Message from the Director
December 22, 2008
I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season and close to 2008
I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season and close to 2008. We have a great group at STRI and their passion for the tropics and science makes directing STRI intellectually engaging, fun and extraordinarily worthwhile.
Our society is increasingly recognizing that good environmental policy, human health and forecasts of future conditions depend on high-quality basic science.
Thirty years ago STRI committed to identifying, mapping, mea suring and counting roughly three hundred thousand trees on Barro Colorado Island, and following the fate of these trees through time because it was good science and a smart thing to do in order to learn anything meaningful about diversity in tropical forests. It was such good science that the BCI model is now replicated in 33 forest plots in 19 countries, creating the first actuarial table for trees around the world.
An international collaboration led by STRI and the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard is now monitoring the growth and survival of 3.5 million trees —representing over 12% of all known tree species. Owing to the generosity of two donors and a grant from HSBC Climate Partnership, the past year has been incredibly productive for our CTFS or SIGEO. We have established new partnerships and forest dynamic plots in the USA, Brazil, UK, China, Papua New Guinea and Brunei, and are collecting new types of data that permit us to better address the impact of climate change on forest diversity and ecological function.
In the past year we have also forged exciting new collaborative relationships with the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) Panama's Environment Authority (ANAM) and two private donors.
Taking advantage of a long-term study with Yale University on reforestation with native trees, we have established the Panama Canal Watershed Experiment, called Agua Salud. This 20-year or more study will quantify the full range of ecosystem services that tropical forests and other land management approaches provide the Panama Canal. Owing to the tremendous interest and global commercial importance of the Panama Canal, our aim is to use the Agua Salud experiment to focus the world's attention on the fate and importance of tropical lowland forests, and promote recognition of the critical role such forests play for human wellbeing. The long-term nature of the study will insure that we quantify forest response to climate change phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña, thus permitting the development of models that will help forecast forest ecosystem function and services as the climate changes as a result of increasing levels of CO2.
One of the hallmarks of STRI research, whether following the fate of forest trees, fish larvae on coral reefs or bird populations on Pipeline Road, is our recognition of the importance of long-term observation. Our scientists often continue studies for decades, obtaining results that can completely overturn conventional knowledge based on shorter-term investigation.
Nonetheless, in terms of timescale, it is difficult to match Earth's natural experiments, and the study of environmental change recorded by fossils and rocks. Much of what we know about the rise of the Isthmus of Panama three million years ago resulted from exposures of rocks and fossils revealed by the construction of the Panama Canal at the turn of the last century. One hundred years later, new exposures are being revealed as Panama embarks on a major expansion of the Panama Canal, and the construction of a third set of locks. The changes in shipping practices will yield a reduced carbon and water footprint for cargo transiting the Panama Canal, but the paleontological partnership with ACP has already yielded 500 fossil species of mam mals, turtles and plants. These fossils and the associated geology are generating new clues and insights regarding the rise of the Isthmus of Panama and the remarkable environmental and climatic changes that were associated with this event.
As a result of a new fellowship endowment and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this year we welcomed in residence our first senior Latin American Fellow. Training the next generation of tropical scientists is central to our mission, and in 2008 we supported 125 research interns, 69 graduate and postdoctoral fellows including 14 Latin American scholars, and three Stanley Rand Fellows. In addition, we have joined with the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies to take our training mission on the road. The STRI-Yale Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI) led courses in Panama, Brazil, Peru and Malaysia to enhance the capacity of key decision makers to better manage and protect forest ecosystems and biodiversity.
Two thousand and eight saw the development of a 20-year facilities master plan that aims to bring state-of-the-science laboratories to the edge of tropical forests and coral reefs. Accordingly, we have embarked on the design of a new research campus in Gamboa that will place investigators and their equipment at the forest threshold, and have almost completed design of a new residence and dining facility at our Bocas del Toro laboratory.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper authored by one of our five-year postdoctoral fellows on the social interactions of white-faced capuchin monkeys using the Automated Radio Telemetry System on BCI. This sophisticated system exemplifies the advantages gained by providing facilities that place scientists and their high-tech equipment immediately adjacent to their field sites.
Although this year represented a transition in our senior leadership, science gained traction across the Smithsonian under the leadership of Cristián Samper as acting secretary, and Ira as acting under secretary of Science. Wayne Clough, past president of Georgia Tech, a geologist and member of the National Academy, began as the new secretary of the Smithsonian in July and he has already embarked on a strategic plan for the institution that I firmly believe will increase funding for science.
We have several events on our 2009 calendar that I would like to bring to your attention. "Will the rainforests survive? New threats and realities in the tropical extinction crisis" is a public debate on January 12th that will keynote two senior scientists from STRI. Sponsored by the Science Committee of the Smithsonian National Board the debate will be held on the National Mall at the National Museum of Natural History. The controversy centers on whether human demographic trends in the developing world will lead to the recovery of forests and biodiversity, or unabated tropical extinction owing to the impoverished nature of regenerated secondary forest.
The Smithsonian Latino Center will celebrate Panama, including STRI, in a series of events throughout 2009 that will culminate in an exhibition beginning in October in the Ripley International Center on the National Mall.
It has been an outstanding year at STRI and we look forward with great expectations to 2009. There has never been a time when basic research in the tropics has been more important. The pace of landscape transformation and the loss of tropical diversity is attracting significant attention from the public and policy makers, but more than ever, good science is needed to guide decisions.
Thanks to your support, STRI stands strong, and counts on a superb group of resident and visiting scientists and an administrative staff second to none, helping to insure that our studies of tropical nature inform and inspire our colleagues and the public at large.
Eldredge Bermingham
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