Profile: Anthony Coates
Sea of fossils
August 09, 2013
A Smithsonian emeritus scientist takes a field trip to some of Panama’s most important known marine fossil deposits for a quick lesson the age of the Ithsmus of Panama.
A Smithsonian emeritus scientist takes a field trip to some of Panama’s most important known marine fossil deposits for a quick lesson the age of the Ithsmus of Panama.
As Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, a unit of the Smithsonian Institution headquartered in Panama City, Panama, I retired in June, 2020 from the job of managing more than 400 employees, an annual budget of $35 million, and the institute’s research facilities ...
Murder mysteries may take decades to resolve, especially if they take place under the sea. The massive deaths of sea urchins in the Caribbean in the 1980’s is one of them. But only after a new killing spree erupted in 2022, could scientists corner the probable killer.
The new diagnostic test showed comparable or even better results than the gold-standard assay recommended for the diagnosis of chytridiomycosis.
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.
How does a tree escape or resist disease?
A groundbreaking study assessed the extinction risk of more than 8,000 amphibian species worldwide and concluded that two out of five amphibians are threatened.
Based on clues ranging from microscopic pollen samples to massive petrified trees and larger-than-life-sized turtle and crocodile fossils, my lab pieces together millions of years of evidence to reconstruct the deep-time history of tropical ecosystems. I help to build international networks of...
Research in our lab integrates disease ecology, mycology, and community ecology. We explore the nature and outcomes of plant-microbe interactions, as well as the ecology and epidemiology of fungal pathogens of tropical trees, using a combination of surveys and experiments in the forest,...
My lab’s research focuses on coastal marine ecology with an emphasis on host-parasite and consumer interactions, infectious diseases and biological invasions. I focus on how trophic interactions such as parasitism and predation alter populations, community structure and ecosystems. Parasites are...