SCIENCE sciencemag.org
researchers trained overseas who are ready
to compete for academic jobs, the reserva
seems a bit “outdated,” says evolutionary bio-
logist Marcelo Araya-Salas, a non-reserva
Ph.D. who is job hunting in Costa Rica.
In a bid to stay active while waiting for a
job to open up, some Ph.D.-level scientists
are working for conservation organiza-
tions or teaching, in some cases squeezing
in research part time. For instance, Jimena
Samper-Villareal teaches and works on
seagrass ecology and restoration at UCR’s
marine science center in a staff scientist
position that hovers between one-quarter
and three-quarter time each year. She came
back in 2016 after her Ph.D. in Australia so
her two young kids could be close to family.
But there are “very limited opportunities in
Costa Rica,” Samper-Villareal says, and she’s
“trying to keep my publications up” while
watching for an opening.
Some researchers have opted to try to
wait things out in postdoctoral positions
abroad. Other have joined Costa Rica’s sci-
ence diaspora, taking faculty positions in
the United States or elsewhere instead of
trying to return, Rocha notes.
Whether the job crunch will ease in the
future is unclear. A shortage of funding has
reduced the number of Costa Ricans receiv-
ing scholarships to pursue doctoral degrees;
at UCR they dropped from nearly 50 a year
in 2016 to just 22 last year. That could re-
duce the competition for jobs. But the same
funding shortage could limit jobs at home.
The country now spends about 0.4% of its
gross domestic product on science, down
slightly from previous years when its econ-
omy was stronger.
Another factor is a university pension
system that appears to be discouraging
older faculty from retiring and creating new
openings, says geneticist Gabriel Macaya, a
former UCR rector. One solution would be
for research universities to set aside more
funds to hire scientists for nontenured, full-
time positions, Macaya says.
Some senior scientists who have men-
tored this next generation are dismayed. “It
is troubling to see good young people with
good training not being able to employ their
talents,” says William Eberhard, a lead-
ing U.S. evolutionary biologist who joined
the UCR faculty in 1979 and retired about5 years ago. “And it is especially frustrating
when one has invested time and effort in
helping them get to where they are.”
Among Eberhard’s undergraduate stu-
dents was Soley Guardia, who went on to
study how assassin bugs use clever strate-
gies to catch web-weaving spiders for his
Ph.D. in Australia. Soley Guardia now wants
to do comparative research with Costa Ri-
can species of these aggressive predators,
but hasn’t yet found a tenure-track position.
He says his twin brother Mariano, a bio-
geographer, is in the same situation.
Soley Guardia speaks wistfully of the
prominent scientists, some from outside
Costa Rica, who influenced him. “It was
good to have that exposure,” he says. “Now
we’re kind of self-sustaining in a good way.
We come up with our own ideas.”
But he fears he won’t be able to follow
through on them if he stays in his homeland.
“The bad thing,” he says, “is we’re aspiring to
do science at the level of developed countries
without the money to pay for it.” jTravel for this story was supported by the
International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C.A tropical research treasure faces difficult times
A
s a new generation of tropical biologists rises in Costa
Rica (see main story, p. 1558), an institution that has
propelled many of their careers has fallen on hard times.
The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), a 57-year-old
nonprofit that runs education programs and field stations in
Costa Rica, this year began to emerge from a financial quagmire
only to face disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. scientists drawn to Costa Rica for its vast biological
diversity founded OTS in 1963, backed by a consortium of six U.S.
universities and the University of Costa Rica (UCR). Its original
8-week basic graduate course for tropical biology, designed in
part by renowned U.S. ecologist Daniel Janzen, is legendary—
many U.S. and Latin American tropical biologists have taken it.
OTS has “played an incredibly important role in tropical biology,”
says Rakan Zahawi of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, a former
OTS station director.
OTS’s flagship field site at La Selva in northern Costa Rica,
which includes 1600 hectares of lowland rainforest, is one of
the world’s top tropical field stations. Studies there have yielded
6000 and counting papers on topics from forest dynamics to
insect-plant relationships. Although some Costa Rican scientists
have at times seen La Selva and the two other OTS stations as
“gringo enclaves,” as a 2002 history put it, they are now meeting
places for biologists from across the Americas. “We love OTS and
La Selva,” says microbial ecologist Adrián Pinto of UCR. “It’s a
treasure for us.”
But OTS’s always-precarious finances, largely covered by
dues from its roughly 50 member institutions, as well as gifts,
grants, student tuition, and visitors, took a nosedive in the past
decade. OTS leaders largely blame competition from similarundergraduate courses offered in Costa Rica by U.S. universities,
a possible decline in interest from students in lengthy field stays,
and a breakup with Duke University, OTS’s longtime U.S. head-
quarters. (The University of Connecticut is now its U.S. partner
for undergraduate courses.) Annual operating deficits ran as high
as $1.6 million over the past 4 years, on annual spending of up to
$8 million. Its $16 million endowment shrank by $1.7 million.
In 2017, a new director, Sandy Andelman, slashed staff to save
$300,000 in salaries, causing employee morale to plunge. Last
year, OTS put its Costa Rican undergraduate program on hold—
only a South African program on savanna ecology continued.
Those measures helped get OTS out of its hole. Now, “We’re
actually doing OK,” says OTS President and CEO Beth Braker,
who is on leave from Occidental College. This year, OTS will have
its first balanced budget in 4 years, says OTS board chair George
Middendorf. And the organization is about to launch a fundraising
campaign and is planning new graduate courses.
But COVID-19 poses a new threat. Just as leaders were poised
to rebuild and hire for key positions, COVID-19 shut out visiting
scientists and forced course cancellations. Although Costa Rica
recently opened its borders to some visitors, OTS revenues from
station fees and in-person courses will likely remain below usual
levels until at least June 2021.
When OTS emerges from its crisis, a new agreement with UCR
should help make it sustainable, OTS and UCR leaders say. It will
“reaffirm ... a relationship of mutual trust,” says Pinto, who is UCR
interim vice president for research. Maintaining OTS is important
for Costa Rica, says OTS board member and former UCR Rector
Gabriel Macaya: “It has been a very important bridge for research
in many different ways.” —J.K.25 SEPTEMBER 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6511 1561