My research interests span a broad range of subjects from conservation biology and restoration ecology to collaborations with social scientist and economists on subjects related to human behavior and land management. The common theme is the applied nature of my work and the effort to provide...
My primary research focus is on Panamanian frogs that are likely extinct in the wild due to a fungal infection but are kept alive in captive breeding programs in Panama and the United States. Our lab has collected founding individuals for these amphibian colonies, devised methods to sustainably...
I am interested in the evolution and the ecology of marine organisms, particularly sea urchins, but also fishes, crustaceans, and corals. I focus on the processes that give rise to new species, and I use molecular tools to reconstruct the history of populations and of genes. Typically, this...
As STRI director for 34 years, a lot of innovative things were enabled under my watch. One of the most important was the addition of the five peninsulas to the Barro Colorado Nature Monument, which created a buffer zone around Barro Colorado Island and added research areas that allow for...
A rocky intertidal zone and sandy beach
at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.
Thousands of years of hunting has turned a substantial meal into a bite-sized snack.
Large numbers of small algae-grazing sea urchins and fish may take the place of larger grazers to prevent algae from overgrowing reefs, a new study shows.
As bacterial infections become more resistant to antibiotics, the toxins on the skin of frogs presents huge opportunity for new drug discovery.
A coral die-off in Panama was likely due to oxygen depletion instead of the usual culprits of warming, pollution, overfishing and acidification.
