Viewing page 143 of 239

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-112-

The first program, entitled "Biological Diversity in Tropical Latin America" (or Biolat), was begun in fiscal year 1987 with initial funding of $220,000.  The program, first proposed in 1985, responds to a needs widely perceived in the scientific community for intensive study of the rapidly disappearing tropical rain forests.  In the first year two study sites have been established, in Beni National Park (Bolivia) and in Manu Reserve (Peru).  Field laboratories have been built, and study quadrants laid out.  Museum of Natural History biologists initiated work in these plots together with colleagues from other institutions; conducted workshops for host-country colleagues; and collected specimens and specimen-related data, the latter with portable computers for development of scientific data bases.  The long-term plan envisions a network of study sites encompassing the full range of variability of tropical rain forests in Latin America in coordination with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, National Zoological Park, and Environmental Research Center as well as other museums and universities, and conservation organizations.  In addition to site-specific studies, taxon-specific studies are being encouraged, with Smithsonian and other experts on the systematics of particular groups of tropical forest organisms gaining access to appropriate study areas.  In fiscal year 1988, the Museum expects to continue work at the Beni and Manu sites and negotiate for a third site in Amazonian Ecuador.

In fiscal year 1988, the Museum plans to establish a laboratory for the study of molecular systematics.  The techniques of biochemistry and molecular biology have in recent years been adapted to the study of the evolutionary relationships of organisms and have resulted in many new and interesting, if not controversial, insights.  While a small number of Smithsonian systematists in the Museum have begun to employ these new techniques, only the more basic approaches, such as electrophoresis (the relative mobilities of protein molecules in electrical fields), are currently being used.  In the current fiscal year the Museum hopes to hire two scientists especially trained in more advanced techniques such as nucleic acid studies, who will establish broader competence in this increasingly important field.  Present space constraints dictate that the new laboratory be placed initially at the Museum Support Center.  The work of this new laboratory will be coordinated closely with work in molecular genetics at the National Zoo and with studies in molecular physiology and ecology at the Tropical Research Institute in Panama. 

[[underlined]] SMITHSONIAN EXTERNAL RELATIONS: DR. THOMAS LOVEJOY'S VIEWS [[/underlined]]

Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, formerly Executive Vice President at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, recently assumed the new position of Assistant Secretary for External Affairs at the Smithsonian.  At the Secretary's suggestion, he prepared the following statement and spoke briefly about his perspectives upon coming to this new assignment.

As the Institution's Assistant Secretary for External Affairs Dr. Lovejoy is charged with thinking comprehensively and addressing