Cosmopolitan
Are city ants weaker?
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
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
A study in Science by 225 researchers working with data from 590 forest sites around the world concludes that tropical forests release much more carbon into the atmosphere at high temperatures.
Teak often underperforms on poor soils. By planting valuable native trees in existing teak plantations, researchers will evaluate the potential increase in timber value, biodiversity value and ecosystem services provided.
STRI will miss Kirk and his family when they move back to the U.S., but look forward to continued collaboration.
Through their foraging behavior across the diverse topography of the African savanna, megaherbivores may be unknowingly influencing the growth and survival of vegetation on valleys and plateaus, while preserving steep slopes as habitat refugia.
Beneficial partnerships between diverse marine organisms are often favorable to the health of marine ecosystems as well. Listen to STRI postdoctoral fellow and marine and evolutionary biologist Matthieu Leray describe how mutualistic relationships among coral reefs and small marine species or microorganisms may help them cope with climate change.
Helene Muller-Landau, staff scientist, was invited to write an authoritative review about carbon storage in forests. Her team combed through existing studies and came up with some novel conclusions of their own.
Post-doc Jarrod Scott is an active contributor to anvi’o, a set of computational tools to visualize microbial communities.
Lightning is common in the tropics, but its ecological effects in tropical forests are poorly understood. Steve Yanoviak, STRI research associate and professor at the University of Louisville, will summarize the basic physics of lightning, how we study lightning in Panama and the importance of lightning as an agent of tropical tree mortality.
Scientists think that climate change may have greater impact the largest trees in tropical forests, and the death of these giants has a major impact on the forest, but because these monumental trees are few and far between, almost nothing is known about what causes them to die.