 OTS News
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Attention All OTS Students, Faculty, and Alumni:
 The OTS Membership Consortium Committee is pleased to announce the Fourth Annual OTS Student Paper Award. We invite nominations for a $500 cash prize for excellence in research via an outstanding publication in tropical biology written by a student.
Applications will be reviewed by a subcommittee of the OTS Assembly of Delegates. Papers will judged upon the paper's contribution to the field of biology including originality, study design, and potential impact.
Application deadline is Friday, October 19, 2012. Send nomination packet as a pdf file to the chair of the Awards Committee, Dr. Kim Smith at kgsmith@uark.edu. To download the flyer, click here. Announcement of the award recipient will be made at the March 2013 OTS Assembly of Directors meeting and recognized at the 2013 ATBC-OTS meeting. |
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OTS 2013-2014 Graduate Course Schedule Now Available
 The 2013-14 graduate course schedule is now available.
Nothing can replace the hands-on experience of a field-based course in the tropics! OTS graduate courses are open to students enrolled in graduate degree programs, with preference given to students at OTS Member Institutions. OTS has an outstanding reputation for excellence and has maintained this through rigorous selection and evaluation of instructors, faculty and students.
To be eligible for a course, an applicant must be fluent in the language of instruction. Courses will be taught in Costa Rica; dates are subject to changes. The most up-to-date course information and application forms can be found online on the OTS website. Partial scholarships may be available for some courses.
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OTS Specialty Course: Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes
OTS is, once again, proud to offer the Tropical  Ferns and Lycophytes specialty graduate course. This course is designed to build diverse skills in an intense 15-day, field-introduction to the identification, classification, phylogenetics, ecology, and reproductive biology of tropical ferns and lycophytes.
It begins on January 9 and runs through January 23, 2013 at both the Las Cruces and La Selva Biological Stations. Faculty include Dr. Robbin Moran of New York Botanical Garden and Dr. James Watkins of Colgate University, as well as invited professors Drs. Kathleen Pryer and Michael Windham, both of Duke University.
A link to course information can be found here or for registration, contact Barbara Lewis barbara.lewis@ots.ac.cr or view the OTS website at www.ots.duke.edu |
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OTS Bids Farewell to Ana Carter
 After 28 years of service, Ana Carter has retired from her role as Head of Logistics and Information for OTS. Her friendship, her talents, and her daily presence will be greatly missed. She was a friend to staff members at all levels, researchers, course faculty and a wonderful advocate for OTS throughout the years. She grew up with OTS and the organization is better today for having her as part of our its history.
Liana Babbar, Director General, said "Ana is not only an excellent worker, but always went beyond what duty required. She gave this institution gave the best years of her life. It's a bittersweet feeling to see her retire: first see her go and know that we will miss here, and secondly to see her happy because a new phase of her life is beginning and it is filled with plans and dreams. We wish you many years of further success and personal happiness. "
The following link is a video portraying some of the most significant moments in her life. We are grateful for her years of service and friendship to OTS and wish her happiness in her well-earned years of retirement!
 | | Homenaje Ana Carter |
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Outreach and Events
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ATBC-OTS Meeting Now Accepting Symposium Proposals
 We are pleased to announce a special meeting next year, the joint 50th anniversary meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) and the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) in San José, Costa Rica, from 23 to 27 June, 2013. The theme of the meeting is "New Frontiers in Tropical Biology: Next 50 Years".
Please visit the meeting website, http://www.atbc2013.org, for further details of various events under planning.
We are currently soliciting symposium proposals through October 15. We look forward to receiving many exciting proposals on diverse topics.
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Auburn University Promotes OTS Programs
The OTS Enrollment team would like to thank Assembly of Delegate member, Dr. Chelsea Ward of Auburn University in Montgomery, for displaying an attractive and informative bulletin board highlighting OTS programs. We are grateful for your enthusiasm and support!
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Station Updates
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Soil Warming Workshop at Las Cruces  In mid-August, a five-day workshop was held at Las Cruces with a number of prominent researchers from the University of Georgia and several other institutions. The OTS-sponsored event discussed ideas centered on establishing a series of soil-warming plots in the Las Cruces forest and adjacent pasture areas as a proxy to global climate change. The overall goal of the plots would be to look at the effects of warming on forest recovery and development. Although still in the early stages, this workshop was very motivational. Currently, several grants proposals are being developed and, if funding were secured, it would represent the first warming project to be conducted in a tropical system.
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Field Notes
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Tropical Lichens and Forest Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach
By Dr. Robert Lücking, The Field Museum, Chicago
The second OTS specialty course on tropical lichens took place at Las Cruces Biological Station during the last two weeks of May. The 15 participants (four faculty, 11 students) came from seven different countries: the United States, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, Colombia, Germany, and Thailand.  | | A freshly captured, ten-foot-long Usnea. |
The first few days the participants went through a lichen immersion, including a fun project to reconstruct the phylogeny of selected tropical lichen genera. The participants then went on to brainstorm about possible field projects, and they came up with four projects ranging from the effect of tree fall gaps on functional composition of lichen communities (Emily, Klara, Ekaphan 'Bier'), to the analysis of functional beta diversity in primary and secondary forest plots  | Laura, Bier, Andrea and
Manuela collecting lichens. |
(Andrea, Jes, Matthew), to the application of thelotremoid lichens as bioindicators of forest fragment conservation status (Laura, Alejandro, Geoffrey, Joel), to developing a self-guided lichen tour at Las Cruces Botanical Garden (Bibiana, Manuela, James, José). Some of the most fun moments included when they went to see the 'enchanted garden' by night using a UV light (many white lichens produce compounds with spectacular UV fluorescence); the group stumbling upon an adult jumping viper (Atropoides nummifer), right on the trail into the forest; José Luis and  | One of the world's most rarest lichens, Acantholichen, known only from a handful of collections. The group found
it on a fence post! |
Joel discovering a very rare lichen (Acantholichen) on a fence post; Laura and Geoff getting excited about cute slime molds (are there any lichenized ones?); Matt and Bier crawling around in the grass for soil lichens; and the group finding a record Usnea ten feet long. I was particularly impressed, if not blown away, by the project presentations on the last day of the course, proof of the great talent this group brought together. As a small extra, the group discovered at least two lichen species new to science (probably many more judging by the reaction of Bibiana to the Sticta lichens she collected), and raised the overall number of species known from the station to over 500. Hopefully, we will be able to produce a digital lichen biota for the station tying into the current digital florula project. And hopefully, we will be back in a couple of years with another lichen specialty course, although I doubt that this year's group can be topped in any way.
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External News
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Conservaton Leadership Programme Award Applications Now Accepted
The Conservation Leadership Programme has announced an open call for applications for 2013 Conservation Awards. These awards are aimed at early-career conservationists (less than 5 years professional experience in the conservation sector). Successful applicants will: 1.) develop the knowledge, skills and abilities of team members; 2.) implement a focused, high-priority conservation project combining research and action; and 3.) contribute to the long-term success of local conservation efforts.
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