Panama jungle island is nerve centre for climate researchers

In a manmade lake in the Panama Canal sits an island whose compact jungle is teeming with researchers studying biodiversity and climate change – a tropical outcrop hailed as vital for understanding the world’s forests. Barro Colorado Island is 15.6sq km (six square miles), roughly four times the size of New York’s Central Park. Located in Gatun Lake, created in the early 20th century, it is run by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and currently boasts 350 scientific projects under way, by scientists from around the world. Camilo Zalamea, a Colombian biologist and botanist who trained in France, believes research gleaned from the island will be part of the talks underway this week in Paris, at the UN climate change conference.

The carbon cycle is changing. Now it’s going crazy.

Vanesa Rubio, a biologist and environmental engineer

Rolando Perez, a Panamanian botanist who has spent a quarter of a century identifying the trees on the island, said: “With climate change, droughts are stronger and the temperature is rising and it looks like many of these trees can’t support that." He said the number of trees hasn’t diminished, but rather he was seeing the jungle composition changing as plants better able to tolerate climate change take the place of others that can’t.

Science Panama