Project IBISCA-Panama monitors thousands of arthropods

Scientists in Panama, led by Yves Basset, SIGEO-CTFS Arthropod Program Coordinator, have spent nearly 10 years studying the diversity of arthropods in a tropical forest (San Lorenzo forest). The study, called Project IBISCA-Panama, brought together 102 researchers from 21 different countries. They combed the forest from the floor to the top of the canopy for all insects and plant species. They picked beetles out of dead wood, scaled trees to get leaves and insects off high branches, and flogged trees with insecticides to collect flying insects. In all, 130,000 arthropods were sampled, comprising more than 6,000 identified species. 

The findings of this study, which were recently published in Science, show arthropod species outnumbering mammal species by approximately 300 to 1. They similarly outnumber plants by 20 to 1. Scientists involved in the project say the reason for the extreme diversity of arthropods is their tiny size and limited resource requirements. Researchers also found that even for carnivorous arthropods, plant diversity was an indicator of arthropod species richness because plants provide the habitat structure and food resources on which these arthropods and their prey depend.

The Panamanian project was crucial for developing the ambitious SIGEO-CTFS program of arthropod monitoring in tropical rainforests (http://www.sigeo.si.edu/group/arthropod%20monitoring/).

New CTFS-SIGEO Program Assistant, Delaney Rakosnik

We are pleased to announce that Delaney Rakosnik has joined the Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory-Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS-SIGEO) as Program Assistant for the network. Delaney joins SIGEO-CTFS after working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service as an administrative assistant in Portland, Oregon. Before joining the USFWS, Delaney served in the US Air Force for 9 years, where she deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Delaney is currently attending school full time, pursuing a degree in public administration. Delaney enjoys live theater, and is an avid fan of the NFL. She will be based at the SIGEO-CTFS headquarters at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The Story of Asia’s Elephants, by CTFS-SIGEO Researcher Raman Sukumar

In his new book The Story of Asia’s Elephants, Raman Sukumar examines the important relationship between the elephant and man in Asia.  Although the fields of art history, literary scholarship, and archaeology have documented the relationship, until now there has been no comprehensive account of this rich story.  The book examines elephant-human interaction in Asia from prehistory, Vedic literature, the Mauryan empire, the Buddhist and Jain world, to the elephant under Hindu rulers, the Islamic world, Colonial and independent Asia.  The final chapter discusses the elephant’s ecology and behavior, and conservation issues. The book contains 250 color images of the Asian elephant in nature and in the arts.

Raman Sukumar is Professor and Chairman of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.  A leading expert on the Asian elephant, he has written several books on its ecology and conservation.  He also works on climate change and tropical forest ecology, and is PI of the CTFS Mudumalai plot in India.

The book is published by The Marg Foundation (2012), ISBN: 9789380581101.

CTFS-SIGEO Ecologist Appointed: Kristina Anderson-Teixeira

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Kristina Anderson-Teixeira has joined the Center for Tropical Forest Science- Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory in the position of Ecosystem Ecologist. Kristina’s appointment is a joint appointment between CTFS-SIGEO and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI). She will be based at SCBI in Front Royal, Virginia.

Dr. Kristina Anderson-Teixeira

Kristina received her B.S. in Biology cum laude from Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL, and her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. She has been a postdoctoral research associate at the University of New Mexico, as well as at the University of Illinois, under Evan H. DeLucia. She also worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Global Change Solutions, LLC. Kristina describes herself as a broadly thinking ecologist specializing in terrestrial ecosystem ecology, global change ecology, and sustainability. Her approach combines data synthesis and analysis, theoretical ecology, and field research and focuses on understanding how climate--and climate change--shapes ecosystems, and how ecosystems in turn regulate climate. She is also involved in interdisciplinary and international research applying this knowledge to inform sustainable land use decisions in an era of climate change. CTFS-SIGEO welcomes Kristina and looks forward to her contributions to the network.

Collaboration Between Smithsonian and Bradley University Strengthens Through Participation in 2012 CTFS-SIGEO Workshop

In 2006, CTFS and Bradley University began a collaboration that has greatly improved the CTFS database, and has simultaneously produced significant learning outcomes for a select group of talented Bradley Capstone students. Now going into its seventh year, the alliance has engaged 27 students and owes its success to a strong partnership between CTFS-SIGEO Senior Scientist Richard Condit and Bradley University’s Professor Steven Dolins, who leads the Capstone Course. This summer, Dolins joins CTFS-SIGEO’s Dimensions of Biodiversity Workshop in Seattle, Washington, along with Research Assistant Anudeep Singh MS ‘09, and rising senior Steven McHenry, who will be taking Dr. Dolins’ Capstone Class in the 2012-2013 school year.

The outcomes of the partnership have been apparent each year that this course has been offered. In its first year, students focused on making basic improvements to the CTFS database design in order to better track and report the tree species found at BCI. In subsequent years, students worked to build and improve the database’s graphical user interface (GUI) for data entry, generalizing the database for all CTFS-SIGEO plots, and streamlining ways for scientists who aren’t well-versed in R to analyze data. Dr. Dolins said, “Each one of these projects have provided students with excellent real world, experiential learning opportunities. Students had to learn a new domain, interact with domain experts, and produce deliverables. They are much better prepared for their future careers in software and database development.”

Dr. Dolins is looking forward to sharing their current work with the 50 participants of the CTFS Workshop. His group will present its on-going work on data entry and the new user interface, with hopes of getting feedback directly from the users. They will also present future work ideas, such as visualization, data mining, and other analytical tools.

Database working group from left to right: Anudeep Singh, Steven McHenry, Richard Condit, and Steven Dolins

Prestigious Award Given to CTFS-SIGEO Associate Researcher Nate Swenson for Promising Research on Species Distributions

Nate Swenson, Assistant Professor at the Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University and CTFS-SIGEO Associate Researcher has been awarded this year’s €30,000 Ebbe Nielsen Prize, funded by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Swenson’s research will contribute to a better understanding of how plants respond to climate change.

The Ebbe Nielsen Prize, named in memory of the Danish-Australian scientist whose work helped to inspire GBIF and who died shortly before its establishment, is awarded annually to researchers in the early stages of their careers who combine biosystematics and biodiversity informatics research in novel ways. Swenson’s research will use data published through GBIF and data from the iPlant Tree of Life program for a large-scale analysis to study the evolution of climatic niches in plants. The analysis will be carried out jointly with Dr. Jens-Christian Svenning (the 2011 Ebbe Nielsen Prize winner) and the Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity Groups at the Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Denmark. In a statement submitted during his nomination, Swenson says, “We could quantify how quickly or slowly climatic niches evolve in seed plants. The findings would have direct implications for our understanding of how plants may or may not respond to temporal changes in global climate.”

CTFS-SIGEO Associate Researcher Nate Swenson

Speaking about Swenson’s selection, the chair of the GBIF Science Committee, Leonard Krishtalka, said, “The GBIF Science Committee recognized Swenson’s innovative research and informatics tools that deploy biodiversity data – the kind provided globally by GBIF – to better understand the interaction between climate dynamics and complex ecological and evolutionary mechanisms. Ultimately, his work serves science and society, and advances biodiversity informatics to inform environmental analyses and policy.”

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility was established by governments in 2001 to encourage free and open access to biodiversity data, via the Internet. Through a global network of countries and organizations, GBIF promotes and facilitates the mobilization, access, discovery, and use of information about the occurrence of organisms over time and across the planet.

Publications: February 2012 - April 2012

Da-Yong Zhang, Bo-Yu Zhang, Kui Lin, Xinhua Jiang, Yi Tao, Stephen Hubbell, Fangliang He, and Annette Ostling.  2012. Demographic trade-offs determine species abundance and diversity. Journal of Plant Ecology 5(1):82-88

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He, Fangliang, Da-Yong Zhang, and Hui Lin. 2012. Coexistence of nearly neutral species. Journal of Plant Ecology 5(1): 72-81

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Katabuchi, M., H. Kurokawa, S.J. Davies, S. Tan and T. Nakashizuka, T. 2012. Soil resource availability shapes community trait structure in a species-rich dipterocarp forest. Journal of Ecology 100:643-651.

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Lutz, James A., Andrew J. Larson, Mark E. Swanson, and James A. Freund. 2012. Ecological Importance of Large-Diameter Trees in a Temperate Mixed-Conifer Forest.  PLoS ONE 7(5):e36131.

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Román-Dañobeytia, Francisco J., Samuel I. Levy-Tacher, James Aronson, Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues, and Jorge Castellanos-Albores. 2012. Testing the Performance of Fourteen Native Tropical Tree Species in Two Abandoned Pastures of the Lacandon Rainforest Region of Chiapas, Mexico. Restoration Ecology 20(3):378-386.

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Rosindell, J., P.A. Jansen, and R.S. Etienne. 2012. Age structure in neutral theory resolves inconsistencies related to reproductive-size threshold. Journal of Plant Ecology 5(1):64-71.

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Rüger, N. and R. Condit. 2012. Testing metabolic theory with models of tree growth that include light competition. Functional Ecology doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2012.01981.x

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Russo, S.E., L. Zhang and S. Tan. 2012. Covariation between understorey light environments and soil resources in Bornean mixed dipterocarp rain forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 28:33–44.

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Swenson, N.G., J.C. Stegen, S.J. Davies, D.L. Erickson, J. Forero-Montaña, A.H. Hurlbert, W.J. Kress, J. Thompson, M. Uriarte, and J.K. Zimmerman. 2012. Temporal turnover in the composition of tropical tree communities: functional determinism and phylogenetic stochasticity. Ecology 93:490-499.

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Uriarte, María, James S. Clark, Jess K. Zimmerman, Liza C. Comita, Jimena Forero-Montaña, and Jill Thompson. 2012. Multidimensional trade-offs in species responses to disturbance: implications for diversity in a subtropical forest. Ecology 93(1):191-205.

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Zimmermann, A., T. Franke, and H. Elsenbeer. 2012. Forests and erosion: Insights from a study of suspended-sediment dynamics in an overland flow-prone rainforest catchment. Journal of Hydrology 428:170-181.

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