How do natural and human-discharged nutrient pulses impact tropical marine ecosystems?
Nutrient upwelling season in the Bay of Panama and water quality tests from 20 previously unmonitored rivers provide a Panamanian researcher with clues about how nutrient addition impacts coastal ecosystems.
Fast growth despite phosphorus limitation
Individual tree species, not forest communities, respond to changes in phosphorus levels.
Response to drought depends on forest age
Young forests adjust more readily.
What were Caribbean coral reefs like before humans?
Fossil reefs from around the Caribbean show how biologically rich these ecosystems once were — and provide goalposts for conservationists hoping to restore them.
How long has Central America been so biologically diverse?
20-million-year-old fossil seeds shed light on origins of plant biodiversity in Panama.
Tropical dark respiration data tweak climate model
What do warmer nights mean for the release of carbon dioxide by tropical forests?
Whose shadow is safer?
A novel research project takes aim at the ageless question of what influences tropical seedling survival.
Solar domes simulate extreme future climate scenarios
How will tropical forests respond to a warmer climate with higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations? By growing plants in geodesic domes, Smithsonian scientist Klaus Winter is seeking answers.
Come meet some of Panama’s amazing and endangered frogs at our newest exhibit
As part of the Smithsonian’s program to save frogs from an extinction-causing disease, the Punta Culebra Nature Center offers an exclusive glimpse at some of the amphibians we and our partner institutions are trying to save.
Predation Is More Intense at Low Altitudes and Low Latitudes
Deployed from Greenland to Australia, caterpillar decoys were attacked the closer they were to sea level and the nearer they were to the tropics.
