Arboretum Arboretum Fellows explore biodiversity in Panama

Determined to help preserve biodiversity, two graduate students from the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University traveled to one of the most species-rich landscapes in the world, a remote strip of tropical rainforest at the narrowest point in the Central American country of Panama. Ben Goulet-Scott, a PhD candidate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) and fellow in the Robin Hopkins Lab at the Arboretum, and Jacob Suissa, OEB PhD candidate in the William (Ned) Friedman Lab at the Arboretum, hope their research in the Mamoní Valley Preserve will increase our understanding of how biodiversity can persevere in the face of climate change, deforestation, and human disturbance.