In September 2017, divers observed a massive “dead zone” rising to envelop Caribbean coral reefs in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Smithsonian post-docs joined together to understand marine hypoxia now and in the past.
An experiment preventing up to 70% of rain from reaching tropical forest soils aims to understand how important underground carbon stocks will respond to climate change.
The new diagnostic test showed comparable or even better results than the gold-standard assay recommended for the diagnosis of chytridiomycosis.
Plant ecologist S. Joseph Wright received an award for his illustrious career at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in Panama.
Almost everything we do in some way contributes to climate change.
A new study in Nature combining satellite thermal- and in situ warming data found that a percentage of tropical leaves are already reaching the temperatures at which they can no longer function.
Paleontologists discover possible DNA remains in fossil turtle that lived 6 million years ago in Panama, where continents collide
The new GEO-TREES initiative addresses the uncertainty of satellite estimates of forest carbon by creating a trustworthy global carbon verification system based on existing collaborations among scientists at forest research sites worldwide. Supported by the Bezos Earth Fund, all data will be available free, online.
In my lab we try to understand how climate change affects tropical forests by studying how environmental factors influence the physiology and ecology of tropical trees and lianas. We are interested in identifying threshold temperatures for various aspects of plant performance, including carbon...
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...
