Coordinator of Neotropical Program Appointed: Dr. Tania Brenes Arguedas

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Tania Brenes Arguedas has joined the Center for Tropical Forest Science-Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory (CTFS-SIGEO) to coordinate research and training activities for the Neotropical Program.

Tania joins CTFS-SIGEO following a post-doctoral fellowship at STRI, where she investigated the effects of herbivores, pathogens, drought, and light on tree distributions across the Isthmus of Panama. Tania is originally from Costa Rica. She did her BSc degree at the University of Costa Rica and her PhD at the University of Utah, where she focused on the role of biotic and abiotic factors in shaping the defensive adaptations of the genus Inga.

Tania's experience working in Latin America and studying neotropical forests will help enhance the expanding CTFS-SIGEO program in the region. She is based at the CTFS-SIGEO office in Panama.

HIPPNET: CTFS Partner in Hawai‘i

In a recent article for UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research, Lawren Sack describes the establishment of the Hawai‘i Permanent Plot Network (HIPPNET) and discusses the kinds of critical forest research the project facilitates.

Click here to read Lawren's article and learn about the important work that CTFS partners are doing in Hawai‘i.

Photo by Susan Cordell: Metrosideros polymorpha, Laupahoehoe.

Photo by Susan Cordell: Diospyros sandwicensism, Palamanui.

Harvard Symposium Focuses on Trees and the Global Environment

Last week, the 6th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Symposium drew a crowd of several hundred people to hear (in Cambridge and via the Web) a multidisciplinary group of researchers present some of today’s most advanced science and social science related to trees and the global environment.

The symposium was co-organized and hosted by the Harvard University Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and CTFS-Arnold Arboretum with support from the HSBC Climate Partnership. See Alvin Powell’s article in the Harvard Gazette for a summary of the symposium. Videos of the talks are available online for viewing at http://arboretum.harvard.edu/research/pbi.html.