STEPHANIE RAMIREZ: “…I’m interested in is how fruit affects their reproductive potential, because spider monkeys mostly consume fruit. And we’ve noticed that during times when fruit is not abundant or available they can’t conceive.”
MARIO RITTER: There are only thirty-nine spider monkeys on the island. Eight have radio transmitters around their necks.
Stephanie Ramirez and Lauren Mills are using a radio receiver to follow the movement of the animals. But they are not alone.
Tony Coates is with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
TONY COATES: “The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute here in Panama is something of a Mecca for all biologists in the world who are interested in the tropics and in tropical biology.”
MARIO RITTER: The Institute was started there 100 years ago. Abby Bruning came from South Dakota to study ants.
ABBY BRUNING: “We manipulate their diets. So either they will be on a high carbohydrate or a high protein diet and at the end we run analyses to see how well they fight off infection, death rates and things like that.”
MARIO RITTER: Bruning studies a single species of ant. High above the ants, pink flowered almendro trees brighten the forest’s canopy. Worker ants carry the flowers to their home. An Azteca ant colony is a big structure that takes more than a year to build. The ants they shelter are the favorite meal of anteaters.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25