News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 28-Oct-2026 00:16 ET (28-Oct-2026 04:16 GMT/UTC)

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

 

New guide to tropical seedlings: Essential to climate change research

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Book Announcement

The enormous trees forming rainforest canopies bear little resemblance to their seedlings, many described for the first time in the new field guide, "Seedlings of Barro Colorado Island and the Neotropics," published in July 2009 by Cornell University Press.

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

8-Jun-2009

 

Fossil teeth of browsing horse found in Panama Canal earthworks

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Rushing to salvage fossils from the Panama Canal earthworks, Aldo Rincon, paleontology intern at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, unearthed a set of fossil teeth. Bruce J. MacFadden, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida in Gainesville, describes the fossil as Anchitherium clarencei, a three-toed browsing horse, in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Paleontology.

Journal

Journal of Paleontology

Funder

University of Florida, Panama Canal Authority, National Science Foundation