News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 17-Jan-2026 08:11 ET (17-Jan-2026 13:11 GMT/UTC)

3-Dec-2009

Novel carbon-trading scheme could stop large-scale extinctions

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Spatial distribution of biodiversity should be taken into account when calculating carbon credits in order to achieve conservation goals as well as greenhouse gas mitigation, argue researchers.

Journal

Science

19-Oct-2009

Catching a killer one spore at a time

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A workshop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama has nearly doubled the number of people capable of quatitatively testing for chytridiomycosis, dramatically improving the ability of conservationists and regulatory agencies to monitor the spread of one of the deadliest frog diseases on Earth.

12-Oct-2009

The first neotropical rainforest was home of the Titanoboa

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Plant fossils from the same site in northern Colombia where the Titanoboa was found reveal a rainforest very similar to modern neotropical rainforests, but several degrees warmer.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Funder

Fondo para la Investigacion de la Ciencia y Tec. del Banco de la Rep. de Colombia, Carbones del Cerrejon LLC, Colombian Petroleum Inst., Ryan Family Foundation, Explorers Club, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, Corp. Geologica Ares

5-Oct-2009

Panama butterfly migrations linked to El Niño, climate change

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A 16-year study of tropical butterfly migration links a global climate pattern, El Niño, to local increases in plant production and peak migrations.

Journal

Global Change Biology

Funder

National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

1-Oct-2009

Killer bees may increase food supplies for native bees

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A long-term study of Africanized bee invasion of Mexico's Yucatan shows that "killer bees" may actually increase food resources for native bees.

Journal

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Funder

Smithsonian Institution

28-Sep-2009

China's new Climate Center welcomes citizen scientists

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Business Announcement

The China Regional Climate Center, the newest of five international sites where HSBC bank volunteers work with scientists to conduct the world's largest experiment on the effects of climate change on forests, opened September 22 in Gutianshan National Nature Reserve in eastern China.

24-Aug-2009

2009 Awards of World Cultural Council

Consejo Cultural Mundial
Grant and Award Announcement

The World Cultural Council will present the 2009 Albert Einstein World Award of Science to Sir John Houghton, president of the John Ray Initiative. The Hungarian artist Marcell Jankovics has been selected as the winner of the 2009 Leonardo da vinci World Award of Arts. This year, the 26th Award Ceremony of the World Cultural Council will take place Nov. 25 in the Academic Hall, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium.

7-Aug-2009

Eminent Ecologist Award presented to Stephen P. Hubbell

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

The Ecological Society of America presented Stephen P. Hubbell, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA, with the 2009 Eminent Ecologist Award.

28-Jul-2009

Sex in the Caribbean: Environmental change drives evolutionary change -- eventually

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Hungry, sexual organisms replaced well-fed, clonal organisms in the Caribbean Sea as the Isthmus of Panama arose, separating the Caribbean from the Pacific, report researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The fossil record shows that if a species could shift from clonal to sexual reproduction it survived. Otherwise it was destined for extinction, millions of years later.

Funder

Smithsonian Institution's Marine Science Network, Panama's National Secretariat for Science and Technology, National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

26-Jun-2009

A new plan for Panama's Coiba National Park and World Heritage site

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Business Announcement

New management plan for Panama's Coiba National Park will ensure that endemic wildlife and Pacific marine corridor will be conserved.

Funder

UNESCO, Conservation International, United Nations Foundation