Fortuitous discovery
Accidental tree wound reveals novel symbiotic behavior
Enero 07, 2022
A group of high school students describe how Azteca alfari ants respond to damage to their host plant
A group of high school students describe how Azteca alfari ants respond to damage to their host plant
After being taught annually for three decades, the Smithsonian Introductory Field Life Sciences Course was suspended due to the pandemic, but it made a digital comeback in 2021.
Understanding when and where trees die in vast tropical forests is a challenging first step toward understanding carbon dynamics and climate change. Researchers explained variations in tree mortality over a five-year period by analyzing drone images of one of the most-studied tropical forests in the world, Barro Colorado Island in Panama.
Botanist Alicia Ibañez hopes the book, which presents new data on the tiny island’s endemic flora and fauna in both Spanish and Ngäbere, will increase awareness of the importance of preserving its biodiversity.
Traditionally, we highlight the richness of the fauna that lives in the forests of Panama. However, the complex Panamanian forests also hide a diversity in the behavior of this fauna. Considering how small Panama is, for these same species, the behavior can vary according to its environment. In this talk we will talk about how camera traps provide us with pieces of the puzzle of the ecology and behavior of the fauna in Panama.
Young entomologist Sol Parra uses gene editing technology to understand how color pattern mimicry evolves in butterflies.
Researcher May Dixon discovered that frog-eating bats could recognize ringtones indicating a food reward up to four years later.
Megalodon could fully consume prey the size of today’s killer whales and then roam the seas without more food for two months.
Why do some male bats have sticky, odorous arms? The first clues only led to more questions. But now a new sleuth, Mariana Muñoz-Romo, described by a colleague as “probably the world’s expert on chemical communication in a bat species,” is on the case.
Mutually beneficial relationships are common, but what happens when one partner stops enforcing the other’s good behavior?