When Callum Kingwell first set foot on the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Barro Colorado Island (BCI), most of his research experience had been learning about fish behavior in Canada’s west coast. As an evolutionary biology student at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, he had plenty of options to do marine research. However, he had a soft spot for insects. It wasn’t until his internship with STRI staff scientist, Bill Wcislo, in 2012, that he would delve into the world of bees and their behavior.

Setting off a startling chain of events, a parasitoid wasp can force a spider to weave a special web to suspend the wasp pupa just before it finishes killing its spider host. William Eberhard, staff scientist emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Marcelo Gonzaga at the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia in Brazil have assembled wide-ranging evidence that 'zombification' involves hacking existing web-spinning mechanisms by hijacking the spider's own molting hormone, ecdysone.

Picos de Europa National Park has given its name to a new species of perennial bromegrass, discovered in Spain. Bromus picoeuropeanus belongs to a rather underrepresented on the Iberian Peninsula perennial group within the grass genus Bromus, with the new species being just the fourth of all recognised wild species living in the Iberian territory.