A cutting-edge molecular lab
and launching point to the
Eastern Tropical Pacific
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...
I am broadly interested in the genetics of adaptation and speciation. How do new species form? How does adaptive variation arise and spread? How is morphological variation created through development and modified by natural selection? Is evolution predictable?
The focus of my lab’s...
Smithsonian marine biologist Ross Robertson suspects that the regal demoiselle hitched a ride to the Gulf of Mexico on an oil rig. Its outstanding success in its new habitat raises questions about its impact in the Gulf.
The Guna, Emberá and cattle-ranching communities of eastern Panama share the same threatened landscape but have been divided for generations over territorial disputes. A series of filmmaking workshops and film festivals have brought some members of the community together in ways not previously considered possible.
As researchers ask which disease-carrying mosquito species will rule Panama’s Azuero Penninsula (and perhaps the world), they discover culinary delights along the way.
