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Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 1999 



scientists, are continuing their work on the Panama Paleon- 

 tology Project, which studies the 20-million-year history of 

 the ecological and evolutionary consequences of the rise and 

 closing of the Isthmus of Panama. 



At another research site in Panama at Sardinilla, Colon, 

 engineers from the Brookhaven National Laboratories of the 

 Department of Energy, who participate in a collaborative 

 project with STRI, McGill University, the University of 

 Panama, and the Universidad Catolica Santa Maria La An- 

 tigua, set up the equipment and conducted successfully the 

 first test run of the FACE project (Free Air Carbon Dioxide 

 Enrichment project) ring. The equipment, used for the first 

 time in the tropics, was tested to determine how it re- 

 sponded to Panama's wet and dry season conditions. The 

 FACE project aims to understand the consequences of future 

 emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, particularly 

 on the regeneration of forest. Due to the high costs of carbon 

 dioxide that are released to simulate future emission levels, 

 the continuation of this project will depend on securing 

 funds for its future operation. 



At Panama's Metropolitan Natural Park, visiting scien- 

 tists Stephen Mulkey, Kaoru Kitajima, and Eric Graham, 

 from the University of Florida, with Joseph Wright of the 

 STRI staff used the canopy access system to study the effects 

 of the atmospheric phenomenon of "La Nina" on tropical for- 

 est. As part of this experiment, they installed high-intensity 

 lamps on the crowns of two trees to augment sunlight dur- 

 ing cloudy and rainy periods. Their preliminary results 

 indicated that tropical trees may be light-limited during 

 part of the year. This would suggest that the increase in 

 cloud coverage produced by La Nina could potentially have 

 an impact on the carbon dioxide uptake of tropical forest. 



STRI fellows Cameron Currie and Ulrich Muller with Ted 

 R. Schultz, a curator of the Smithsonian National Museum 

 of Natural History and researchers at the University of 

 Toronto advanced our knowledge of the evolution of the mu- 

 tually beneficial relationship between ants of the genus 

 Attini and the fungus they cultivate as their sole food source. 

 Their findings demonstrate that this relationship is extraor- 

 dinarily complex and could be quite recent: Ants can acquire 

 a new fungus from the wild or from different ant groups. 

 They also discovered a highly specialized fungus that can at- 

 tack the ants' fungal gardens, and another mutually 

 beneficial relationship between the ants and actinomycete 

 bacteria, which help maintain the ants' garden suitable for 

 their fungal crop. This research was highlighred in the New 

 York Times Science Section on August 3, 1999. 



During FY 1999 STRI scientists, visitors, and students 

 published the results of their studies in 203 scholarly publi- 

 cations. This included books such as Tropical Forest Ecology: A 

 View from Barro Colorado (Oxford University Press: 1999) by 

 staff scientist Egbert G. Leigh, Jr.; A Paleobiotic Survey of 

 Caribbean Faunas from the Neogetie Isthmus of Panama (Allen 

 Press: 1999), a collection of papers edited by visiting scien- 

 tist Laurel S. Collins and Anthony G. Coates, STRI; and 

 Feces del Pacifico Tropical Oriental (1998) by Gerard R. Allen 

 and STRI scientist D. Ross Robertson, a Spanish translation 



of a guide of Pacific fishes from the Gulf of California to the 

 Galapagos, supported by a grant to STRI from the Smith- 

 sonian's W. Atherton Seidell Endowment Fund. 

 STRI-affiliated authors published three papers in Science and 

 two in Nature and contributed to the diffusion of scientific 

 knowledge through the publication of a bilingual guide 

 (Spanish-English) on The Amphibians of Barro Colorado Nature 

 Monument, Soberania National Park and Adjacent Areas (1999) 

 by Roberto D. Ibafiez, A. Stanley Rand, and Cesar A. 

 Jaramillo. This guide is also accompanied by STRI's first 

 CD, which includes frog vocalizations produced by the same 

 authors, in conjunction with Michael J. Ryan, visiting scien- 

 tist from the Universiry of Texas at Austin. Another major 

 publication aimed at non-scientific audiences produced this 

 year was La Cuenca del Canal: Deforestacidn, Urbanizacion y 

 Contaminacion, edited by Stanley Heckadon-Moreno, Roberto 

 D. Ibafiez, and Richard Condit (STRI: 1999). This publica- 

 tion was the summary of a three-year environmental 

 monitoring study of the Panama Canal Watershed, con- 

 ducted by STRI, affiliated with Panama's National 

 Environmental Authority (ANAM), and funded by the U.S. 

 Agency for International Development (AID). 



Another major accomplishment of the year was STRI's 

 signing the five-year agreement with Panama's National En- 

 vironmental Authority (ANAM) that permits 

 STRI-affiliated scientists to carry out a project designed to 

 link conservation of Panamanian biodiversity with bio- 

 prospecting for novel products for medicine and agriculture. 

 This project, which will be conducted jointly with laborato- 

 ries at the University of Panama and Panama's Ministry of 

 Health, developed from basic information on tropical forest 

 trees and insects produced by studies at STRI's field station 

 on Barro Colorado Island. Funding for the project was pro- 

 vided by the National Institutes of Health through a 

 comperitive grant process of the International Cooperative 

 Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) program. 



In addirion to providing opporrunities for research in the 

 tropics, STRI promotes training in its research areas. During 

 FY 1999, STRI hosred two undergraduate field programs, 

 with Princeton and McGill Universities, as well as held its 

 annual field course for University of Panama students from 

 July 18 ro 26 at STRI Gigante Peninsula, a part of rhe Barro 

 Colorado Nature Monument. For the first time this year, 

 STRI cosponsored a six-week intensive eco-tourism guide 

 training course with the local tourism industry and the U.S. 

 Agency for International Development. Many STRI scien- 

 tists participated along with international and local 

 instructors in this course from April 19 through May 28, 

 which responded to Panama's Tourism, Conservation and 

 Research (TCR) Acrion Plan, designed to develop a sustain- 

 able tourism industry. 



STRI continued its outreach efforts in FY 1999, with the 

 presentation of the traveling exhibition "Our Reefs: 

 Caribbean Connections" in Belize, City, Belize, during the 

 month of November. STRI's exhibirion "Parting the Green 

 Curtain," which explains how the isthmus of Panama and 

 STRI research has contributed to the development of tropi- 



