Altieri Lab

Are you in Bocas and interested in coral bleaching and how its affecting the reefs in Bocas? Come listen to Lauren Linsmayer talk about the research she is conducting with STRI this Friday 20th at 7pm in Cine Cafe!

STRI Bocas Research Station is pleased to invite you to the next Public talk on Friday, January 20, 2017 at 7pm in the Cine Cafe.

Next Friday, Lauren Linsmayer, a STRI Predoctoral Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate from the UC San Diego, will talk about the coral bleaching and the fate of Bocas reefs.

Come half an hour early or stay late for a chance to talk with Lauren.
See you there!

Good things come in small packages! STRI Short-term Fellow Caitie Kuempel’s recent paper reveals how grazing by urchins the size of a ping pong ball, along with finger-sized parrotfish, is enough to prevent algae from overtaking reefs following coral mortality.

Download paper: http://rdcu.be/ojsv

Kuempel, C.D. and A.H. Altieri (2017) The emergent role of small-bodied herbivores in pre-empting phase shifts on degraded coral reefs. Scientific Reports 7: 39670.

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Bocas del Toro Research Station

We regret to inform you of the untimely passing of our beloved coworker Ruth Gisela Reina. She passed away on the 29th of December rescuing her son on a beach in Colón. She was a hard and dedicated scientist who will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with her family and the loved ones she leaves behind.

Fallece Ruth Gisela Reina, experta ictióloga del Instituto Smithsonian

El personal del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales lamenta el fallecimiento de nuestra compañera de trabajo, Ruth Gisela Reina, curadora de la Colección de Peces Neotropicales y técnica de investigación en el laboratorio de Biología Molecular.

Nacida en Villavicencio, Colombia, realizó su licenciatura en la Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lozano, y obtuvo su título de Maestría en Ciencias Ambientales en la Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá. Ruth organizó la logística de un sinnúmero de expediciones por los ríos del país, brindando su apoyo a cientificos nacionales e internacionales en estudios de la biodiversidad de peces. Fue co-autora de 6 artículos científicos publicados en revistas internacionales. Además, fue citada en los agradecimientos de artículos de varios cientificos de gran renombre. Es reconocida en Panamá como una de los expertos con el conocimiento y experiencia necesarios para identificar peces de agua dulce.

Nuestra compañera de 39 años de edad falleció después de rescatar a su hijo en la playa de Viento Frio, Santa Isabel, Colón. Son personas como ella, trabajadora incansable y dedicada, compañera de primera clase, quienes contribuyen a aumentar nuestro entendimiento del planeta y de los otros habitantes que co-existen con nosotros. Se celebrarán las honras fúnebres el día martes 3 de enero a las 2:00pm en Colinas de Paz, Nuevo Arraiján.

Foto: Ruth en el laboratorio de Naos el 25 de abril del 2016 / Cortesía de Sean Mattson/Smithsonian

Increases in global temperatures could cause the release of stored carbon in soils that would be roughly the equivalent of adding to the planet another industrialized country the size of the United States.



https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161130134341.htm?platform=hootsuite

Losses of soil carbon under global warming might equal US emissions: Global study finds losses will be greatest in world's coldest places For decades, scientists have speculated that rising global temperatures might alter the ability of soils to store carbon, potentially releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and triggering runaway climate change. Yet thousands of studies worldwide have produced mixed signals on whether…

If you find yourself in Bocas....

STRI Bocas Research Station is pleased to invite you to the next Public talk on Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 7pm in the Cine Cafe.

Next Thursday, the manager of STRI’s Physical Monitoring Program, Sergio Dos Santos, will talk about the sea level changes in Bocas del Toro and the instruments used to measure them at the Station.

Come half an hour early or stay late for a chance to talk with Sergio.
See you there!

Should you get a real christmas tree or a fake one?



http://www.nature.org/greenliving/gogreen/greenholidays/real-vs-fake-christmas-xmas-trees.xml?utm_campaign=social.nature&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1480625116

Real vs. Fake Christmas Trees | The Nature Conservancy Which kind of Christmas tree -- real or fake -- is better for the environment?

“I’m not entirely sure I’m not crazy. But, maybe I am.”
At 17 he started the Ocean Cleanup Foundation. Some people laughed when he said in his Ted Talk in 2012 that he predicted he could clean up the plastic in five years.

Four years later, Boyan Slat has raised more than $2 million dollars in funding. His team has designed a 100 kilometre long floating plastic boom to scoop up plastic particles. In theory, if this works, he could clean up half of the waste trapped in the Pacific gyre in 10 years.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp-Lh_K7CUY&feature=youtu.be

Meet the genius who’s cleaning up our oceans Boyan Slat noticed there were more plastic bags than fish in the water around him. So, at the age of 16, he instigated the Ocean Cleanup, an enormous - but a...

Did you know that the populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles has gone down by 58% in only 40 years?

Tonight marks the end of the first day of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Cancun, Mexico. 190 countries (Panama included) have come together to stop decline worldwide.

Here's to hoping that the worlds largest economic sectors can come together in the next two weeks to improve and conserve the biodiversity of our planet.



https://twitter.com/UNEP/status/804221868320247808

UN Environment on Twitter “Cancun will be the capital of starting tomorrow! Follow for updates from the UN Biodiversity Conference. https://t.co/HWXkmZfDTm”

Down and dirty in the name of science.
Fellow Diana Chin sends up a plume of sediment while suction sampling as part of her field campaign to investigate the mutualism between seagrass and bivalves. She’ll add field and laboratory experiments to an exhaustive survey to understand where, and why, turtle grass and clams form interdependent relationships. Diana’s study in expands on her work in temperate estuaries to develop a global perspective on these positive interactions.

The more the merrier!
Postdoc Janina Seemann coordinated a collaboration between and Panama's Ministry of the Environment to survey water quality around the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Casts with a a multi-parameter sonde were combined with water collections at several dozen sites. The data will be used to develop maps of oceanographic conditions and to better understand variation in the coastal community.

"We want to protect [the ocean's resources] so they will be available in the future, but we also want to let people keep using them"

researchers design the first marine reserve that solves the "conserve OR catch" conflict associated with marine protected areas.


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161117151348.htm

Scientists design first reserve network balancing fishing benefits, species protection The persistent 'conserve or catch' conflict in marine reserve network design has now been resolved by new research.

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center welcomes three new research centers from Canada, California and Hawaii that have joined the Marine Global Earth Observatory program which aims to measure coastal biodiversity around the globe.

Westward, Ho! MarineGEO Enters The Pacific by Kristen Minogue Imagine gazing into the ocean off Maryland knowing what life is under the waves, what’s driving the food web, and how healthy the water is. Then, imagine being able to discover t…