Window to the past
How long has Central America been so biologically diverse?
September 28, 2017
20-million-year-old fossil seeds shed light on origins of plant biodiversity in Panama.
20-million-year-old fossil seeds shed light on origins of plant biodiversity in Panama.
Fossil reefs from around the Caribbean show how biologically rich these ecosystems once were — and provide goalposts for conservationists hoping to restore them.
Now that the rainy season has started, it is the perfect time to plant trees in Panama. We offer smart, science-based advice for choosing the perfect trees for your site and helping them to grow.
About 66 million years ago, a radical change on the Earth filled tropical forests with flowers. A new catalog of fossil pollen grains may hold an explanation.
Smithsonian scientists who documented massive mortality of corals and reef organisms meticulously studied one of the apparent causes: oxygen deficiency. A Smithsonian paleobiologist asks if the recent fossil record shows signs of similar hypoxia events.
STRI took a gamble on a carbon offset program in partnership with an indigenous community in eastern Panama. Ten years later, it has successfully met offset goals, empowered women, built environmental stewardship capacity, created a long-term research platform and offered hope for a community’s threatened forest-based traditions.
Biodiversity is the key to successful reforestation and climate-change mitigation because each tree species has its own way of getting the nutrients it needs to survive.
Perhaps old species, like some older people, gradually lose their ability to deal with changes in their environment. Aaron O’Dea and colleagues show that when the Caribbean was cut off from the Pacific by the rise of the Panama land bridge, evolutionarily old species took longer to expand into new habitats than evolutionarily younger species did.
Long-distance migrations are common for large whales, but when in their evolutionary past did they begin to migrate and why? Fossil whale barnacles may have the answers
By taking on characteristics from another, younger stage in its life-cycle, this fossil crab was probably able to adapt to new conditions.