drives the dynamics of these forests on a global scale? What is the difference between ‘natural’ and human-induced causes of forest change?

Maximising Synergy among Tropical Plant Systematists, Ecologists, and Evolutionary Biologists, 2017

Insights into regional patterns of Amazonian forest structure, diversity, and dominance from three large terra-firme forest dynamics plots, 2017

ForestGEO

My research investigates ecological and evolutionary influences on variation in rainforest communities across the tropics. The overarching goal of my research is to understand broad-scale patterns in the diversity and dynamics of tropical rainforests. Understanding how the environment constrains the distribution of tree species and influences growth and mortality rates is fundamental to predicting how global change will affect tropical rainforests. My research focuses on key questions like: How does building a global forest observation system help us to understand controls on the distribution, diversity and dynamics of forests worldwide? Forest vary in tree diversity over two orders of magnitude across the world. What drives the dynamics of these forests on a global scale? What is the difference between ‘natural’ and human-induced causes of forest change?

To meet this challenge, along with a global team of research colleagues, collaborators, and partners, I lead the Smithsonian Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO), a global network of 66 large-scale forest research sites in 27 countries. We use long-term intensive observations of forests across the world to understand the origin and maintenance of forest diversity, and how forest biodiversity and function can best be conserved and managed. This brings together key elements needed to address these challenges at a global scale (1) establishment of a permanent site-based global forest observation system, (2) an integrated, interdisciplinary research team of innovative and creative scholars from a diversity of fields related to forest science, (3) partnerships with other institutions and agencies also concerned with the future of the world’s forests, and (4) an international program of forest science capacity building.

As the largest of its kind in the world, ForestGEO complements the efforts of the modeling community and the space-borne observational community, and provides an extraordinary opportunity to revolutionize our understanding of one of Earth’s most biologically complex and important systems.

How do species of hyper-diverse genera such as Macaranga coexist within a forest?

Understanding how the environment constrains the distribution of tree species and influences growth and mortality rates is fundamental to predicting how global change will affect tropical rainforests.

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1996

B.Sc., University of Sydney, Australia, 1987

Sezen, U., S.J. Worthy, M.N. Umana, S.J. Davies, S.M. McMahon & N.G. Swenson (accepted) Comparative transcriptomics of tropical woody plants supports fast and furious strategy along the leaf economics spectrum in lianas. 2022. Biology Open (Preprint online @BioRxiv). https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.06.451334

Kambach, S., R. Condit, S. Aguilar, H. Bruelheide, S. Bunyavejchewin, C-H. Chang-Yang, Y-Y. Chen, G. Chuyong, S.J. Davies, Sisira Ediriweera, Corneille E. N. Ewango, Edwino S. Fernando, N. Gunatilleke, S. Gunatilleke, S.P. Hubbell, A. Itoh, D. Kenfack, S. Kiratiprayoon, Y-C. Lin, J-R. Makana, M. Mohamad, N. Pongpattananurak, R. Pérez, L.J.V. Rodriguez, I-F. Sun, S. Tan, D. Thomas, J. Thompson, M. Uriarte, R. Valencia, C. Wirth, S.J. Wright, S-H. Wu, T. Yamakura, T.L. Yao, J. Zimmerman, N. Rüger. 2022. Consistency of demographic trade-offs across tropical forests. Journal of Ecology (in press) (Pre-print online @Authorea). 10.22541/au.163253541.10680169/v1

Zuleta, D., G. Arellano, H.C. Muller-Landau, S.M. McMahon, S. Aguilar, S. Bunyavejchewin, D. Cárdenas, C-H. Chang-Yang, A. Duque, D. Mitre, M. Nasardin, R. Pérez, I-F. Sun, T.L. Yao & S.J. Davies. 2022. Individual tree damage dominates mortality risk factors across six tropical forests. New Phytologist, 233 (2), 705-721. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17832

Gonzalez-Akre, E., C. Piponiot, M. Lepore, V. Herrmann, J.A. Lutz, J.L. Baltzer, C. Dick, G.S. Gilbert, F.L. He, M. Heym, A.I. Huerta, P. Jansen, D. Johnson, N. Knapp, K. Kral, D. Lin, Y. Malhi, S. McMahon, J.A. Myers, D. Orwig, D.I. Rodríguez-Hernández, S. Russo, J. Shue, X. Wang, A. Wolf, T. Yang, S.J. Davies & K.J. Anderson-Teixeira. 2022. allodb: An R package for biomass estimation at globally distributed extratropical forest plots. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 13 (2), 330-338. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13756

Piponiot, C., K.J. Anderson-Teixeira,, S.J. Davies,, D. Allen, N.A. Bourg, D.F.R.P. Burslem, D. Cárdenas, C-H. Chang-Yang, G. Chuyong, R. Condit, S. Cordell, H.S. Dattaraja, C.W. Dick, Á. Duque, S. Ediriweera, C. Ewango, Z. Ezedin, J. Filip, C. Giardina, T. Hart, A. Hector, R. Howe, C-F. Hsieh, S. Hubbell, F.M. Inman-Narahari, A. Itoh, D. Jánik, D. Kenfack,, K. Král, J.A. Lutz, J-R. Makana, S. McMahon, W. McShea, X. Mi, M. Mohamad, V. Novotný,, M.J. O'Brien, R. Ostertag, G. Parker, R. Pérez, H. Ren, G. Reynolds, M.D.M. Sabri, L. Sack, A. Shringi, S-H. Su, R. Sukumar, I-F. Sun, H.S. Suresh, D.W. Thomas, J. Thompson, M. Uriarte, J. Vandermeer, Y. Wang, I.M. Ware, G.D. Weiblen, T.J.S. Whitfeld, A. Wolf, T.L. Yao, M. Yu, Z. Yuan, J. Zimmerman, D. Zuleta, & H. Muller-Landau. 2022. Distribution of biomass dynamics in relation to tree size in forests across the world. New Phytologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17995

Zuleta, D., S.M. Krishna Moorthy, G. Arellano, H. Verbeeck & S.J. Davies (2022) Vertical distribution of trunk and crown volume in tropical trees. Forest Ecology and Management, 508, 120056. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2022.120056

Anderson-Teixeira, K.J., V. Herrmann, C. Rollinson, B. Gonzalez, E.B. Gonzalez-Akre, N. Pederson, R. Alexander, C.D. Allen, R. Alfaro-Sánchez, T. Awada, J.L. Baltzer, P.J. Baker, S. Bunyavejchewin, P. Cherubini, J. Cooper, S.J. Davies, C. Dow, R. Helcoski, J. Kašpar, J. Lutz, E.Q. Margolis, J. Maxwell, S. McMahon, C. Piponiot, S. Russo, P. Šamonil, A. Sniderhan, A.J. Tepley, I. Vašíčková, M. Vlam & P. Zuidema (2021) Joint effects of climate, tree size, and year on annual tree growth derived from tree-ring records of ten globally distributed forests. Global Change Biology, 28 (1), 245-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15934

Cushman, K. C., S. Bunyavejchewin, D. Cárdenas, R. Condit, S.J. Davies, A. Duque, S.P. Hubbell, S. Kiratiprayoon, S.K.Y. Lum & H.C. Muller-Landau. 2021. Variation in trunk taper of buttressed trees within and among five lowland tropical forests. Biotropica, 53, 1442– 1453. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12994

Arellano, G., D. Zuleta & S.J. Davies. 2021. Tree death and damage: A standardized protocol for frequent surveys in tropical forests. Journal of Vegetation Science, 32(1) https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.12981

ForestPlots, Blundo, C.,.. S.J. Davies.. (or 150 authors) (2021) Taking the pulse of Earth's tropical forests using networks of highly distributed plots. Biological Conservation, 260, 108849- , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108849

Saatchi, S., M. Longo, L. Xu, Y. Yang, H. Abe, M. André, J.E. Aukema, N. Carvalhais, H. Cadillo-Quiroz, G.A. Cerbu, J.M. Chernela, K. Covey, L.M. Sánchez-Clavijo, I.V. Cubillos, S.J. Davies, V. De Sy, F. De Vleeschouwer, A. Duque, A.M.S. Durieux, K. De Avila Fernandes, L.E. Fernandez, V. Gammino, D.P. Garrity, D.A. Gibbs, L. Gibbon, G.Y. Gowae, M. Hansen, N.L.Harris, S.P. Healey, R.G. Hilton, C.M. Johnson, R. Sufo Kankeu, N.T. Laporte-Goetz, H. Lee, T. Lovejoy, M. Lowman, R. Lumbuenamo, Y. Malhi, J-M.M.A. Martinez, C. Nobre, A. Pellegrini, J. Radachowsky, F. Román, D. Russell, D. Sheil, T.B. Smith, R.G.M. Spencer, F. Stolle, H. Lestari Tata, D. del Castillo Torres, R.M. Tshimanga, R. Vargas, M. Venter, J. West, A. Widayati, S.N. Wilson, S. Brumby & A.C. Elmore. 2021. Detecting vulnerability of humid tropical forests to multiple stressors. One Earth, 4, 7, 988-1003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.06.002

Pivovaroff, A.L., B.T. Wolfe, N. McDowell, B. Christoffersen, S. Davies, L.T. Dickman, C. Grossiord, R.T. Leff, A. Rogers, S.P. Serbin, S.J. Wright, J. Wu, C. Xu & J.Q. Chambers. 2021. Hydraulic architecture explains species moisture dependency but not mortality rates across a tropical rainfall gradient. Biotropica, 53, 1213-1225. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12964

Wiegand, T., X. Wang, K.J. Anderson-Teixeira,, N. Bourg, M. Cao, X. Ci, S.J. Davies, Z. Hao,, R. Howe, W.J. Kress, J. Lian, J. Li, L. Lin, Y. Lin, K. Ma, W. McShea, X. Mi, S-H. Su, I-F. Sun, A. Wolf, W. Ye & Andreas Huth. 2021. Consequences of spatial patterns for coexistence in species rich plant communities. Nature, Ecology & Evolution 5, 965–973.

Basset, Y., L.R. Jorge, P.T. Butterill, G.P.A. Lamarre, C. Dahl, R. Ctvrtecka, S. Gripenberg, O.T. Lewis, H. Barrios, J.W. Brown, S. Bunyavejchewin, B.A. Butcher, A.I. Cognato, S.J. Davies, O. Kaman, P. Klimes, M. Knížek, S.E. Miller, G.E. Morse, V. Novotny, N. Pongpattananurak, P. Pramual, D.L.J. Quicke, W. Sakchoowong, R. Umari, E.J. Vesterinen, G. Weiblen, S.J. Wright & Segar, S.T. 2021. Host specificity and interaction networks of insects feeding on seeds and fruits in tropical rainforests. Oikos, 130 (9), 1462-1476. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.08152

Wills, C., B. Wang, S. Fang, Y. Wang, Y. Jin, J. Lutz, J. Thompson, K.E. Harms, S. Pulla, B. Pasion, S. Germain, H. Liu, J. Smokey, S-H. Su, N. Butt, C. Chu, G. Chuyong, C-H. Chang-Yang, H.S. Dattaraja, S. Davies, S. Ediriweera, S. Esufali, C.D. Fletcher, N. Gunatilleke, S. Gunatilleke, S., et al. 2021. Interactions between all pairs of neighboring trees in 16 forests worldwide reveal details of unique ecological processes in each forest, and provide windows into their evolutionary histories. Plos Computational Biology, 17(4) e1008853 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008853

Kunert, N., J. Zailaa, V. Herrmann, H. Muller-Landau, S.J. Wright, R. Perez, S. McMahon, R. Condit, S. Hubbell, L. Sack, S. Davies & K. Anderson-Teixeira. 2021. Leaf turgor loss point shapes local and regional scale distribution of broadleaf evergreen but not deciduous tropical rainforest trees in relation to moisture. New Phytologist 230 (2), 485-496. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17187

Arellano, G., D. Zuleta & S.J. Davies. 2021. Tree death and damage: a standardized protocol for frequent surveys in tropical forests. Journal of Vegetation Science. 32 (1), e12981.

Luskin M.S., D.J. Johnson, K. Ickes, T.L. Yao & S.J. Davies. 2021. Wildlife disturbances as a source of conspecific negative density-dependent mortality in tropical trees. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 288: 20210001. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0001

Russo, S. S.M. McMahon, M. Detto, S.J. Wright, R.S. Condit, S.J. Davies, S. Bunyavejchewin, C.H. Chang-Yang, C.E.N. Ewango, C. Fletcher, R.B. Foster, C.V.S. Gunatilleke, I.A.U.N. Gunatilleke, T. Hart, C-F. Hsieh, S.P. Hubbell, A. Itoh, A.R. Kassim, Y.C. Lin, J.-R. Makana, P. Ong, A. Sugiyama, I-F. Sun, S. Tan, J. Thompson, T. Yamakura, S.L. Yap, J.K. Zimmerman. 2021. The interspecific growth-mortality trade-off is not a general framework for understanding tropical forest community structure. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5 (2), 174–183. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01340-9

Kohyama, T., M. Potts, T. Kohyama, K. Niiyama, T.L. Yao, S.J. Davies & D. Sheil. 2020. Trade-off between standing biomass and productivity in species-rich tropical forest: evidence, explanations and implications. Journal of Ecology, 108 (6), 2571-2583. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13485

Sullivan, M.J.P., S.L. Lewis, .. S. Davies, .. & O.L. Phillips. 2020. Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests. Science, 368, 869-874.

Weemstra, M., K.G. Peay, S.J. Davies, M. Mohamad, A. Itoh, S. Tan & S.E. Russo. 2020. Lithological constraints on resource economies shape the mycorrhizal composition of a Bornean rain forest. New Phytologist, 228, 253-268.

Koven, C.D., R.G. Knox, R.A. Fisher, J. Chambers, B.O. Christoffersen, S.J. Davies, M. Detto, M.C. Dietze, B. Faybishenko, J. Holm, M. Huang, M. Kovenock, L.M. Kueppers, G. Lemieux, E. Massoud, N.G. McDowell, H.C. Muller-Landau, J.F. Needham, R.J. Norby, T. Powell, A. Rogers, S.P. Serbin, J.K. Shuman, A.L.S. Swann, C. Varadharajan, A.P. Walker, S.J. Wright & C. Xu. 2020. Benchmarking and parameter sensitivity of physiological and vegetation dynamics using the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES) at Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Biogeosciences, 17(11): 3017-3044. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3017-2020

Segnitz, R.M., S.E. Russo, S.J. Davies & K.G. Peay. 2020. Ectomycorrhizal fungi drive positive phylogenetic plant–soil feedbacks in a regionally dominant tropical plant family. Ecology, 101 (8), e03083. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3083

Zuleta, D., S.E. Russo, M. Detto, A. Barona, D. Cardenas, N. Castaño, S.J. Davies, S. Sua, B.L. Turner & A. Duque. 2020. Importance of topography for tree species habitat distributions in a terra firme forest in the Colombian Amazon. Plant and Soil, 450 (1), 133-149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-018-3878-0

Rutishauser, E., S. Wright, R. Condit, S. Hubbell, S.J. Davies, & H. Muller-Landau. 2020. Testing for changes in biomass dynamics in large-scale forest datasets. Global Change Biology 26(3): 1485-1498. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14833.

Xu, H, M. Detto, S. Fang, R. Chazdon, Y. Li1, B.C.H. Hau, G.A. Fischer, G.D. Weiblen, J.A, Hogan, J.K. Zimmerman, M. Uriate, J. Thompson, J. Lian, K. Cao, D. Kenfack, A. Alonso, P. Bissiengou, H.R. Memiaghe, R. Valencia, S.L. Yap, S.J. Davies, X. Mi & T.L. Yao. 2020. Soil nitrogen concentration mediates the relationship between leguminous trees and neighbor diversity in tropical forests. Communications Biology 3 (1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1041-y

Fung, T., Chisholm, R.A., Anderson‐Teixeira, K., Bourg, N., Brockelman, W.Y., Bunyavejchewin, S., Chang‐Yang, C.-H., Chitra‐Tarak, R., Chuyong, G., Condit, R., Dattaraja, H.S., Davies, S.J., Ewango, C.E.N., Fewless, G., Fletcher, C., Gunatilleke, C.V.S., Gunatilleke, I.A.U.N., Hao, Z., Hogan, J.A., Howe, R., Hsieh, C.-Fu., Kenfack, D., Lin, Y.C., Ma, K., Makana, J.-R., et al. 2019. Temporal population variability in local forest communities has mixed effects on tree species richness across a latitudinal gradient. Ecology Letters, 23 (1), 160-171 https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13412

Bunyavejchewin, S., A. Sinbumroong, B.L. Turner & S.J. Davies. 2019. Natural disturbance and soils drive diversity and dynamics of seasonal dipterocarp forest in Southern Thailand. Journal of Tropical Ecology 35(3): 95-107.

McShea, W., R. Sukmasuang, D. Erickson, V. Herrmann, D. Ngoprasert, N. Bhumpakphan & S.J. Davies. 2019. Metabarcoding reveals diet diversity in an ungulate community in Thailand. Biotropica 51 (6), 923-937.

Menge, D.N.L., R.A. Chisholm, S.J. Davies, et al. 2019. Rarity of nitrogen-fixing trees in Asia suggests lower potential for carbon sequestration. Journal of Ecology 107 (6), 2598-2610 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13199.

Luskin, M.S., K. Ickes, T.L. Yao & S.J. Davies. 2019. Wildlife differentially affect tree and liana regeneration in a tropical forest: An 18-year study of experimental terrestrial defaunation versus artificially abundant herbivores. Journal of Applied Ecology, 56(6): 1379-1388. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13378

Chave, J., S.J. Davies, O.L. Phillips, S.L. Lewis, P. Sist, D. Schepaschenko, J. Armston, T.R. Baker, D. Coomes, M. Disney, L. Duncanson, B. Hérault, N. Labrière, V. Meyer, M. Réjou-Méchain, K. Scipal & S. Saatchi. 2019. Ground data are essential for biomass remote sensing missions. Surveys in Geophysics, 40 (4): 863-880. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-019-09528-w

McMahon, S.M., G. Arellano & S.J. Davies. 2019. The importance and challenges of detecting changes in forest mortality rates. Ecosphere 10 (2), e02615.

Arellano, G., N. García-Medina, S. Tan, M. Mohamad & S.J. Davies. 2019. Crown damage and the mortality of tropical trees New Phytologist 221(1): 169-179. doi:10.1111/nph.15381.

Zemunik, G. S.J. Davies & B.L. Turner. 2018. Soil drivers of local-scale tree growth in a lowland tropical forest. Ecology 99 (12), 2844-2852

Labrière, N. S. Tao, J. Chave, K. Scipal, T. Le Toan, N. Barbier, T. Casal, S.J. Davies, A. Ferraz, B. Hérault, G. Jaouen, D. Kenfack, S.L. Lewis, Y. Malhi, M. Réjou-Méchain, L. Villard, G. Vincent, S. Saatchi. 2018. In situ data from the TropiSAR and AfriSAR campaigns as a support to upcoming spaceborne biomass missions. IEEE JSTARS Special Issue on Forest Structure Estimation in Remote Sensing, 11(10): 3617 - 3627.

Johnson, D.J., J. Needham, C. Xu, E.C. Massoud, S.J. Davies, K.J. Anderson-Teixeira, S. Bunyavejchewin, J.Q. Chambers, C.H. Chang-Yang, J.M. Chiang, G.B. Chuyong, R. Condit, S. Cordell, C. Fletcher, C. P. Giardina, T.W. Giambelluca, N. Gunatilleke, S. Gunatilleke, C.F. Hsieh, S. Hubbell, F. Inman-Narahari, A.R. Kassim, M. Katabuchi, D. Kenfack, C. M. Litton, S. Lum, M. Mohamad, M. Nasardin, P.S. Ong, R. Ostertag, L. Sack, N. G. Swenson, I. F. Sun, S. Tan, D. W. Thomas, J. Thompson, M.N. Umana, M. Uriarte, R. Valencia, S. Yap, J. Zimmerman, N.G. McDowell & S.M. McMahon. 2018. Climate sensitive size-dependent survival in tropical trees. Nature Ecology & Evolution 2, 1436-1442.

Kurten, E., S. Bunyavejchewin & S.J. Davies. 2018. A dipterocarp-dominated forest in a seasonally dry climate exhibits annual reproduction. Journal of Ecology. 106 (1), 126-136.

Hogan, J., J. Zimmerman, J. Thompson, M. Uriarte, N. Swenson, R. Condit, S. Hubbell, D. Johnson, I. Sun, C.-H. Chang-Yang, S.-H. Su, P. Ong, L. Rodriguez, C. Monoy, S. Yap, and S.J. Davies. 2018. The frequency of cyclonic wind storms shapes tropical forest dynamism and functional trait dispersion. Forests 9:404.

Kurten EL, Bunyavejchewin S, Davies SJ. Phenology of a dipterocarp forest with seasonal drought: Insights into the origin of general flowering. J Ecol. 2018; 106:126–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12858

Zuleta, D., Duque, A. , Cardenas, D. , Muller‐Landau, H. C. and Davies, S. J. (2017), Drought‐induced mortality patterns and rapid biomass recovery in a terra firme forest in the Colombian Amazon. Ecology, 98: 2538-2546. doi:10.1002/ecy.1950

Kang Min Ngo, Stuart Davies, Nik Faizu Nik Hassan & Shawn Lum (2017) Resilience of a forest fragment exposed to long-term isolation in Singapore, Plant Ecology & Diversity, 9:4, 397-407, DOI: 10.1080/17550874.2016.1262924

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Stuart James Davies

Name

Stuart

Last name

Davies

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

External CV:

Department:

Rachel Collin

Language English

Marine Biology Evolutionary Biology Taxonomy

Modern life is challenging – We document the physical conditions in the tropics and study how organisms, communities, and social-ecological systems respond to environmental adversity like heatwaves and hypoxia in our changing world

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)

TaxaGloss - A Glossary and Translation Tool for Biodiversity Studies, 2016

Tropical dead zones and mass mortalities on coral reefs, 2017

Collin Lab

Bocas Taxonomy Program (Bocas ARTS NSF grant)

Bocas station web page

CollinLab student blog

In the Collin Lab we work to understand how environmental conditions, their natural variation and environmental change from the climate emergency shape marine ecosystems and biodiversity. Our current work focuses on three areas (1) Documenting the biodiversity of tropical marine invertebrates, (2) Understanding mangrove ecosystems and blue carbon and (3) Stressors like hypoxia and pollution in tropical estuaries. We focus on seasonal variation in environmental conditions associated with terrestrial dry season and marine upwelling in the Bay of Panama (Pacific) and seasonal development of a low-oxygen water layer in Bocas del Toro (Caribbean). In these systems we seek to understand how how environmental conditions impact biodiversity, the timing and success of reproduction, larval and seedling growth and survival, and successful recruitment of the next generation.

As Director of STRI’S Bocas Del Toro Research Station, I work to promote understanding of the environment and biodiversity of the Bocas region. Part of this effort includes my collaboration with other taxonomists from around the world to develop tools to improve access to taxonomic tools including methods for observing and identifying marine invertebrates.

Can larvae help us discover hidden diversity?

It is relatively easy to survey large animals that live on the seafloor but it’s not so simple to survey very small animals that live below scuba diving depths or that live buried deep in the sediment. However, many of these organisms produce free-living planktonic larvae that live in the water. Surveys and DNA barcoding of planktonic larvae in temperature oceans often recover species that have never been sampled as adults. This approach has not been used before in the tropics. The Collin lab team has been using DNA and morphological descriptions to document the larval diversity of Panama and link larvae to their adults.

How can we preserve, foster, and grow taxonomic expertise?

Taxonomy — the science of finding, describing and naming organisms — is vital to all biological research, especially to understanding and conserving biodiversity. The shortage of taxonomic expertise relative to the large number of undescribed or undiscovered taxa (the so-called taxonomic impediment) is one of the current challenges facing researchers engaged in identifying, classifying and conserving the world’s biodiversity. My goal is to promote species-level and revisionary taxonomic research and taxonomic training to overcome this challenge for tropical marine invertebrates. To do this, I have developed, in collaboration with other taxonomists, the Training in Tropical Taxonomy program. This program supports two graduate-level courses each year on the taxonomy of groups for which expertise is in particular short supply. Combined with the development of online resources such as how-to videos, glossaries of technical terms, translation tables, keys and species inventories, this supports the growth of the next generation of taxonomists and fosters international information transfer. Learn more at the Bocas ARTS website.

How do heat and hypoxia make dead zones?

Bahia Almirante is subject to seasonal hypoxia (low oxygen) that sometimes results in die-offs in marine life. We have been working to model the bay to understand how the physical conditions result in hot and hypoxic water in the back of the bay. This involves combining meteorological data, hydrology and physical oceanography. Long-term monitoring shows how the conditions vary and our experimental work with corals, sea urchins, and other marine invertebrates show how these animals respond to extreme conditions. Using this approach we can predict how the distributions of different species are limited by hot and hypoxic conditions.

How do Mangroves Capture Carbon?

Coastal swamps and mangroves sequester massive amounts of carbon in their soils. Yet the full extent of these carbon stores are yet to be mapped. Understanding the stability of these carbon stores and the mechanisms by which carbon is sequestered and released is vital for understanding how mangroves can contribute to climate mitigation efforts. The world is moving towards monetizing blue carbon, yet, we still lack data on the amount of carbon stored and the dynamics of this carbon, especially in the tropics.

The Collin Lab is working to help measure how much carbon is held in Panama's mangrove ecosystems. We are embarking on projects to understand the role of environmental conditions and invertebrate diversity in the blue carbon cycle.

2002 Ph.D., University of Chicago, Committee on Evolutionary Biology

1996 M.Sc. University of Washington Department of Zoology

1993 Sc.B. Aquatic Biology, Brown University; Magna cum Laude and departmental honors.

Collin, R., M. Madrid, D.E. Venera-Pontón, K. S. Macdonald, A. de Leon, D. Vrdoljak, M. J. Boyle, P. Bryant, T. Arehart, and A. C. Driskell. 2023. Diversity and Genetic

Connectivity of Atlantid Gastropods in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. Invertebrate Biology. 142: e12395

Maslakova S. C.I. Ellison, T. C. Hiebert, F. Conable, M.C. Heaphy, D. E. Venera-Pontón, J. L. Norenburg, M. L. Schwartz, N. D. Moss, M. J. Boyle, A. C. Driskell, K. S. Macdonald III, E.E. Zattara, R. Collin. 2022. Sampling multiple life stages significantly increases estimates of biodiversity. Royal Society Letters. 18 (4), 20210596.

Collin, R., Rebolledo A., Smith, E. and K.Y.K. Chan. 2021. Thermal tolerance of early development predicts the realized thermal niche of marine ecotherms. Functional Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13850

Collin, R., S. Fredericq, D. W. Freshwater, E. Gilbert, M. Madrid, S. Maslakova, M. P. Miglietta, R. Rocha, E. Rodriguez, R. W. Thacker. 2016. TaxaGloss - A glossary and translation tool for biodiversity studies. Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e10732. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e10732

Collin, R and K.Y.K. Chan. 2016. The sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus lives close to the upper thermal limit for early development in a tropical lagoon. Ecology and Evolution. 6: 5623-5634. doi:10.1002/ece3.2317

Carrillo-Baltodano A. and R. Collin. 2015. Crepidula slipper limpets alter sex change in response to physical contact with conspecifics. Biological Bulletin. 229:232-242.

Collin, R. 2013. Phylogenetic patterns and phenotypic plasticity of molluscan sexual systems. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 53: 723-735. doi: 10.1093/icb/ict076

Collin, R. 2012. Temperature-mediated trade-offs in the life histories of two slipper limpets (Gastropoda: Calyptraeidae) with planktotrophic development. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 106: 763-775.

Collin, R. and M. Miglietta. 2008. Reversing opinions on Dollo's Law. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 23: 602-609.

Collin, R. 2004. The loss of complex characters, phylogenetic effects, and the evolution of development in a family of marine gastropods. Evolution. 58 (7): 1488-1502.

Collin, R. 2001. The effects of mode of development on phylogeography and population structure of North Atlantic Crepidula (Gastropoda: Calyptraeidae). Molecular Ecology. 10: 2249-2262.

collinr [at] si.edu

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Rachel Collin

Name

Rachel

Last name

Collin

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

Bioinformatics

Developmental Biology

External CV:

Department:

William Wcislo

Language English

Behavior Ecology

Animal behavior is central to biology because behavior is the interface between mechanistic and ecological studies — what Marston Bates called “skin-in” and “skin-out” biology — and is the means by which animals shape their environments.

Caste-biased gene expression in a facultatively eusocial bee suggests a role for genetic accommodation in the evolution of eusociality, 2017

Consequences of evolutionary transitions in changing photic environments: Transitions in photic environments, 2017

Evolution, Behavior and Neurobiology Lab

My lab uses natural history observations, combined with experimental field and laboratory studies, to better understand the evolution of animal behavior in changing environments. Our research focuses primarily on weakly social bees and fungus-growing ants to understand how environmental, developmental, neurobiological and genetic factors shape the expression or loss of social behavior and drive the evolution of more — or less — complex societies.

What are the causes and consequences of behavioral evolution in changing environments?

My colleagues and I use natural history observations combined with experimental field and laboratory studies to better understand the evolution of animal behavior in changing environments. We focus primarily on weakly social sweat bees (Halictidae) and fungus-growing ants (Attini) to understand how environmental, developmental, and genetic factors shape the expression or loss of social behavior, and drive the evolution of more (or less) complex societies. Much of this work involves nocturnal bees, which we use to understand how and why animals invade a new, extreme, ecological niche, and what are the behavioral and neurobiological consequences of doing so?

How and why do brains of insects and other invertebrates evolve to larger or smaller sizes, relative to body size, and what is the significance of these scaling patterns on brain size?

Origins of Species and Societies

1991 Ph.D. (Entomology) with Honors, University of Kansas

1982 B.S. (Biology), University of Michigan

Karen M. Kapheim KM, Jones BM, Pan H, Li C, Harpur BA, Kent CF, Zayed A, Ioannidis P, Waterhouse RM, Kingwell CJ, Stolle E, Avalos A, Zhang Z, McMillan WO, Wcislo WT. 2020 Developmental plasticity shapes social traits and selection in a facultatively eusocial bee. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA

Smith AR, Kapheim KM, Kingwell CJ &Wcislo WT. 2019. A split sex ratio in solitary and social nests of a facultatively social bee. Biology Letters 15: 20180740. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0740

Stone T, Webb B, Adden A, Weddig NB, Honkanen A, Templin R, Wcislo W, Scimeca L, Warrant E, Heinze S. 2017. An anatomically constrained model for path integration in the bee brain. Current Biology 27:3065-3089

Tierney SM, Friedrich M, Humphreys WF, Jones TM, Warrant EJ Wcislo WT. 2017. Consequences of evolutionary transitions in changing photic environments. Austral Entomology doi:10.1111/aen.12264

Wcislo WT and Fewell JH. 2017. Sociality in bees. In Rubenstein DR and Abbot P (eds), pp. 50-83. Comparative Social Evolution. Cambridge University Press.

Nygaard S, Hu H, Li C, Schiøtt M, Chen Z, Yang Z, Xie Q, Ma C, Deng Y, Dikow RB, Rabeling C, Nash DR, Wcislo WT, Brady SG, Schultz TR ZhangG, Boomsma JJ. 2016. Reciprocal genomic evolution in the ant-fungus agricultural symbiosis.Nature Communications 7:12233 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12233

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Publication Search

William T. Wcislo

Name

William

Last name

Wcislo

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

Chemical Ecology

Developmental Biology

Microbial Ecology

Molecular Genetics and Genomics

Neurobiology

Department:

Staff scientists

Annette Aiello

Language English

Behavior Entomology

A butterfly pupa masquerades as a snake head, a bagworm never leaves its case of silk and sand until it reaches adulthood, beetle larvae stow away in biodegradable packing peanuts. Sound a bit like science fiction? These natural history stories are real.

Tropical caterpillar addiction, 2016

Brachyplatys vahlii (Fabricius, 1787), an introduced bug from Asia: first report in the Western Hemisphere, 2016

I have studied insect life histories for the last 40 years. My main focus has been the transformations of moths and butterflies, especially caterpillar development, behavior and defenses, and the clues that they and their host plants can contribute to our understanding of species relationships. My publications include other subjects too — beetles, leafhoppers, insect outbreaks, mimicry, and even sloth hair, as well as plants, reflecting my early interest in botany, which I pursued on my own until entering college in my late 20s, and later was the subject of my Ph.D. thesis.

How do tropical insects protect themselves?

Like insects everywhere, tropical insects are just trying to stay alive long enough to reproduce. They use a variety of strategies to avoid predators and to find food and mates. In the tropics, where there are more species of plants and animals than in colder regions, the tricks they use, and their interspecies interactions, can be much more complex.

What are tropical insects doing and why?

They're doing all the regular things that everybody does. Eating and sleeping and reproducing and avoiding predators. There is no end to the intricacies of their forms, behaviors, and defenses. For example, there are caterpillars that make escape holes in their leaves and construct stalactites of fecula and silk to guide them to those holes; others live in rolled leaves and keep their fecula there as barriers to predatory wasps and ants; others live communally in silk sacks, in which they pupate together; still others live together in the open and follow each other on silk trails that they lay from one feeding site to another and to their molting places on their tree trunk.

What can immature stages of insects tell us about their evolutionary relationships?

The immature stages — caterpillars and pupae — are totally different from the adults, and they're evolving independently. That's been shown with frogs. If you do a cladogram for the tadpoles and the frogs, you will get a different set of species relationships. There are limits to that separate evolution, or they wouldn't be able to transform from one to the other.

What can knowledge of host plants tell us about insect evolutionary and relationships?

George Vogt learned that with certain of his weevils. He found that in North America they are on oaks (Fagaceae), where they suffer from predatory weevils that are related to them, and which attack their eggs, but when they get into Mexico and South America, they switch to plants of the Anacardiaceae and they drop their predators. So, the consequences for changing plants can be good ones.

B.A., Biology, magna cum laude, Brooklyn College, 1972

M.A., Biology, Harvard University, 1975

Ph.D., Biology, Harvard University, 1978; Thesis: "A Reexamination of Portlandia (Rubiaceae) and Associated Taxa" (Dr. Richard A. Howard, advisor).

Aiello, Annette, A. 2021. “Jaws: a powerful trunk-girdling longhorn, Trachysomus thomsoni Aurivillius, 1923 (Cerambycidae: Lamiinae: Onciderini) in Panama.” The Coleopterists Bulletin 75(3):531-536.

Aiello, A. & Stucky. B. 2020. "First host plant record for Pacarina (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)." Neotropical Biology and Conservation, 15(1): 77–88. https://doi.org/10.3897/neotropical.15.e49013

Aiello, A. 2019. “Amorphosoma penicillatum (Klug, 1827) (Coleoptera: Buprestidae: Agrilinae): A fearless jewel beetle in Panama.” Coleopterists Bulletin 73(4): 1102–1104.

Brashears, J., Aiello, A. & Seymoure, B. 2016. "Cool bands: Wing bands decrease rate of heating, but not equilibrium temperature in Anartia fatima." Journal of Thermal Biology 56:100—108.

Aiello, A., Saltonstall, K., & Young, V. "Brachyplatys vahlii, an introduced bug from Asia: first report in the Western Hemisphere (Hemiptera: Plataspididae: Bracyplatidinae)." BioInvasions Record, 5(1):7—12.

Aiello, A. 2015. Tropical caterpillar addiction. In: Dyer, Lee A. and Forister, Matthew L., The lives of lepidopterists. Springer International Publishing, pp.91‑102.

Seymoure, B. & Aiello, A. 2015. "Keeping the band together: evidence for false boundary disruptive coloration in a butterfly." Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 28(2015):1618—1624. doi: 10.1111/jeb. 12681

Aiello, A. 2015. "Oncideres Serville Key to Too Few: 34 Species Lost." The Coleopterists Bulletin 69(1):60.

Domínguez Núñez, Edwin & Aiello, A. 2013. "Leaf‑hoppers (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) that probe human skin: a review of the world literature and nineteen new records, from Panama." Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews 6(2013):201-225.

Donald, D., Quintero A., D., Cambra T., R., & Aiello, A. 2008. "Biology of a new Panamanian bagworm moth (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) with predatory larvae, and eggs individually wrapped in setal cases. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 101(4): 689-702.

Van Bael, S.A., Aiello, A., Valderrama, A., Medianero, E., Samaniego, M., & Wright, S.J. 2004. General herbivore outbreak following an El Niño‑related drought in a lowland Panamanian forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 20(6):625‑633.

aielloa [at] si.edu

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Annette Aiello

Name

Annette

Last name

Aiello

Position

Staff Scientist

Discipline (Private):

Developmental Biology

External CV:

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Department:

Staff scientists

Kristina Anderson-Teixeira

Language English

Ecosystem Ecology Forest Ecology Global Ecology

Forests are invaluable for their roles in biodiversity protection and climate regulation. Global change is impacting forests worldwide, and understanding such changes will be critical to forest conservation and climate protection efforts.

Role of tree size in moist tropical forest carbon cycling and water deficit responses, 2017

Vulnerability to forest loss through altered post-fire recovery dynamics in a warming climate in the Klamath Mountain, 2017

Lab Website

ForestGEO Ecosystems & Climate Research Program

I specialize in forest ecosystem ecology, global change ecology, and climate protection through forest conservation. My approach combines data synthesis and analysis, quantitative ecology, and field research and focuses on understanding how climate — and climate change — shape ecosystems, and how ecosystems in turn regulate climate. I lead the ForestGEO Ecosystems & Climate Research Program for the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO), leveraging this unique global forest monitoring network to understand forest responses and feedbacks to climate. Research themes include carbon cycling in forests worldwide, forest disturbance and recovery dynamics under a changing climate, and valuing forests for their climate regulation services.

Prospective interns and fellows please note: I am based at the Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute and unable to mentor in Panama.

How does climate influence carbon cycling across forests worldwide?

Forests influence climate in part through their key role in the global carbon cycle. Kristina’s interests include how carbon cycling in forests is influenced by factors such as forest age and climate. To get at this, she leverages data from the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) and the Global Forest Carbon database (ForC). ForC-db, which Kristina’s lab has created and maintains, is the largest and most comprehensive global database of forest carbon stocks and annual fluxes in existence.

How does tree size mediate forest ecosystem functioning and climate responses?

Trees of different size respond differently to variation in environmental conditions; for example, research in Kristina’s lab has shown that larger trees tend to suffer more during drought in forests worldwide. Understanding and predicting forest ecosystem responses to climatic variation and change therefore requires understanding how trees of different size contribute to ecosystem functioning and how they respond to environmental variation. Kristina’s research team uses data from the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) to address these questions.

How is climate change impacting forest disturbances and subsequent recovery?

Climate change and other anthropogenic pressures are altering both the frequency and intensity of a variety of types of forest disturbances (for example, droughts, fire, insect pest/pathogen outbreaks) and the dynamics of forest recovery following disturbance. In some cases, this can dramatically impact forest ecosystems and landscapes, with important consequences for biodiversity and climate feedbacks. Kristina’s research on this theme has included forest responses to drought, climatic effects on forest succession, climate change responses of fire-prone forested landscapes, and fine-scale patterns of tree mortality.

How valuable are forests for climate regulation?

The Earth's climate is strongly regulated by forests; clearing just 100 square feet of forest has roughly the same effect on climate as driving across the continental US. There is growing recognition of forest protection as an effective strategy for climate change mitigation, and designing effective climate mitigation policies requires accurate quantification of the climate services of terrestrial ecosystems. Kristina has developed framework for quantifying the climate-regulating value of ecosystems and is currently building an online tool to provide location-specific estimates of ecosystem climate regulation services.

Ph.D. Biology (with distinction). 2007. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.

B.S. Biology (H) cum laude. 2002. Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.

Piponiot, C., K. J. Anderson-Teixeira, S. J. Davies, D. Allen, N. A. Bourg, D. F. R. P. Burslem, D. Cárdenas, C.-H. Chang-Yang, G. Chuyong, S. Cordell, H. S. Dattaraja, Á. Duque, S. Ediriweera, C. Ewango, Z. Ezedin, J. Filip, C. P. Giardina, R. Howe, C.-F. Hsieh, S. P. Hubbell, F. M. Inman-Narahari, A. Itoh, D. Janík, D. Kenfack, K. Král, J. A. Lutz, J.-R. Makana, S. M. McMahon, W. McShea, X. Mi, M. Bt. Mohamad, V. Novotný, M. J. O’Brien, R. Ostertag, G. Parker, R. Pérez, H. Ren, G. Reynolds, M. D. Md Sabri, L. Sack, A. Shringi, S.-H. Su, R. Sukumar, I.-F. Sun, H. S. Suresh, D. W. Thomas, J. Thompson, M. Uriarte, J. Vandermeer, Y. Wang, I. M. Ware, G. D. Weiblen, T. J. S. Whitfeld, A. Wolf, T. L. Yao, M. Yu, Z. Yuan, J. K. Zimmerman, D. Zuleta, and H. C. Muller-Landau. 2022. Distribution of biomass dynamics in relation to tree size in forests across the world. New Phytologist n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17995

Anderson-Teixeira, Kristina J., Herrmann, Valentine, Rollinson, Christine R., Gonzalez, Bianca, Gonzalez-Akre, Erika B., Pederson, Neil, Alexander, M. Ross, Allen, Craig D., Alfaro-Sanchez, Raquel, Awada, Tala, Baltzer, Jennifer L., Baker, Patrick J., Birch, Joseph D., Bunyavejchewin, Sarayudh, Cherubini, Paolo, Davies, Stuart J., Dow, Cameron, Helcoski, Ryan, Kaspar, Jakub, Lutz, James A., Margolis, Ellis Q., Maxwell, Justin T., McMahon, Sean M., Piponiot, Camille, Russo, Sabrina E., et al. 2022. Joint effects of climate, tree size, and year on annual tree growth derived from tree-ring records of ten globally distributed forests. Global Change Biology, 28(1): 245-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15934

Gonzalez-Akre, E., C. Piponiot, M. Lepore, V. Herrmann, J. A. Lutz, J. L. Baltzer, C. Dick, G. S. Gilbert, F. He, M. Heym, A. I. Huerta, P. Jansen, D. J. Johnson, N. Knapp, K. Kral, D. Lin, Y. Malhi, S. McMahon, J. A. Myers, D. Orwig, D. I. Rodríguez-Hernández, S. Russo, J. Shue, X. Wang, A. Wolf, T. Yang, S. J. Davies, and K. J. Anderson-Teixeira. (n.d.). allodb: An R package for biomass estimation at globally distributed extratropical forest plots. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 13(2):330-338. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13756

Anderson‐Teixeira, K., Herrmann, V., Banbury Morgan, R., Bond‐Lamberty, B. P., Cook‐Patton, S. C., Ferson, A. E., Muller‐Landau, H. C., & Wang, M. M. H.(2021). Carbon cycling in mature and regrowth forests globally. Environmental Research Letters, 16 053009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abed01.

Anderson-Teixeira, K. J., V. Herrmann, W. B. Cass, A. B. Williams, S. J. Paull, E. B. Gonzalez-Akre, R. Helcoski, A. J. Tepley, N. A. Bourg, C. T. Cosma, A. E. Ferson, C. Kittle, V. Meakem, I. R. McGregor, M. N. Prestipino, M. K. Scott, A. R. Terrell, A. Alonso, F. Dallmeier, and W. J. McShea. 2021. Long-Term Impacts of Invasive Insects and Pathogens on Composition, Biomass, and Diversity of Forests in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Ecosystems 24 (89-105). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-020-00503-w

Banbury Morgan R, Herrmann V, Kunert N, Bond-Lamberty B, Muller-Landau H C and Anderson-Teixeira K J. (2021) Global patterns of forest autotrophic carbon fluxes. Global Change Biology, 27 (12) 2840-2855. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15574 .

Davies, S. J., I. Abiem, K. Abu Salim, S. Aguilar, D. Allen, A. Alonso, K. Anderson-Teixeira, A. Andrade, G. Arellano, P. S. Ashton, P. J. Baker, M. E. Baker, J. L. Baltzer, Y. Basset, P. Bissiengou, S. Bohlman, N. A. Bourg, W. Y. Brockelman, S. Bunyavejchewin, D. F. R. P. Burslem, M. Cao, D. Cárdenas, L.-W. Chang, C.-H. Chang-Yang, K.-J. Chao, W.-C. Chao, H. Chapman, Y.-Y. Chen, R. A. Chisholm, C. Chu, G. Chuyong, K. Clay, L. S. Comita, R. Condit, S. Cordell, H. S. Dattaraja, A. A. de Oliveira, J. den Ouden, M. Detto, C. Dick, X. Du, Á. Duque, S. Ediriweera, E. C. Ellis, N. L. E. Obiang, S. Esufali, C. E. N. Ewango, E. S. Fernando, J. Filip, G. A. Fischer, R. Foster, T. Giambelluca, C. Giardina, G. S. Gilbert, E. Gonzalez-Akre, I. A. U. N. Gunatilleke, C. V. S. Gunatilleke, Z. Hao, B. C. H. Hau, F. He, H. Ni, R. W. Howe, S. P. Hubbell, A. Huth, F. Inman-Narahari, A. Itoh, D. Janík, P. A. Jansen, M. Jiang, D. J. Johnson, F. A. Jones, M. Kanzaki, D. Kenfack, S. Kiratiprayoon, K. Král, L. Krizel, S. Lao, A. J. Larson, Y. Li, X. Li, C. M. Litton, Y. Liu, S. Liu, S. K. Y. Lum, M. S. Luskin, J. A. Lutz, H. T. Luu, K. Ma, J.-R. Makana, Y. Malhi, A. Martin, C. McCarthy, S. M. McMahon, W. J. McShea, H. Memiaghe, X. Mi, D. Mitre, M. Mohamad, L. Monks, H. C. Muller-Landau, P. M. Musili, J. A. Myers, A. Nathalang, K. M. Ngo, N. Norden, V. Novotny, M. J. O’Brien, D. Orwig, R. Ostertag, K. Papathanassiou, G. G. Parker, R. Pérez, I. Perfecto, R. P. Phillips, N. Pongpattananurak, H. Pretzsch, H. Ren, G. Reynolds, L. J. Rodriguez, S. E. Russo, L. Sack, W. Sang, J. Shue, A. Singh, G.-Z. M. Song, R. Sukumar, I.-F. Sun, H. S. Suresh, N. G. Swenson, S. Tan, S. C. Thomas, D. Thomas, J. Thompson, B. L. Turner, A. Uowolo, M. Uriarte, R. Valencia, J. Vandermeer, A. Vicentini, M. Visser, T. Vrska, X. Wang, X. Wang, G. D. Weiblen, T. J. S. Whitfeld, A. Wolf, S. J. Wright, H. Xu, T. L. Yao, S. L. Yap, W. Ye, M. Yu, M. Zhang, D. Zhu, L. Zhu, J. K. Zimmerman, and D. Zuleta. 2021. ForestGEO: Understanding forest diversity and dynamics through a global observatory network. Biological Conservation 253:108907.

Kunert, N., J. Zailaa, V. Herrmann, H. C. Muller‐Landau, S. J. Wright, R. Pérez, S. M. McMahon, R. C. Condit, S. P. Hubbell, L. Sack, S. J. Davies, and K. J. Anderson‐Teixeira. 2021. Leaf turgor loss point shapes local and regional distributions of evergreen but not deciduous tropical trees. New Phytologist, 230: 485-496. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17187

McGregor, I. R., R. Helcoski, N. Kunert, A. J. Tepley, E. B. Gonzalez‐Akre, V. Herrmann, J. Zailaa, A. E. L. Stovall, N. A. Bourg, W. J. McShea, N. Pederson, L. Sack, and K. J. Anderson‐Teixeira. 2021. Tree height and leaf drought tolerance traits shape growth responses across droughts in a temperate broadleaf forest. New Phytologist 231(2):601-616. DOI: 10.1111/nph.16996

Muller‐Landau, H. C., K. C. Cushman, E. E. Arroyo, I. Martinez Cano, K. J. Anderson‐Teixeira, and B. Backiel. 2020. Patterns and mechanisms of spatial variation in tropical forest productivity, woody residence time, and biomass. New Phytologist.

Cook-Patton S C, Leavitt S M, Gibbs D, Harris N L, Lister K, Anderson-Teixeira K J, Briggs R D, Chazdon R L, Crowther T W, Ellis P W, Griscom H P, Herrmann V, Holl K D, Houghton R A, Larrosa C, Lomax G, Lucas R, Madsen P, Malhi Y, Paquette A, Parker J D, Paul K, Routh D, Roxburgh S, Saatchi S, Hoogen J van den, Walker W S, Wheeler C E, Wood S A, Xu L and Griscom B W 2020 Mapping carbon accumulation potential from global natural forest regrowth Nature 585 545–50

Walker, A. P., M. G. D. Kauwe, A. Bastos, S. Belmecheri, K. Georgiou, R. Keeling, S. M. McMahon, B. E. Medlyn, D. J. P. Moore, R. J. Norby, S. Zaehle, K. J. Anderson‐Teixeira, G. Battipaglia, R. J. W. Brienen, K. G. Cabugao, M. Cailleret, E. Campbell, J. Canadell, P. Ciais, M. E. Craig, D. Ellsworth, G. Farquhar, S. Fatichi, J. B. Fisher, D. Frank, H. Graven, L. Gu, V. Haverd, K. Heilman, M. Heimann, B. A. Hungate, C. M. Iversen, F. Joos, M. Jiang, T. F. Keenan, J. Knauer, C. Körner, V. O. Leshyk, S. Leuzinger, Y. Liu, N. MacBean, Y. Malhi, T. McVicar, J. Penuelas, J. Pongratz, A. S. Powell, T. Riutta, M. E. B. Sabot, J. Schleucher, S. Sitch, W. K. Smith, B. Sulman, B. Taylor, C. Terrer, M. S. Torn, K. Treseder, A. T. Trugman, S. E. Trumbore, P. J. van Mantgem, S. L. Voelker, M. E. Whelan, and P. A. Zuidema. 2020. Integrating the evidence for a terrestrial carbon sink caused by increasing atmospheric CO2. The New Phytologist, https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16866

McDowell, N. G., C. D. Allen, K. Anderson-Teixeira, B. H. Aukema, B. Bond-Lamberty, L. Chini, J. S. Clark, M. Dietze, C. Grossiord, A. Hanbury-Brown, G. C. Hurtt, R. B. Jackson, D. J. Johnson, L. Kueppers, J. W. Lichstein, K. Ogle, B. Poulter, T. A. M. Pugh, R. Seidl, M. G. Turner, M. Uriarte, A. P. Walker, and C. Xu. 2020. Pervasive shifts in forest dynamics in a changing world. Science, 368(6494). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz9463

Goldstein, A., Turner, W. R., Spawn, S. A., Anderson-Teixeira, K. J., Cook-Patton, S., Fargione, J., Gibbs, H. K., Griscom, B., Hewson, J. H., Howard, J. F., Ledezma, J. C., Page, S., Koh, L. P., Rockström, J., Sanderman, J., & Hole, D. G. (2020). Protecting irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems. Nature Climate Change, 1–9.

Requena Suarez, D., D. M. A. Rozendaal, V. D. Sy, O. L. Phillips, E. Alvarez‐Dávila, K. Anderson‐Teixeira, A. Araujo‐Murakami, L. Arroyo, T. R. Baker, F. Bongers, R. J. W. Brienen, S. Carter, S. C. Cook‐Patton, T. R. Feldpausch, B. W. Griscom, N. Harris, B. Hérault, E. N. H. Coronado, S. M. Leavitt, S. L. Lewis, B. S. Marimon, A. M. Mendoza, J. K. N’dja, A. E. N’Guessan, L. Poorter, L. Qie, E. Rutishauser, P. Sist, B. Sonké, M. J. P. Sullivan, E. Vilanova, M. M. H. Wang, C. Martius, and M. Herold. (n.d.). Estimating aboveground net biomass change for tropical and subtropical forests: refinement of IPCC default rates using forest plot data. Global Change Biology, 25(11), 3609-3624. DOI: 10.1111/nph.15906

Helcoski, R., Tepley, A. J., Pederson, N., McGarvey, J. C., Meakem, V., Herrmann, V., Thompson, J. R., & Anderson-Teixeira, K. J. (2019). Growing season moisture drives inter-annual variation in woody productivity of a temperate deciduous forest. New Phytologist, 223(3):1204-1216 . DOI: 10.1111/nph.15906

Miller, A. D., J. R. Thompson, A. J. Tepley, and K. J. Anderson‐Teixeira. (2019). Alternative stable equilibria and critical thresholds created by fire regimes and plant responses in a fire-prone community. Ecography 42(1):55-66. DOI: 10.1111/ecog.03491

Anderson-Teixeira, K. J., M. M. H. Wang, J. C. McGarvey, V. Herrmann, A. J. Tepley, B. P. Bond-Lamberty, and D. S. LeBauer (2018). ForC: a global database of forest carbon stocks and fluxes. Ecology 99(6), 1507-1507. DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2229.

McDowell, N., C. Allen, K. Anderson-Teixeira, P. Brando, R. Brienen, J. Chambers, B. Christoffersen, S. Davies, C. Doughty, A. Duque, F. D. B. Espirito-Santo, R. Fisher, C. G. Fontes, D. Galbraith, D. Goodsman, C. Grossiord, D. Johnson, H. Hartmann, J. Holm, A. R. Kassim, M. Keller, C. Koven, L. Kueppers, T. Kumagai, H. C. Muller-Landau, Y. Malhi, S. McMahon, M. Mencuccini, P. Meir, P. Moorcroft, O. L. Phillips, T. Powell, C. A. Sierra, J. Sperry, J. M. Warren, C. Xu, and X. Xu. (2018) Drivers and mechanisms of tree mortality in moist tropical forests. New Phytologist . DOI: 10.1111/nph.15027.

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