Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

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Accidental Slingshot Wound to a Tree Reveals Unexpected Ant Behavior

Despite significant movement restrictions during the first wave of the pandemic in Panama City, a group of curious high school students roamed their neighborhood drilling holes into Cecropia trees and documenting how Azteca alfari ants responded to damage to their host plant.

As part of her fieldwork, Fernandez habituated the bats to her presence near their day-roosts, obtaining observations of their natural behaviors and recording their vocalizations in a completely undisturbed environment during months. (Ana Endara)

Similar to Human Babies, This Bat Species Learns to Communicate Through Babbling and Vocal Imitation

Many terrestrial birds disappeared in Barro Colorado Island, in the Panama Canal, despite their abundance in adjacent mainland forests, because they could not cross Gatun Lake to maintain populations on the island. (Ghislain Rompre)

Biodiversity Loss Despite a Century of Protection

From the surface, the havoc caused on a coral reef by a layer of low-oxygen water was barely evident.

Watch What Happens When A Coral Reef Can't Get Enough Oxygen

Heather Stewart, former PhD fellow at STRI, is very involved in local and global initiatives related to the conservation of coastal ecosystems in the Caribbean, such as mangrove forests.

Caribbean Mangrove Forests May Serve as Coral Shelters

The cloud forests in the Fortuna Hydrological Reserve are home to almost as many species as the entire United States.

Exploring the cloudiest forest in Central America

From Refuge Cove in Alaska to San Francisco Bay to Baja California and at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, a team from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Temple University deployed panels to find out what limits marine invertebrate invasions. Here, Laura Jurgens and Carmen Schloeder, celebrate a successful deployment in Mexico (Laura Jurgens)

Invasion Dynamics

Ana K. Spalding and 23 other women scientists from around the world, advocate for a shift in the value system in science, to emphasize a more equal, diverse and inclusive academic culture.

Women in Science Propose Changes to Discriminatory Measures of Scientific Success

In her lab at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Annette Aiello usually rears caterpillars to find out which butterflies they become as adults, but in this case, she focused her attention on cicadas emerging from a houseplant on her porch in Arraijan, Panama. (J. Aleman/STRI)

A Smithsonian Researcher Caged and Reared Cicadas From Nymphs to Adulthood

Happy Earth Day 2021! Hillary Hughes, Panamanian actress, visits the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Agua Salud Project during the filming of videos in Spanish and English to share hope for the success of tropical forest reforestation informed by the largest experiment of its kind in the tropics. (video still)

Watch These Two Videos and You Will Feel More Hopeful About the Future of Tropical Forests

Clavelina puertosecensis, a species of tunicate, taken by Shih Wei, a student of the Tunicates course at the Bocas del Toro Research Station, in Panama. Experts teach courses and create instructional videos on how to collect, preserve and observe marine invertebrate groups. (Credit: STRI)

Like A Cooking Show With Worms: Smithsonian Videos Teach Tropical Taxonomy of Diverse Marine Creatures

Illustration from the graphic novel 'Martina and the Bridge of Time' by Aaron O'Dea and Ian Cooke Tapia. (Ian Cooke Tapia)

A Young Comic Book Heroine Travels Through Panama’s Deep History

The purple-flowered crown of Dipteryx oleifera, one of the biggest trees on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, towers above the forest. Big trees may be most exposed to the effects of climate change: more frequent and severe drought, and the high winds and lightning of monster storms. (Evan Gora)

How Will the Biggest Tropical Trees Respond to Climate Change?

Cranium of an individual recovered from beneath the Cathedral of Panama Viejo. (Javier Rivera Sandoval, ArtEmpire)

An 'oral' history: Archaeologists search for the origin of dental modification in Panama

Foster mother, BD, feeds her adopted vampire bat pup in a captive bat colony at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Gamboa, Panama (surveillance camera image from Gerry Carter lab)

Baby Vampire Bat Adopted by Mom's Best Friend

Bryophytes in the tropics are threatened due to lack of information and research. (Jorge Alemán, STRI)

Tiny Plants in a Big Changing World

Fighting conch with lime as prepared in Bocas del Toro, Panama. (Felix Rodriguez, STRI)

The Genetics of Shrinking

When STRI staff scientist Annette Aiello first arrived in Panama to study butterflies in 1976, she lived and worked at the Smithsonian research station on Barro Colorado Island. Credit: STRI Archives.

Females in Flatland

Lucia Torrez and Grace Davis identify fruit that monkeys on Barro Colorado Island in Panama have been eating. Do primate leaders know where the best fruiting trees are to be found? Credit: Sean Mattson, STRI

Here's the Scoop on Monkey Leadership

Because her research group knows a bird's age based on its song, a tropical soap opera unfolds as ornithology graduate student Laura Gómez records interactions between antshrikes in Panama.

How to Tell a Bird's Age By Its Song

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Accidental Slingshot Wound to a Tree Reveals Unexpected Ant Behavior

Similar to Human Babies, This Bat Species Learns to Communicate Through Babbling and Vocal Imitation

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