Plant-eating insects inhabit all forest ecosystems, but sometimes their numbers explode, resulting in massive tree defoliation. In the October issue of the Journal of Tropical Ecology researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) associate a severe moth outbreak with drought conditions following the 1997-1998 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event in a dry lowland forest near Panama's Pacific coast. If ENSO events become more common, repeated herbivore outbreaks might alter forest species composition.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has just published a 271 p. English translation of Stanley Heckadon-Moreno's "Naturalistas del Istmo de Panama", a compendium of the adventures of the late 19th and early 20th Century explorers and natural historians who documented the flora and fauna flooded during Panama Canal construction and collected throughout the Isthmus.

One of the first environmental impact studies ever, the Smithsonian Institution's 1910 Panama Biological Survey provided baseline data for Panama Canal construction. The Canal rerouted a river on Panama's Atlantic slope into the Pacific Ocean--connecting watersheds across a continent. Freshwater fish from both slopes intermingled. New results from McGill University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama show that invading freshwater fish caused no extinctions of resident fish in tributaries on either slope.

Evidence presented in the journal Nature (August 5, 2004), by archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University and the University of Haifa, pushes back the date for the processing of close wild relatives of domesticated wheat and barley--a key step in cultural development-- to 23,000 years before the present era.

In today's issue of Science (21 May 2004), a team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists show that the rate of forest destruction has accelerated significantly in Brazilian Amazonia since 1990. The team asserts, moreover, that Amazonian deforestation will likely continue to increase unless the Brazilian government alters its aggressive plans for highway and infrastructure expansion.

A new guide to the orchid bees of tropical America is now available. Co-authored by David Roubik, Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and Paul E. Hanson; published by Costa Rica's National Biodiversity Institute (INBio), this bilingual field guide provides a "comprehensive review of orchid bee studies aimed at both biologists and those bold enough approach rainforest bees out of curiosity."

A research team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists has shown that rainforests in central Amazonia are experiencing striking changes in dynamics and species composition. Although the cause of these changes are believed to be completely undisturbed, old-growth forests is uncertain, a leading explanation is that they are being driven by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Panama's International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) announces the development of a new test for identification of antimalarial compounds with wide applicability in the developing world. The assay for plant-derived compounds also can be used to detect anti-plasmodial compounds from synthetic or natural sources. Initial results of the research are published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene under the title "A Novel DNA-Based Microfluorometric Method to Evaluate Antimalarial Drug Activity".

Insect feces and leaf litter in the rainforest may provide important clues to better understanding global climate change, according to a group of scientists conducting research in the Panamanian rainforest on a JASON Project expedition.