A NASA plane came to Panama to acquire aerial images to inform scientists about the diversity of tropical ecosystems. At the same time, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama collected similar data from the ground. The goal: to create an algorithm to better understand tropical ecosystems using satellite remote sensing in the future.
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Punta Galeta
Smithsonian researchers collaborated with stakeholders to share mangrove carbon accounting techniques and learn about their importance in mitigating climate change.
Six Latin American students received funding to join the Neotropical Environment Option (NEO) course through the new Social-Ecological Field Science Fellowship
Murder mysteries may take decades to resolve, especially if they take place under the sea. The massive deaths of sea urchins in the Caribbean in the 1980’s is one of them. But only after a new killing spree erupted in 2022, could scientists corner the probable killer.
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.
Three decades after the largest recorded oil spill near coastal habitats in Panama, scientists look at how coral reefs recover from acute contamination over time