U.S.-Brazil Cooperative Research: Scholarships for U.S. Graduates to Participate in a Research-Oriented Tropical Biology Program in Brazil

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

0000477 Hartshorn This US-Brazil proposal requests support to Dr. Gary S. Hartshorn of Duke University for sponsorship of six graduate students to participate in a research-oriented tropical biology program in Brazil. The goal of this project is to provide emerging U.S. scientists with intensive language skills in Portuguese, a well-rounded knowledge of Brazilian customs and culture and hands-on field experiences conducting ecological research in the Amazon. The Organization for Tropical Studies (ORS), will work in collaboration with Duke University and the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA) and the Smithsonian Institution's Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project BDFFP) in Brazil to provide six U.S. graduate students and Ph.D. candidates with support to join sixteen Brazilian graduate students in a research-oriented, field course taught in Portuguese on the ecology of the Brazilian Amazon. The Amazon holds the greatest number of species on earth and produces approximately 10% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, the latter primarily from deforestation and habitat conversion and burning. The Amazon is one of the critical keys to reducing biodiversity loss and slowing global climate change. This project will help get more well-trained researchers into the Amazon to study it while there is still time.