News | Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Expedition

August 05, 2020

Between 1944 and 1966, Dr. Alexander Wetmore, a legendary ornithologist and Sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, investigated the avifauna of the Isthmus of Panama. This became the basis of his four-volume ‘The Birds of the Republic of Panama’. In this webinar, STRI anthropologist Dr. Stanley Heckadon-Moreno takes us for a historical and photographic journey across Dr. Wetmore’s expeditions in Panama, with the support of Dr. Pamela Henson, director of Institutional History at the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Picky eater

Invasive lionfish may be a selective predator

July 30, 2020

By evaluating the diet choices of this species in a semi-natural environment, scientists could improve predictions of how it might affect newly invaded communities

Compliance

Have vessels cooperated with whale conservation efforts in the Gulf of Panama?

July 24, 2020

Several years after the International Maritime Organization adopted Traffic Separation Schemes to reduce the risk of collision between vessels and migratory whales in the Gulf of Panama, scientists assessed whether these conservation management actions are being effective

Ka Boom

Lightning strikes more than 100 million times per year in the tropics

July 23, 2020

Tropical storms often begin with an impressive display of pyrotechnics, but researchers have largely overlooked the role of lightning strikes in tropical ecosystems.

Pandemic Challenge

Two Panamanians in the service of the common good in Bocas del Toro

July 21, 2020

Carolina César and Viviana Bravo radically changed their work rhythm: from going out daily to the archipelago, to keeping a research station afloat.

Confined

Isolation led white-faced capuchin monkeys into the Stone Age.

July 21, 2020

After 14 thousand years of living in confinement and without the threat of predators, the white-faced capuchin monkeys on the Coiba National Park islands have begun to exhibit behaviors that have not been recorded in the mainland populations. For example, they are highly terrestrial and have learned to use stones as tools. Listen to doctoral student in animal behavior and former STRI fellow, Claudio Monteza, tell us this story.

Time travel

Long-term consequences of river damming in the Panama Canal

July 10, 2020

As the demand for hydroelectricity and water increases in the tropics, a team of scientists explored the natural impacts of one of the oldest tropical dams in the world

Mision Manati

Science and technology for the conservation of manatees in Bocas del Toro and the Ngäbe-Buglé region

July 09, 2020

Manatees are endangered aquatic mammals. To help protect them, researchers Héctor Guzmán from STRI, Fernando Merchán, Héctor Poveda and Javier Sánchez-Galán from the Technological University of Panama (UTP), and Guillaume Ferré from ENSEIRB-MATMECA, developed a monitoring system based on hydrophones, which detects in real-time the underwater calls these animals make to communicate with each other.

Ancient diseases

The trace of suffering, in the bones

July 02, 2020

Human remains used to be considered a nuisance in archaeological excavations. Today they are considered a valuable source of information to understand the ways of life of prehistoric populations and their conditions.