Emily Weidner

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Panama

After a semester of study and travel in Panama with the School for International Training I stayed abroad in Panama and headed to an island in the Panama Canal. This land between boundaries claimed neither by Central or South America’s landmasses, was Barro Colorado Island (BCI), a Smithsonian Research Station. Officially land owned by the government of Panama, BCI is managed by the US. After falling into the hands of the US during their administration of the former Canal Zone, a research station was positioned on BCI in the 1920s and later became an official research station of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), a branch of the Smithsonian Institution. Through its research facilities STRI has provided a ‘unique opportunity for long-term ecological studies in the tropics, [and use of research facilities] used extensively by some 600 visiting scientists from academic and research institutions in the United States and around the world.’ Toady with research stations throughout Panama, STRI offers research facilities to staff scientists, fellows, and visitors to achieve their research objectives and to increase our understanding of tropical ecosystems.
To improve my own understanding of tropical ecosystems, I interned on Barro Colorado Island as a lowly (but excited and appreciative) research assistant to Jason Watkins, a PhD mycology student in the Plant Biology department of the University of Georgia studying under Steve Hubble. Jason was gathering data for his dissertation and hoped to explore a relatively unstudied topic, the diversity of oomycete fungi in the tropics and their effect as pathogens on tree seedlings. He hypothesized that the oomycete diversity was very high in the tropics (nearly that of the tropical tree species) and that oomycetes acted as pathogens to tree seedlings. He identified two ways an oomycete acted as a pathogen: as a very common oomycete that acted as a general pathogen to the seedlings of many different tree species, or as a less common oomycete that acted as a pathogen to the seedlings of only one trees species. For this first type he expected to find them all over the forest because the species they are pathogen to are located all over the forest. For the second type of oomycete (that acts as pathogen to only one tree species) he hypothesized that the oomycetes’ location would be directly related to the location of the tree species it was pathogen to. In other words, Jason expected to find these oomycetes only in soils near the tree it would act as pathogen to. This expectation is based on the assumption that the concentration of seedlings is highest near the parent tree.
My tasks included helping to set up and complete experiments; collect samples and data for experiments; and organize the date in a computer database. More specifically, I researched information on tropical tree species with desired characteristics needed for an experiment; collected soil samples around an array of tree species; and helped to design, develop, and set up both greenhouse and field experiments looking at the pathogenisity of oomycete fungi on different tree species.
My original objectives were to experience a new environment and to become familiar with its ecology through a research experience. My internship experience at BCI definitely helped me meet these objectives. On a nearly daily schedule I would tuck my pant legs into my socks, dress myself with clunky rubber boots, and head into the rainforest with a curios mind eager to find the day’s new sight or smell or species identified. Truly it was a lesson in tropical biology every time we headed to the field to work.
In addition to skills and information learned from the field and lab work during my internship, I was able to gain much more. Exposed to a unique community of leading tropical researchers, I was able to inquire about and witness firsthand a diverse set of studies being conducted on the island. A lecture on current tropical biology research held twice a week by current STRI researchers and guests bolstered my understanding of tropical ecosystems and of scientific research in general. The overall internship experience gave me a good sense of what research in tropical biology is like. It also gave me insight on what my core interests are and helped to point me in a more decisive direction for graduate study.
In addition to doing my internship with STRI, I was able to pursue lingering interests from my semester abroad in Panama. After doing an independent project looking at the Naso community perceptions of a proposed hydroelectric project in western Panama during the spring semester, the summer abroad provided an opportunity to keep up to date on the issue and maintain a working relationship with people directly connected with the situation. I plan on doing my honors thesis on the relationship between changing land use and struggles for cultural survival seen specifically in two indigenous communities in Panama affected by hydroelectric projects. I was able to spend several weeks with one of these communities, the Naso, during my semester abroad, and the summer internship in Panama allowed me to further my research about the hydroelectric project and the community’s response. In addition, my work through the Smithsonian on BCI has helped me better understand the ecology of the tropical forest which is of great importance to understanding land use in the tropics, which will be a central topic to my thesis. These experiences and skills gained during my summer abroad doing my CCBES internship will prove to be helpful and relevant to my thesis studies.
My senior thesis will look at two Panamanian case studies: the Naso facing the Bonyic hydroelectric project, and the Kuna’s response to the Bayano project. I will focus on exploring connections between changes in land use (and environment), and struggles for cultural survival. Looking at both the Naso and Kuna cases of imposed hydroelectric projects on their traditional lands, there are many similarities: the imposition of the project by non-community members, lack of community involvement in the implementation process, the absence of environmental and social factors in the decision-making process, the actualization of (or potential for) great environmental harm, the subsequence of (or potential for) changed land use and resource availability, and an internal conflict and struggle for cultural integrity and survival. Although the actual projects differ in size and in the year they were started, these common threads can still provide opportunity for a discussion of the processes that stem from the implementation of the project toward a changing land use and resource base, and then to a struggle for cultural survival. More specifically, I will look at the change in land use and environment, and its relationship to change in culture. Then I will identify this change in culture and its relationship to trends toward cultural instability and struggle for survival. I will be able to make conclusions about what this discussion of changing land use means for the Kuna in their current struggle for cultural survival and what it means for the future of the Naso people and their cultural integrity.