One-two Punch
Sea urchins are stuck belly up in low-oxygen hot water
Diciembre 11, 2020
As oceans warm and become more acidic and oxygen-poor, Smithsonian researchers asked how marine life on a Caribbean coral reef copes with changing conditions.
As oceans warm and become more acidic and oxygen-poor, Smithsonian researchers asked how marine life on a Caribbean coral reef copes with changing conditions.
Helene Muller-Landau, staff scientist, was invited to write an authoritative review about carbon storage in forests. Her team combed through existing studies and came up with some novel conclusions of their own.
Lightning is common in the tropics, but its ecological effects in tropical forests are poorly understood. Steve Yanoviak, STRI research associate and professor at the University of Louisville, will summarize the basic physics of lightning, how we study lightning in Panama and the importance of lightning as an agent of tropical tree mortality.
Scientists think that climate change may have greater impact the largest trees in tropical forests, and the death of these giants has a major impact on the forest, but because these monumental trees are few and far between, almost nothing is known about what causes them to die.
About 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid crashed into what is now the Yucatan, plunging the Earth into darkness. The impact transformed tropical rainforests, giving rise to the reign of flowers.
Timber anatomy studies help inform conservation and restoration decisions for historical monuments, and may provide previously unknown information about the artistic techniques or materials used in the past
The Fortuna Forest Reserve in western Panama hosts some of the most diverse montane forests in Central America. Jim Dalling, STRI Research Associate, will discuss the results of 25 years of research on Fortuna's climate, geology, soils and major plant groups, including more than 800 species of trees, 300 species of ferns and 200 species of orchids.
After more than half a century devoted to her scientific and teaching work, Professor Mireya Correa leaves behind an extensive legacy in Panamanian botany
An entrepreneur who dreamed of becoming an oceanographer teams up with STRI researchers and young Latin American biologists to find out if some coral reefs are more resilient than others. His yacht will be the center of operations as they deploy high tech sensor arrays at sites around the tropical eastern Pacific.
Bees and their pollen reveal the environment of the first Cathedral on the American mainland, as do photos by preeminent landscape photographer, Eadweard Muybridge.