The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute will celebrate 100 years of tropical forest research at Barro Colorado Island Field Station in Panama with exhibits and events.
Five Panamanian scientists share a glance at the experience of working in the tropical biologist’s dream, Barro Colorado Island.
Long-term research at Barro Colorado Island Research Station and at many other locations show that there are more woody vines in tropical forests, but very little is known about them. They are difficult to measure and so are often overlooked. This research group measured the biggest vine they have found on the island—but is this the biggest liana in the world? The authors challenge others to come up with a bigger one.
Plant ecologist S. Joseph Wright received an award for his illustrious career at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in Panama.
The ecologist who leads ForestGEO’s ecosystems and climate initiative visits STRI and discusses her plans to tackle millions of tree measurements taken across the globe.
STRI staff scientist Joe Wright and colleagues present results in Science indicating that diversity among adult tropical trees can be maintained if spatial repulsion among individuals of the same species is greater than spatial repulsion among individuals of different species.
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.
The accelerated proliferation of these woody vines, due to natural disturbance, is altering forest structure, regeneration and functioning
To create a global standard for forest carbon storage, we need boots on the ground. The GEO-TREES system of forest plots offers this immediately: establishing a single method for forest carbon estimation at existing on-the-ground forest study sites around the world.
The longest continuous study of euglossines in the tropics found relatively stable populations of these wild bees over four decades.
