A marine invader
Species invasion throughPanama Canal? Pacific jingleshell found in Caribbean
January 24, 2014
Scientists first discovered the shiny sea critter in 2009. Genetic testing suggested it crossed the canal on more than one occasion.
Scientists first discovered the shiny sea critter in 2009. Genetic testing suggested it crossed the canal on more than one occasion.
Panama’s infamous canal grass rises from the ashes of fire much faster than trees, complicating reforestation efforts.
It is much faster to learn to recognize a new prey item from a neighboring species, than to learn by trial and error.
What slows or stops a disease epidemic if the pathogen is still present? It appears that wild frogs are becoming increasingly resistant to the chytrid fungal disease that has decimated amphibian populations around the world.
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.
Coral reef fish often see a very different seascape that humans do. Using the evolutionary laboratory created by the Isthmus of Panama, Michele Pierotti is learning exactly how they view their underwater world.
Smithsonian marine biologist Ross Robertson suspects that the regal demoiselle hitched a ride to the Gulf of Mexico on an oil rig. Its outstanding success in its new habitat raises questions about its impact in the Gulf.
Initial results from a massive study comparing marine organisms sampled along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Panama with samples from the Atlantic show that the success of invaders is lopsided.
Research projects in our lab combine approaches from behavioral ecology, functional morphology, ethology and evolution of behavior. Our work focuses mostly on the ultimate and proximate causes of behavior in an ecological and social context, with an emphasis on how ecological or social...