Organization for Tropical Studies

The Organization for Tropical Studies is a network of ecological research stations created in Costa Rica in 1963. OTS is run by a non-profit consortium of 63 universities, based in the United States, Australia and Latin America . The corporate headquarters of OTS are at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. OTS offers a variety of courses in Spanish and English for high school, university, and graduate students. Most of the coursework and research conducted at OTS stations focuses on tropical ecology, and the three research stations are located in distinct ecozones.

Along with Cocha Cashu Biological Station and the Manu Learning Centre in Peru, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, the OTS research stations in general (and La Selva in particular) provide some of the most important and productive sites of original research on neotropical ecology.

OTS research stations in Costa Rica:

• La Selva Biological Station : lowland tropical rainforest
• Palo Verde Biological Station : tropical dry forest
• Las Cruces Biological Station : montane rainforest (including higher elevation cloud forest) and site of the Wilson Botanical Garden

External links

• Official OTS website
• La Selva Protected Zone at Costa Rica National Parks