A hotter ocean is a hungrier ocean—at least as far as fish predators are concerned. In a new field study published online June 9 in Science, Smithsonian scientists discovered predator impacts in the Atlantic and Pacific peak at higher temperatures. The effects cascade down to transform other life in the ocean, potentially disrupting balances that have existed for millennia.

Shark satellite tagging carried out by scientists from the Guy Harvey Research Institute, the SOSF Shark Research Center, the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park Directorate is shining a light on the travels of vulnerable silky sharks across the Tropical Eastern Pacific. The expansion of marine protected areas here goes some way to protecting silkies during their migrations, but new tracking data reveal that more must be done to save them from extinction.

When going through stressful situations, some people lose their appetite. Similarly, animals that are scared for their lives tend to eat less. In nature, this behavioral change could have downstream effects. Dumas Galvez, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) wondered how fear of predation could influence the consumption patterns of important seed dispersers such as the Central American agouti, a rodent that loves munching on the seeds of Attalea butyracea, a tropical palm tree also known as corozo, palma real o palma de vino.

Imagine trying to understand how climate change affects vast tropical forests by determining how many trees die each year. Clouds get in the way of satellite views and on-the-ground estimates are expensive and impractical in remote areas. But researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) are excited by a new analysis that explains variation in tree mortality based on drone images of 1500 hectares of the most-studied tropical forest, Barro Colorado Island, in Panama.