Mark Torchin, a marine ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, talks about how he studies the parasites of invasive marine animals such as snails. Much of his research focuses on biological invasions and the dynamics between the host, the parasites and the surrounding ecosystem. [...more]
These opportunistic plants quickly fill-in the gap taking advantage of the increased light coming through the tree canopy and the fresh soil at the fallen tree’s turned-up roots. [...more]
As researchers investigate the impact of the Burmese python in the Everglades, scientists from the Smithsonian Institution, South Florida Natural Resources Center and the University of Florida examined the snake’s predation of the area’s birds. They found that birds, including endangered species, accounted for 25 percent of the python’s diet in the Everglades. [...more]
By pulling together data from eight different studies, we now have irrefutable evidence that vines are on the rise not only in the Amazon, but throughout the American tropics. [...more]
Office of Public Affairs videographers Johnny Gibbons and Brian Ireley recently headed down to the Punta Culebra Nature Center on the edge of Panama City to meet up with Mark Torchin a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Torchin’s research focuses on invasive marine species and the parasites that they carry with them. He [...] [...more]
Twenty years ago scientists at the Marine Invasions Lab of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., began studying the interactions between native grass shrimp and their common predators along the shores of the Rhode River in Maryland. Several of these predators–rockfish, white perch and blue crabs–are economically and ecologically important to the Bay [...] [...more]
Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have found that fledgling catbirds living in the suburbs are extremely vulnerable. Almost 80 percent are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. Nearly half of the deaths are connected to domestic cats. The team studied catbird nests in 3 suburban neighborhoods in Maryland: Spring Park, Opal Daniels Park, and Bethesda. Learn more about this 2011 study by clicking here. (Catbird photo by Gerhard Hofmann)
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