News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-May-2025 18:09 ET (2-May-2025 22:09 GMT/UTC)

26-Mar-2007

Smithsonian-led Amazon research team wins scientific prize

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

A research team led by William Laurance, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, will be honored for their "Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology" by the International Association of Landscape Ecologists in Tucson, Ariz., April 12. Co-author Susan G. Laurance will accept the award on the team's behalf.

Meeting

International Association of Landscape Ecologists Annual Meeting

12-Mar-2007

Smithsonian study concludes Caribbean extinctions occurred 2M years after apparent cause

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Smithsonian scientists and colleagues report a new study that may shake up the way paleontologists think about how environmental change shapes life on Earth. The researchers summarized the environmental, ecological and evolutionary consequences for Caribbean shallow-water marine communities when the Isthmus of Panama was formed. They concluded that extinctions resulting when one ocean became two were delayed by 2 million years.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Funder

Smithsonian Institution's Marine Science Network, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

8-Mar-2007

Smithsonian scientists discover new marine species in eastern Pacific

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Smithsonian scientists have discovered a biodiversity bounty in the Eastern Pacific -- approximately 50 percent of the organisms found in some groups are new to science. The research team spent 11 days in the Eastern Pacific, a unique, understudied region off the coast of Panama.

29-Jan-2007

Africa's farmers will have room to grow

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A vital research program that has already had significant impact on the lives of African farmers will accelerate its work for their benefit through the development and deployment of better drought tolerant maize.

Funder

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

16-Jan-2007

Dangerous wheat disease jumps Red Sea

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new form of stem rust, a virulent wheat disease, has jumped from eastern Africa and is now infecting wheat in Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula.

Funder

USAID, CIDA, USDA/Agricultural Research Service, Indian Council of Agricultural Research

11-Jan-2007

Large size crucial for Amazon forest reserves

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international research team has discovered that the size of Amazon forest reserves is yet more important than previously thought. Their findings, to be published this week (Jan. 12) in the journal Science, underscore the importance of protecting the Amazon in large stretches of primary forest.

Journal

Science

18-Dec-2006

This party doesn't start until the hosts arrive

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Disease-causing organisms can be present in some areas where their hosts are not. If their hosts arrive, novel disease outbreaks may result. In the first comprehensive genetic analysis of an invasive marine host and its parasites, researchers trace invasion pathways of snails and trematodes from Japan to North America.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Funder

Ecology of Infectious Disease program of the US National Institutes of Health/National Science Foundation, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

7-Dec-2006

Bioprospecting not biopiracy

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By training professionals in high-biodiversity regions to advance the drug discovery process in-country, a novel program drives drug discovery costs down as it promotes tropical biodiversity conservation. An international team describes a successful test of the program in Panama in the December 2006 issue of BioScience.

Journal

BioScience

Funder

National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, National Institutes of Health

27-Nov-2006

Fragmentation rapidly erodes Amazonian biodiversity

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international research team has discovered that forest fragmentation poses an even greater threat to Amazonian biodiversity than previously thought. Their findings, to be published next week (November 27–December 1) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, summarizes key findings from the world's largest and longest-running experimental study of habitat fragmentation.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Funder

Food and Health Foundation, A.W. Mellon Foundation, NASA, Smithsonian Institution, National Science Foundation, Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology, US World Wildlife Fund, Conservation

28-Sep-2006

James Mandel

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Reports and Proceedings