Research in our lab integrates disease ecology, mycology, and community ecology. We explore the nature and outcomes of plant-microbe interactions, as well as the ecology and epidemiology of fungal pathogens of tropical trees, using a combination of surveys and experiments in the forest,...
My lab’s research focuses on coastal marine ecology with an emphasis on host-parasite and consumer interactions, infectious diseases and biological invasions. I focus on how trophic interactions such as parasitism and predation alter populations, community structure and ecosystems. Parasites are...
Our lab supports research into the lived experience of ancient Isthmian cultures and human groups of the American Tropics more broadly. We explore a wide variety of research questions using multiple, often interdisciplinary approaches that include the study of diverse archaeological material...
A massive coral bleaching event in Panama’s Guna Yala islands along the eastern Caribbean coast signals a major problem with rising ocean temperatures and their long-term effects.
We use social science and interdisciplinary research methods to study the links between people and natural resource use, and access. Broadly, our work encompasses three themes: the future of ocean governance, human dimensions of coupled natural human systems, and the links between development,...
An improved method of identifying manatees by their vocalizations makes it easier to tell them apart, to better estimate their populations and help efforts for their conservation.
Irene Kopelman’s most recent exhibit, which includes a new collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, can be seen at Panama’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
In one of the wildest places
in Central America
Over the last two years, staff at the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center have worked to save bats from the dangers of the Russian full-scale invasion. Now, they join researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to study bat behavior in Panama.
Virola trees in Panama are defying a well-known hypothesis from the 1970s regarding tropical biodiversity, revealing how genetics and the environment shape pathogen communities and seedling survival in tropical forests
