The Plant Press

Report from the Flora of the Guianas Meeting

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 1

By Vicki Funk

At the Flora of the Guianas Consortium board meeting in Leiden (The Netherlands), 22–23 October 2012, Christian Feuillet represented the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program and the Department of Botany. Vicki Funk interviewed him when he returned.

VF – How did you happen to go to Leiden?

The treatment of Gesneriaceae for the Flora of the Guianas includes Paradrymonia campostyla (Leeuwenb.) Wiehler, from Montagne de Kaw, French Guiana. (Photo by Christian Feuillet)

CF – Neither Pedro Acevedo, our official representative and member of the board, nor Vicki Funk, head of the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program, could attend the meeting. Around the same time I was scheduled to visit the Paris Herbarium (P) where the Boraginaceae collection was back on the shelves after the herbarium renovation. I was asked to extend my trip and add Leiden to my schedule. In the end I decided the easiest thing to do was to drive from Paris to Leiden. Attending the meeting was a natural thing for me to do since I lived in French Guiana for six years, and have done field work in French Guiana for 32 years. I also represented Cayenne once or twice at previous meetings in the 80s or early 90s. Also I have co-authored two of the fascicles and am working on two others.

Smithsonian Botanical Symposium to be held on April 19-20, 2013

Presented by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History Department of Botany in collaboration with the United States Botanic Garden with support from the Cuatrecasas Family Foundation:

Avoiding Extinction: Contemporary Approaches to Conservation Science

The Florida endemic Asimina rugelii B.L. Rob. was listed as Endangered in 1986 under the name Deeringothamnus rugelii (B.L. Rob.) Small. Illustration from Small, Addisonia 15: pl. 489. 1930.

Conservation science seeks to provide a rational framework for the protection of species and their habitats. At the inception of the discipline, scientists recognized that environmental problems, including land use change and pollution effects, were significant challenges to sustaining biodiversity. Scientists now acknowledge that, while these problems remain, other issues such as invasive species, interspecific hybridization, and climate change impose additional threats to species survival. Furthermore, paleoecologists have used the fossil record to contextualize the current loss of biodiversity based on knowledge of past extinctions and paleoclimates, and now models of predicted future climates are helping to anticipate new challenges.

Forty years ago, the U.S. Endangered Species Act was signed into law. This landmark piece of legislation was designed to protect plant and animal species from extinction based on our knowledge of conservation science at the time. The Act has led to many success stories, primarily due to the growing sophistication of the conservation science it spurred, but will not be sufficient on its own to address new conservation goals. With new landmark conservation legislation unlikely in the near future, how will scientists continue to move forward in their quest to preserve biodiversity?
 
The 11^th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, hosted by the Department of Botany and the United States Botanic Garden, will highlight past efforts and new threats to conservation goals, as well as new approaches underway that promise to safeguard biodiversity both here in the U.S. and around the world. The invited speakers will cover a wide range of endangered organisms, with a special focus on plants, to illustrate the challenges of modern-day conservation science in a rapidly changing world.

Registration and poster abstract submission will begin February 1, 2013.

http://botany.si.edu/sbs/

Abstracts from the Speakers at the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium (Vol. 15, issue 3)

"Abstracts from the Speakers at the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium" can be seen in this issue from 2012.

Letting the Phylogeny Out of the Bottle

From Plant Press Vol. 15, No. 3 from 2012

By David Erickson

Kenneth Wurdack (symposium convener; left) and Warren Wagner (Chair of Botany; second to left) join the speakers of the 2012 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium (left to right): Scott V. Edwards, James W. Horn, Charles F. Delwiche, Richard Ree, David D. Ackerly, Karen Osborn, and Michael Donoghue. (Photo by Elaine Haug)

On April 20-21, the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian Institution convened the 10^th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, hosted by the Department of Botany in collaboration with the United States Botanic Garden. This year’s symposium, titled “Transforming 21^st Century Comparative Biology using Evolutionary Trees,” examined the development and application of phylogenetic methods in light of the massive advances in sequencing and genomic technology. Warren Wagner opened the symposium welcoming speakers and guests and provided an introduction into the Department of Botany and background on symposium subjects in the past. Wagner acknowledged the critical and ever-growing importance that phylogenies play in modern biology.

Wagner was followed by Jonathan Coddington who introduced the scope of investigation at the Smithsonian Institution to the many guests and speakers. He covered tremendous territory highlighting the diversity of research at the Institution with special emphasis on Institution wide projects. These projects include the Global Genome Initiative (GGI) which seeks to collect and curate one representative of all living genera, the Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatories (SIGEO) which is a global network of long-term, large-scale forest research plots and an international group of scientists dedicated to the study of tropical and temperate forest function and diversity, and its marine counterpart Marine Geo which seeks to quantify marine diversity through a network of marine research stations.

Medical Traditions Seminar (Vol. 15, issue 1)

"Medical Traditions Seminar" can be seen in this issue from 2012.

Pacific Island Researchers Are In a Hotspot (Vol. 14, issue 4)

"Pacific Island Researchers Are In a Hotspot" can be seen in this issue from 2011.

Smithsonian Sun Shines at National Scientific Meetings as Interns Present Their Research (Vol. 14, issue 2)

"Smithsonian Sun Shines at National Scientific Meetings as Interns Present Their Research" can be seen in this issue from 2011.

XVIII International Botanical Congress (Vol. 14, issue 2)

"Chair with a View: XVIII International Botanical Congress" can be seen in this issue from 2011.

The Evolution of Life on Pacific Islands and Reefs: Past, Present, and Future (Vol. 14, issue 1)

"Chair with a View: The Evolution of Life on Pacific Islands and Reefs: Past, Present, and Future" can be seen in this issue.

Flora of the Guianas Board Meeting Takes Place at NMNH (Vol. 14, issue 1)

"Flora of the Guianas Board Meeting Takes Place at NMNH" can be seen in this issue from 2011.