Center for Tropical Research November 2009 Newsletter
Letter from the Director
Dear Friends of CTR,
Despite the financial cutbacks faced by the University of California, the researchers at CTR continue to make great progress on a range of exciting projects. These include efforts to conserve biodiversity in South America and Africa, finding ways to protect species from the threats of climate change, and understanding transmission patterns of avian influenza and West Nile virus in North and South America, Asia, and Africa.
We hope you enjoy our feature article by Paul Barber on marine biodiversity in the Coral Triangle hotspot as well as the field report by Eduardo Mendoza Ramírez on the endangered Central American Tapir. Our Updatessection reports on CTR-affiliated researchers carrying out work in 12 countries, as well as other CTR activities.
We recently received two new grants from the National Science Foundation/National Institutes of Health/Fogarty International Center for an international collaborative study on the dynamics of cross-species influenza transmission in Cameroon and Egypt. Postdoctoral researcher Kevin Njabo and staff research associate Anthony Chasar will lead the field studies.
At the end of July, I stepped down from the position I have held for two years as the Acting Director of the Institute of the Environment (IoE), which will enable me to devote more time to building and expanding CTR and the IoE’s Center for Climate Change Solutions. We are very pleased to welcome Glen MacDonald as the new Director of the IoE.
Following Glen MacDonald’s appointment, I left for three months of field research in Africa where we focused on satellite tracking of hornbills in the Congo Basin, avian song variation in Cameroon, and population and conservation genetics of the Plains Zebra in Namibia and South Africa. A main thrust of the trip was the establishment of an office in Yaoundé, Cameroon, which will serve as a base to build an International Research and Training Center serving Central Africa.
Thank you for your support.
Best Wishes,
Thomas B. Smith, Ph.D.
Feature Article
Evolution and Conservation of Marine Biodiversity in the Coral Triangle Hotspot
by Paul Barber, Ph.D., Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Center for Tropical Research, Institute of the Environment, UCLA
Field Report
Conservation of the Endangered Central American Tapir, an Ancient Neotropical Megaherbivore
by Eduardo Mendoza Ramírez, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar, Center for Tropical Research, Institute of the Environment, UCLA and Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Updates
Ecuador Project Update
The research and conservation project in the Chocó rainforest of Ecuador continues to grow in exciting ways. Since the last newsletter, the Ecuador Project received new funding support from the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. The Ecuador Project received media coverage in El Comercio, Ecuador’s largest newspaper, and in Our University newsletter at UCLA. New research and training work on migratory birds was implemented with funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in four provinces in northwest Ecuador.
Project Director Jordan Karubian traveled to Latin America from September 21 to October 9, 2009. In October, CTR’s Ecuador Project hosted the first annual Bi-national Symposium on Chocó Research at the Bilsa Biological Station in Ecuador. This symposium, funded by a grant from UCLA’s International Institute, brought together leading Colombian and Ecuadorian researchers working in the Chocó and laid the foundation for future collaborative projects. Prior to this symposium, Project Directors Jordan Karubian and Renata Durães traveled to Brazil where they had been invited to give talks on their research at the V Simpósio em Ecologia: Ecologia do Comportamento, organized by the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro from September 22-24. In November, local researchers will give presentations, for their third consecutive year, at Jornadas Nacionales de Biologia, a scientific meeting to be held in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Project Directors Jordan Karubian and Renata Durães will be moving to New Orleans at the end of the year, where Jordan Karubian has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Tulane University. They will be continuing their research and conservation work in Ecuador in close collaboration with CTR.
CTR Graduate Student Receives Ph.D.
Adam Freedman received his Ph.D. in Fall 2009 from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology for his thesis entitled “Adaptive Diversification and Anthropogenic Impacts on African Rainforest Biodiversity.”
CTR Welcomes New Researchers
Emily Curd, who has been a staff researcher for CTR’s avian influenza project since 2007, was accepted into the graduate program in the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with Tom Smith as her thesis advisor.
Erin Toffelmier will serve as the principal laboratory researcher and sample coordinator for the avian influenza project.
Field Research Trips
Allison Alvarado returned from a research trip to British Columbia in June and July where she put light-level geolocators on breeding Hermit Thrushes. These devices utilize variation in day length to monitor long-distance movements throughout the year. She will return to Canada next summer to retrieve the data loggers, which will elucidate the patterns and timing of migration in populations across a migratory divide.
Zac Cheviron traveled to northern New Mexico in July to conduct fieldwork on high-altitude adaptation in montane birds breeding in the southern Rocky Mountains.
Thomas Dietsch traveled to Cameroon to continue fieldwork on a project to track long-distance movements of hornbills near the Dja Faunal Reserve. This trip, from May through August, focused on capturing White-thighed and Black-casqued Hornbills in order to attach Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite tracking units. Anthony Chasar and Tom Smith joined him for two weeks in August to assist in capturing hornbills and Anthony Chasar and Francis Forzi returned to the study area in September to capture additional hornbills. In total, 14 hornbills were captured and tagged with GPS satellite transmitters. These transmitters have the potential to provide data on movement patterns over the upcoming years and help determine if hornbills migrate and where they go during the food lean dry season.
Ana Paula Giorgi traveled to Brazil to work with collaborators at the University of São Paulo to refine results on reserve design and connectivity for her study on the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.
Ali Hamilton participated in a workshop entitled “A Multi-Taxa Approach Towards the Biogeography of Melanesia: Higher Order Science to Inform Conservation” held in August on the campus of the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. The workshop brought together 15 researchers from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands. While in Fiji, she provided a brief training course in the preparation and long-term storage of reptile museum specimens to the curatorial staff at the natural history collections of the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, and to Fijian herpetologists with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Nature Fiji. She also conducted fieldwork on Naigani Island, Fiji, for a week in August as part of a team examining patterns of biodiversity. She is studying genetic and morphological variation in a group of arboreal skinks endemic to the islands of Melanesia (in the southwestern Pacific Ocean) and this field trip resulted in the collection of what is likely a species of lizard new to science.
Brenda Larison traveled to Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa from August to November for her research project exploring the genetic basis of stripe variation in Plains Zebras and the mechanisms of natural selection acting on wild populations.
Eduardo Mendoza traveled to southeast Mexico for six weeks to carry out research on the ecology and conservation of the Central American tapir (see field report). The fieldwork was funded by a Faculty Research Grant from the UCLA Latin American Institute. The study is part of a broader collaborative project between researchers at CTR and the Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México to examine the impacts of land use and climate change on Mexican tropical biodiversity. This two-year project is funded by a grant from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States and El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (UC MEXUS-CONACYT).
Raul Sedano is conducting fieldwork in Colombia from July 2009 to January 2010 where he is studying mechanisms of local population differentiation in Andean birds.
Tom Smith and Anthony Chasar traveled across Cameroon in August to record the song repertoire of the Little Greenbul (Andropadus virens). They traveled to Lomie, in the eastern region, Bafia in the western region, and Limbe in the southwestern region. The aim of this fieldwork was to ground truth a study that correlates bird song patterns to landscape metrics gathered from remote sensing data.
Pamela Thompson traveled to the Central Pacific Coast of México for six weeks in June through August to conduct fieldwork for her dissertation on nectar-feeding bats and bat-pollinated trees.
Awards, Presentations, and Appointments
Allison Alvarado received a Lida Scott Brown Fellowship for the 2009-10 academic year from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Victoria Arch was awarded a 2009-10 Dissertation Year Fellowship from the UCLA Graduate Division. She also received the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles Henri Seibert Award for the Best Student Presentation in Physiology/Morphology at the 2009 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.
Jaime Chaves received a summer and fall fellowship for the 2009-10 academic year from UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, as well as funding from the Velez Trust Fellowship and Lida Scott Brown fund.
Zac Chevironwill begin a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska in January 2010.
Emily Curd received a Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship for 2009-10 from the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Thomas Dietsch attended the World Agroforestry Congress in Nairobi, Kenya, in August where he presented his research on ecosystem services by birds in the cacao agroforests of Cameroon. In September, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts to begin his new position as Research Director for Ecosystem Services at Earthwatch Institute.
Adam Freedman received a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology and joined the laboratory of UCLA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor John Novembre in Fall 2009. He also received the 2009 Scherbaum Award in recognition of outstanding research in the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Ana Paula Giorgi coordinated the Restoration Session and gave a presentation on the “Analytical Framework for Assessing Connectivity and Restoration Priorities in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil” at the Latin American Landscape Ecology meeting held in Campos do Jordão, São Paulo, Brazil, from October 4-7. She also received a Society of Women Geographers Fellowship to support her fieldwork and to continue her studies in the Atlantic Forest.
Ali Hamilton accepted a postdoctoral scholar position in the laboratory of UCLA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor Paul Barber.
Kristine Kaiser presented a talk at the Animal Behavior Society annual meeting in June, and at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in July. She received the Henri Seibert Award, Conservation category, from the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, and the Amphibian Conservation Award from Save the Frogs. She was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellowship in K-12 Education (GK-12) for the 2009-10 academic year.
Alex Kirschel received an Ecological Society of America Award for Outstanding Student Research. His paper, “Character displacement of song and morphology in African tinkerbirds,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (co-authored with D. Blumstein and T. Smith, 2009), was selected as a “must read” for Faculty of 1000 Biology by Jonathan Losos (Harvard University).
Hilton Oyamaguchiwas awarded a George Bartholomew Research Fellowship for Summer 2009 by the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He also received a Fieldwork Fellowship from the UCLA International Institute for his research trip to Brazil in Fall 2009.
Raul Sedano was awarded a Quality of Graduate Education fellowship for the 2009-10 academic year by the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Henri Thomassen was invited by the National Institutes of Health to speak at a Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study (MISMS) Africa Meeting held in Dakar, Senegal, April 21-25. He spoke on “Ecological Modeling of Infectious Disease” at a workshop on the data analysis of influenza surveying and monitoring programs.
Pamela Thompson was awarded a Bat Conservation International Student Research Scholarship, a grant from the UCLA Latin American Institute, and a University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) grant to conduct field and laboratory work during 2009-10.
Grants
- National Science Foundation/National Institutes of Health/Fogarty International Center
Dynamics of Cross-species Influenza Transmission: An International Collaboration – Egypt. (2009-2010)
- National Science Foundation/National Institutes of Health/Fogarty International Center
Dynamics of Cross-species Influenza Transmission: An International Collaboration – Cameroon. (2009-2010)
- The University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States-El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (UC MEXUS-CONACYT)
Collaborative Research Grant. An Integrative Approach to Assess the Impacts of Land Use and Climate Change on Mexican Tropical Biodiversity. (2009-2011)
- UCLA Latin American Institute
Faculty Research Grant. A Novel Approach to Monitoring the Population Status of the Endangered Baird’s Tapir: the Last Central America Megaherbivore. (2009-2010)
- Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund
Umbrellabird Conservation in the Chocó. (2009-2010)
- National Science Foundation
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). Supplement to: Effects of Deforestation on the Prevalence of Blood-borne Pathogens in African Rainforest Birds. (2009)
Donors
We would like to thank Margery Nicolson for her continued generous contributions to CTR, as well as Garry George, and Nature & Culture International. We would also like to thank BioME 5 Organics for their contribution to CTR as part of their membership in 1% For the Planet, an alliance of businesses that donate at least 1% of their annual revenues to environmental organizations worldwide.