Panama

Plants use toxic chemicals to protect themselves from insects, herbivores, and pathogens. But they also need to attract animals to carry their seeds. Here's how researchers are exploring those needs.

Utah State University researchers are collaborating with other institutions to solve the ecological mysteries of seed dispersal in tropical ecosystems.

A century of research on Barro Colorado Island has contributed to our understanding of forest ecology. Researchers from Utah State University and the University of Utah rely on the island for their plant research.

On this episode we talk with scientists and reporters who have been researching and reporting at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

UPR takes you back into the tropics on our second episode of Secret Beyond the seed, a series investigating why there is such an amazing diversity of chemicals that have evolved in plants. Journeying to a remote island in Panama, UPR’s science reporter Colleen Meidt and news director Sheri Quinn are documenting the quest of these scientists from Utah State University and other institutions.

We visited the captivating tropical forest of Panama's Barro Colorado Island to learn about USU research into the astounding diversity of chemicals plants produce.

Science reporter Colleen Meidt and news director Sheri Quinn are currently reporting from the most intensively studied tropical forest in the world — the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Barro Colorado Island in Panama!

Fruits are vital but did you know their main purpose is to disperse seeds? Researchers from Virginia Tech and Utah State University speak about the ecological mysteries of plants, their fruits and the chemicals they produce to spread seeds.

This week on UnDiscipined, we're talking about extending life — how nature does it and how humans might do it. Grace DiRenzo investigates the way animals…