Grounded
Monkey party?
April 29, 2020
White-faced capuchin monkeys come down from the trees on Panama’s Coiba island
White-faced capuchin monkeys come down from the trees on Panama’s Coiba island
Three decades after the largest recorded oil spill near coastal habitats in Panama, scientists look at how coral reefs recover from acute contamination over time
Find out more about why bats carry viruses and how both bats and humans benefit from bat conservation.
People who’ve attended Bat Night, the STRI bat lab’s open house in Gamboa, Panama, may have had the opportunity to hear bat researcher, Mariana Muñoz-Romo, talk about her favorite animals: the only mammals with wings. Now we all have a chance to hear her talk online.
Researchers learned from some unusual sweat bee species on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, how the sophisticated division of labor in highly complex insect societies can arise from humble beginnings.
STRI staff scientist and evolutionary biologist Bill Wcislo discusses the foibles of social bees and farming ants and the evolution of their behavior in changing environments. In a time of crisis, what can we learn from these insects about their highly efficient public health care systems?
Manatees are endangered aquatic mammals. To help protect them, researchers Héctor Guzmán from STRI, Fernando Merchán, Héctor Poveda and Javier Sánchez-Galán from the Technological University of Panama (UTP), and Guillaume Ferré from ENSEIRB-MATMECA, developed a monitoring system based on hydrophones, which detects in real-time the underwater calls these animals make to communicate with each other.
By evaluating the diet choices of this species in a semi-natural environment, scientists could improve predictions of how it might affect newly invaded communities
For Panamanian marine biologist Yehudi Rodríguez, her curiosity about sharks began early in life, watching the National Geographic programs and listening to her father’s stories as an underwater fisherman. This persistent interest led her to pave a path where there were not many opportunities, and to learn as much as possible from the people she encountered during her research projects in the field, especially from artisanal fishermen. Now she has more than 15 years studying sharks, she is a professor at the International Maritime University of Panama and director of Shark Defenders.
Through their foraging behavior across the diverse topography of the African savanna, megaherbivores may be unknowingly influencing the growth and survival of vegetation on valleys and plateaus, while preserving steep slopes as habitat refugia.