April 16, 2020
To understand the effects of urbanization and forest loss on insects, Dumas Gálvez studies the ability of ants to defend themselves against diseases in the city and in nature
Projects
& Stories
Gamboa
March 12, 2020
How do social interactions change in the face of illness? As humans face potential global pandemics we look to nature for examples. Close observation of another highly social animal, the vampire bat, sheds light on how interactions change—or do not change—as individuals become sick.
December 30, 2019
Why do some male bats have sticky, odorous arms? The first clues only led to more questions. But now a new sleuth, Mariana Muñoz-Romo, described by a colleague as “probably the world’s expert on chemical communication in a bat species,” is on the case.
November 14, 2019
Unrelated butterflies may have the same wing patterns. These patterns warn off predators and help suitors find the right mate. But if wing patterns in each species evolved the same way, knocking out an important gene should have the same effect in both. Carolina Concha and her team discovered that knocking out the WntA gene results in different effects in co-mimics, so the two species evolved the same pattern via different pathways.
November 01, 2019
Hubert Szczygieł recently arrived at STRI in Panama and is already becoming one of Gamboa’s most awesome natural historians.
October 22, 2019
Eavesdropping behavior in the canopy may answer questions about how acoustic interplay among animals has developed over millions of years in the forest
