Disappearing snakes and the biodiversity crisis

Date:  February 13, 2020

Source:  Michigan State University

A Michigan State University- and University of Maryland-led study should sound alarm bells regarding the "biodiversity crisis" or the loss of wildlife around the world.

The loss of any species is devastating. However, the decline or extinction of one species can trigger an avalanche within an ecosystem, wiping out many species in the process. When biodiversity losses cause cascading effects within a region, they can eliminate many data-deficient species -- animals that have eluded scientific study or haven't been researched enough to understand how best to conserve them.

"Some species that are rare or hard to detect may be declining so quickly that we might not ever know that we're losing them," said Elise Zipkin, MSU integrative biologist and the study's lead author. "In fact, this study is less about snakes and more about the general loss of biodiversity and its consequences."

The snakes in question reside in a protected area near El Copé, Panama. The new study documents how the snake community plummeted after an invasive fungal pathogen wiped out most of the area's frogs, a primary food source. Thanks to the University of Maryland's long-term study tracking amphibians and reptiles, the team had seven years of data on the snake community before the loss of frogs and six years of data afterwards.

Yet even with that extensive dataset, many species were detected so infrequently that traditional analysis methods were impossible. To say that these snakes are highly elusive or rare would be an understatement. Of the 36 snake species observed during the study, 12 were detected only once and five species were detected twice.

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New butterfly named for pioneering 17th-century entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian

Date:December 5, 2018

Source:Florida Museum of Natural History

More than two centuries before initiatives to increase the number of women in STEM fields, 52-year-old Maria Sibylla Merian sailed across the Atlantic on a largely self-funded scientific expedition to document the animals and plants of Dutch Suriname.

Born in Germany in 1647, Merian was a professional artist and naturalist whose close observations and illustrations were the first to accurately portray the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths and emphasize the intimate relationship between insects and their host plants.

Now, a new Central American butterfly species has been named in her honor.

Catasticta sibyllae is a rare, black butterfly known from only two male specimens found in Panama decades apart. One had been stowed, unidentified, in a drawer at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History since the 1980s. The other was collected in May.

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What stops mass extinctions? Lessons from amphibian die-off in Panama

Date:  March 29, 2018

Source:  Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Summary:

What slows or stops a disease epidemic if the pathogen is still present? It appears that wild frogs are becoming increasingly resistant to the chytrid fungal disease that has decimated amphibian populations around the world.

Black plague killed between 30 to 50 percent of people worldwide. The cause, Yersinia pestis, is still around, but people are not dying of the plague. An even more devastating modern disease caused by the chytrid fungus wiped entire frog and salamander populations off the map. New results from work at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama published in the Mar. 29 edition of Science, reveal the outcomes of the chytridiomycosis epidemic and their implications for diseases of mass destruction.

Read more 

Boat traffic threatens the survival of Panama's Bocas Del Toro dolphins

Geneticists recommend designating isolated dolphin population as 'endangered'

Date:December 22, 2017

Source:Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Summary:Bottlenose dolphins in Panama's Bocas Del Toro Archipelago should be designated as endangered say the authors of a new study. Biologists have discovered that the roughly 80 dolphins in the archipelago do not interbreed with other Caribbean bottlenose dolphins. Their low numbers jeopardize their long-term survival, which is threatened by increasing local boat traffic that killed at least seven dolphins in 2012.

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Jaguar conservation depends on neighbors' attitudes

December 28, 2017, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

A jaguar named Aquiles caught in a camera trap image taken in Cana, Panama. The number one cause of jaguar deaths in Panama is retaliation for livestock predation. Enclosing livestock in corrals during the night can significantly reduce …more

According to a new survey of residents living near two major national parks in Panama, jaguars deserve increased protection. Nature and wildlife are considered national treasures. But because most residents still support road-building in the parks, the survey team—including Ricardo Moreno, a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute research associate—recommends further education to emphasize the connection between healthy ecosystems and jaguar survival.

"Attitudes of stakeholder groups are especially important to consider, as they can significantly affect policy, thus making the foundations of carnivore management as social and political as they are scientific," the study concludes.

Cerro Hoya National Park is an isolated tropical forest remnant (325 square kilometers, 125 square miles) on Panama's Pacific coast, whereas Darién National Park is Panama's most extensive park (5,790 square kilometers, 2235 square miles) in the area between Panama and Colombia, the only gap in the Pan-American highway from Alaska to Chile.

"According to our study, there is more human—jaguar conflict in Darién National Park, probably because communities are near larger tracts of unbroken forest, which is much better jaguar habitat," Moreno said. "Ironically, the respondents' ideas about roads into the parks are likely to increase this conflict and make effective park management significantly more challenging."

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This crazy monogamous fish changes sex 20 times per day. Why?

JULY 7, 2016

by Chuck Bednar

Monogamy and hermaphroditism are not all that uncommon in the animal kingdom, but put both of these traits together and ramp them up to 11 and you have an unusual type of fish that changes its sex role more than 20 times per day while remaining faithful to its life partner.

This unusual species is known as the chalk bass (Serranus tortugarum), and according to a new study published recently in the journal Behavioral Ecology, this tiny reef fish lives in Panama, is neon green in color, grows to more than three inches in length, and enters a lifelong relationship with a mate that requires it to rapidly switch between male and female roles.

According to National Geographic, chalk bass utilize a reproductive technique known as “egg trading” in which they split their daily egg clutch into small groups, then alternate sex roles in repeated spawning bouts to ensure that they can fertilize as many eggs as they make. Switching roles encourages reciprocation and faithfulness from their mates, the study said.

“Our study indicates that animals in long-term partnerships are paying attention to whether their partner is contributing to the relationship fairly – something many humans may identify with from their own long-term relationships,” lead author Mary Hart, an adjunct biology professor at the University of Florida, said in a statement.

Unexpected behavior appears to provide a reproductive advantage

Switching sex roles is key to the survival of the chalk bass, Hart explained, because it is the only way that a member of the species can make sure its partner is contributing equally. Basically, if a member of the species wants its mate to produce more eggs, it first has to lead by example.

Hart told Nat Geo that, during her observations of the species, she found that individuals would rarely produce more than two egg parcels at one time before changing sex roles and encouraging their mate to follow their example. Her team monitored the chalk bass for six months and found that all of the couples remained together the entire time that both were living at the site.

Read more at 

Relationship advice from a gender-bending fish that mates for life

Date: June 9, 2016

Source: University of Florida

A 3-inch monogamous hermaphrodite proves the saying "there's plenty more fish in the sea" isn't always the case.

For the tiny fish found in the coral reefs off Panama, a lifelong relationship with its partner doesn't come without some give and take. In fact, the faithful pair owe their evolutionary success to trading male and female roles: According to an April 2016 University of Florida study in the journal of Behavioral Ecology, the fish switch genders at least 20 times each day.

This reproductive strategy allows individuals to fertilize about as many eggs as they produce, giving the neon-blue fish a reproductive edge. Its mating habits may, at first, seem complex and unusual, but UF scientist Mary Hart said the loyal chalk bass offers humans in relationships this simple wisdom: You get what you give.

"Our study indicates that animals in long-term partnerships are paying attention to whether their partner is contributing to the relationship fairly -- something many humans may identify with from their own long-term relationships," said Hart, lead author and an adjunct professor in UF's biology department.

In fact, the duo motivate one another to contribute eggs to the relationship because if one partner lacks eggs, the other will simply match whatever it produces. The only way for a partner to convince its mate to produce more eggs, is to pick up the slack and generate more itself, Hart said.

Hart worked with her husband of 10 years, co-author Andrew Kratter, an ornithologist with the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, to study the ocean-dwelling partners. For six months, the scientists observed the short-lived chalk bass, Serranus tortugarum, while scuba diving off the coast of Panama.

Read on …

Tiny island deer in Panama hunted to extinction thousands of years ago

Date: March 3, 2016

Source: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Once there was a dwarf deer on an island in the Pacific, but residents hunted it to extinction 6,000 years ago. Knowing this may help to conserve conservation of deer on a neighboring island.

As polar ice caps melted at the end of the last Ice Age about 8,500 years ago, the global sea level rose and Panama's Pearl Islands were isolated from the mainland. A new archaeological study by a team including a Smithsonian scientist shows that several thousand years later pre-Columbian colonists hunted a dwarf deer to extinction on an island called Pedro González.

The settlers arrived on the 14-hectare island by sea 6,200 years ago and stayed for a maximum of eight centuries, farming maize and roots, fishing, gathering palm fruits and shellfish and hunting deer, opossums, agoutis, iguanas and large snakes--the major predators.

"When I was washing the animal bones from the first test cut in 2008, out fell a deer ankle bone called a calcaneum," said Richard Cooke, archaeologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and co-author of the study. "It was so tiny that I realized we had come across a population that had probably dwarfed through isolation."

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Trail camera captures super rare image of elusive bush dog

JANUARY 20, 2016

by Brett Smith

The bush dog is one of the most elusive canid species in the world, rarely seen across its range of Central and South America. Yet, a new collection of photos taken by robotic camera traps reveal the species to be prevalent in Panama.

image: http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2016/01/107038_web.jpg

The photos and a report on the status of the bush dog in Panama were published in the Canid Biology & Conservation journal.

Bush dogs are short-legged and stand only around a foot tall at the shoulder. They live primarily in tropical forests, but have been documented in disparate and modified habitats. Hunting in groups of up to 10 animals, bush dogs make high-pitched whines to reach out to each other and yap like puppies when they run after their prey. They mostly eat large forest rodents, but at one location in Brazil, they primarily ate armadillos. Ferocious for their size, a pack of six was documented chasing a tapir, an animal nearly 20 times a bush dog's weight.

Even though the dogs are active by day, bush dogs are amazingly difficult to see and are hardly ever reported even where they are known to inhabit. Camera traps, which capture pictures automatically when their infrared sensors identify an animal's body heat, were arranged as part of research for other mammals, and the cameras luckily snapped photos of bush dogs at four locations, between Cerro Pirre near the Colombian border to Santa Fe National Park in the western part of the country. Notably, photos were acquired on only 11 occasions out of over nearly 32,000 camera-days (the quantity of cameras times the amount of days in operation).

Panama is the only country in Central America where the species is recognized as inhabiting, apart from a few unconfirmed sightings in easternmost Costa Rica close to the Panamanian border.

"We think that it will soon cross the border into Costa Rica," study author Ricardo Moreno, a Smithsonian research associate, said in a statement.

Read more at

Skydiving spiders in South American forests discovered

Date: August 19, 2015

Source: University of California, Berkeley

Summary: Arachnophobes fearful of spiders jumping, creeping or falling into their beds now have something new to worry about. Some spiders might also glide in through the window.

A group of biologists working in Panama and Peru have discovered a type of nocturnal hunting spider, about two inches across, that is able to steer while falling, much like a wingsuit flyer, in order to return to the tree from which it fell.

The spider joins a small number of non-flying insects -- ants, bristletails and some insect larvae -- known to have the ability to maneuver while falling instead of dropping like a rock, according to Robert Dudley, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the authors of a paper about the spider appearing this week in the journalInterface of the Royal Society.

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More endangered pygmy sloths in Panama than previously estimated

Isolated species provides unique conservation opportunity

Date:June 26, 2015

Source:Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Summary:Pygmy sloths wander inland in addition to inhabiting the mangrove fringes of their island refuge. A researchers now suggests that the population size of the pygmy sloth has been underestimated; a new, higher estimate for the number of sloths on Panama's Escudo de Veraguas Island points to how little is known about the species, and it underscores the need to conserve the sloths' isolated home.

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New poison dart frog species discovered in Donoso, Panama

Date:

September 26, 2014

Source:

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Summary:

A bright orange poison dart frog with a unique call has been discovered in Donoso, Panama. Because this new frog species appears to be found in only a very small area, habitat loss and collecting for the pet trade are major threats to its existence. The authors recommend the formulation of special conservation plans to guarantee its survival.

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Panama saves whales, protects world trade

Date:

May 28, 2014

Source:

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Summary:

A new scheme to separate boat traffic coming into the Panama Canal from humpback whales migrating through tropical waters, based on two research papers, has been approved by the International Maritime Organization. Panama is a leader in global commerce and a steward of exceptional marine biodiversity. Nearly 17,000 commercial vessels cross the Gulf of Panama each year. This number is expected to increase significantly when new locks now under construction permit larger, "post Panamax" vessels to transit the Canal and enter its ports.

Read on

Singing Mice Protect Their Turf With High-Pitched Tunes

Sep. 26, 2013 — Two species of tawny brown singing mice that live deep in the mountain cloud forests of Costa Rica and Panama set their boundaries by emitting high-pitched trills, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered.

Although males of both the Alston's singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina) and Chiriqui singing mouse (S. xerampelinus) sing to attract mates and repel rivals within their respective species, the findings show for the first time that communication is being used to create geographic boundaries between species.

In this case, the smaller Alston's mouse steers clear of its larger cousin, the Chiriqui.

"Most people are puzzled by the existence of singing mice, but in reality many rodents produce complex vocalizations, including mice, rats and even pet hamsters," said Bret Pasch, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Integrative Biology and lead author on the paper, which was published online in The American Naturalist. "Often they're high-pitched and above the range of human hearing."

Both singing mouse species produce vocalizations that are barely audible to humans. Alston's singing mice are smaller and more submissive than Chiriqui singing mice, and they have longer, higher-pitched songs than their larger cousins.

"Songs consist of a set of rapidly repeated notes, called trills," said Pasch. "Notes are produced each time an animal opens and closes its tiny mouth, roughly 15 times per second."

The two mouse species share similar diets and live in similar forest habitats. Such overlap in lifestyle often leads to conflict.

"A long-standing question in biology is why some animals are found in particular places and not others. What factors govern the distribution of species across space?" said Pasch.

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Parasite Ants Drafted as Mercenaries

Farmer ants can recruit parasites to battle for them, much like medieval cities sometimes kept expensive contingents of mercenary soldiers to ward off invaders, researchers say.

The finding, illustrated in a video of the mercenary ants, highlights that parasites might not always be a bad thing, underscoring the complex relationships between species in nature, investigators added.

Scientists investigated ants in Panama named Sericomyrmex, which raise fungus in gardens. The farmer ants are regularly beset by parasitic ants named Megalomyrmex. Queens of Megalomyrmex stealthily enter and colonize the gardens of Sericomyrmex and can feed on their offspring and their fungus for years. They also clip the wings of the virgin queens of the farmers, hampering the spread of Sericomyrmex colonies. 

Ant soldiers

Evolutionary biologist Rachelle Adams at the University of Copenhagen had studied Megalomyrmex for more than a decade when she noticed they were remarkably common compared with other parasitic species, at times making up than 80 percent of some host populations.

"This prompted me to question why this might be, leading me to focus my collecting efforts on this particular system," Adams said.

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Panama signs up to jaguar conservation

Panama-Panthera agreement launches nation's first officially recognized jaguar conservation strategy

July 2013. A significant victory has been achieved for the future of jaguars with the establishment of an historic conservation agreement by the government of Panama and Panthera, a global big cat conservation organization.

Through this agreement, Panthera and the government of Panama pledged to collaboratively implement conservation initiatives on behalf of the country's jaguars and their habitats within Panama's Protected Areas System, strategically balance economic development and jaguar habitat preservation throughout Panama, mitigate rancher-jaguar conflict, and initiate jaguar conservation education for the people of Panama.

5th Latin American Government to implement Jaguar conservation agreement

As Panthera's fifth jaguar conservation agreement with a Latin American government, and two more agreements under review with the governments of Belize and Brazil, this MOU represents a giant step forward for the conservation of the jaguar.

Upon signing the agreement, Panthera's CEO and renowned jaguar scientist, Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, stated, "The significance, location and timing of the Panama-Panthera conservation agreement for the jaguar are truly historic. Panama represents the birth place of the Jaguar Corridor Initiative, and after just seven years, we have come full circle in establishing the partnerships and projects required to successfully conserve the jaguar and its habitats long into the future."

Read on

New frog species from Panama will turn your fingers yellow

New species of rain frog from Panama

May 2012. A new bright yellow frog species has been found in the mountains of western Panama. The frog belongs to a species-rich group of frogs, the so called rainfrogs that lack a tadpole stage, but develop directly as little frogs inside the egg.

Just 2cms long
The frog, that measures less than 2 cm, was discovered by Andreas Hertz and his colleagues, who are reptile and amphibian specialists at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main; Germany. They discovered it in 2010 during several field trips to the Serranía de Tabasará of western Panama a highly understudied part of the Panamanian central mountain range.

"Although we recognized that the male mating call of this species differs from all that we had heard before and therefore suspected it to be new, much effort was involved to finally spot it in the dense vegetation", said Hertz. "When we finally caught the first individuals by hand, we noticed that it dyes one's fingers yellow when it is handled. The scientific name (Diasporus citrinobapheus) of this new frog refers to this characteristic and means yellow dyer rainfrog."

To assure the validity of the frog as a new species, the biologists studied body structure, colouration, molecular genetic data, and vocalizations of a series of individuals, and compared the results with the data derived from closely related species.

Yellow dye
Additionally, the researchers took into consideration the possibility that the yellow stain may be poisonous and performed an analysis of skin secretions. "We cannot say whether the dye is any good as a predatory defence, as we could not find any poisonous components. Maybe the colour is just easily washed out and has no particular function. However, for now, this peculiarity of the new species remains enigmatic." said Hertz.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/frog-panama-2012.html

Whale meeting heads for discord

The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Panama is about six weeks away, and it's shaping up to be an important and perhaps defining moment.

A recent change of rules means resolutions have to be posted on the organisation's website 60 days before meetings begin, so we have more advance notice of countries' real intentions than formerly.

The Latin American bloc - known as the Buenos Aires Group for these purposes - has lodged a bid to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Japan has set down a motion reserving its right to request a commercial or quasi-commercial hunting quota for minke whales in its coastal waters.

Monaco is looking for the IWC to refer whale protection to the UN; and, as happens every five years, various countries will be seeking to extend subsistence hunting permits for indigenous communities, mainly in the Arctic.

The South Atlantic sanctuary and Japan's coastal whaling bid have both been tabled year after year.

Mutual acceptance of these proposals was one of the main elements of the "peace package" that countries pursued for three years before admitting at the 2010 meeting that minds couldn't quite meet.

But the two main blocs within the IWC don't agree on where the process formally known as the Future of the IWC is now.

When I spoke during the week to Brazil's commissioner to the IWC, Marcos Vinicius Pinta Gama, he described the compromise package as "dead", and I have heard the same thing from several European delegates.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18101320