The Plant Press

Pasoh pigs as agents of forest diversity: a "silver swining”

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.

A new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B (288: 20210001; 2021) identifies the role that wild pigs play in maintaining the hyperdiverse structure of tropical forests, challenging the one-dimensional characterization of pigs as destructive enemies of the ecosystem.

A pig nest at the Pasoh, Malaysia ForestGEO forest dynamics plot. (image by Luskin et al. in Proc. R. Soc. B)

When pigs are preparing to give birth, they create a nest using 200-300 tree saplings. In 1996 and 1998, Kalan Ickes (a co-author on the paper) excavated pig nests at ForestGEO's Pasoh forest dynamics plot in Malaysia and recorded all tree census tags he found. FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia) has managed and led the Pasoh plot in partnership with ForestGEO since 1985, and field crews have conducted a total of seven censuses there. By using ForestGEO census data alongside the pig nest surveys, they were able to determine the size, species, and original location of 1,672 stems that pigs used in the construction of their nests. They found that pigs typically nested in flat dry sites and that this habitat preference determined which tree species were killed. The interesting twist was that common tree species habitat associations also tended to favor the flat dry sites where pigs prefer to give birth. As a result, pigs increased the mortality of common species and consequently increased species evenness at the stand-scale.

Although the pigs are native to Malaysia, oil palm plantations on the boundaries of Pasoh provide a consistent food source, and the pig population is now unusually large. As such, their role in maintaining diversity through nesting may be undercut by sheer volume of these impacts.

“While pigs may contribute to diversity, these findings must be viewed in context,” said Stuart Davies, director of the ForestGEO program and a co-author of the study. “One has to remember, the hyper-abundance of wild boar in a number of Asian forests is dramatically reducing tree regeneration, while supporting lianas, and this is likely altering the functional composition of these forests. This may have long-term deleterious consequences for Asian rainforests.”

PolliNation DC to document urban buzz

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.

Community gardens are a valuable social, ecological, and environmental resource, but we currently know very little about the pollinator species visiting them, their ecology, and the impact of human activity on their populations in Washington, DC. Intentionally or not, organic community gardens provide food and shelter for wildlife such as birds, mammals, snails and slugs, insects, spiders and even roly poly crustaceans. Gardeners are intricately connected to nature and in one sense are wildlife managers.

A new citizen scientist project, PolliNation DC, is being launched on April 30, 2021. The project encourages DC community garden volunteers to record the bee, butterfly, wasp, fly, moth, beetle, ant, and other insect species visiting flowers and acting as pollinators for both native and non-native plants in DC community garden sites. The DC Department of Parks and Recreation manages 35 community gardens across the 8 Wards of the District. The native plant gardens at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and the U.S. Botanical Garden (USBG) will serve as control sites. The collected data will help the research team understand which insect species are visiting which native and non-native plant species in an urban environment.

Registration opens for the 2021 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.

Registration is now open for the 18^th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Plant symbiosis: The good, the bad, and the complicated,” to be held 13-14 May 2021. This symposium will be held in a virtual setting and be spread over two days.

If you wish to attend both days of the symposium, be sure to register for each day:

• Thursday, May 13, 2021: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4oSefPMrToecWGgkIn62sQ
• Friday, May 14, 2021: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kZLs2Iv5S8aQCl5OI87ZPA

Plants, like all organisms, exist in collaboration and competition with other life forms. As primary producers, plants form the basis of most food webs. In many cases they also depend on insects, vertebrate animals, bacteria, and/or fungi to survive and reproduce. Sometimes these interactions are especially close and long lasting and such symbioses are among the most fascinating relationships in the natural world. The 18^th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium will explore current research in the diversity of plant symbioses, examining the relationships plants have with insects, fungi, bacteria, and even other plants. Speakers will include botanists, ecologists, microbiologists, and geneticists whose research unravels the complicated relationships that plants have with their collaborators and competitors in the natural world.

In addition, the 18^th José Cuatrecasas Medal in Tropical Botany will be awarded at the Symposium. This prestigious award is presented annually to an international scholar who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The award is named in honor of Dr. José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist who spent many years working in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian and devoted his career to plant exploration in tropical South America.

Schedule for Thursday, May 13, 2021 (Eastern Time)
https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4oSefPMrToecWGgkIn62sQ

• 1:00 pm – Welcome
• 1:10 pm - Presentation of the José Cuatrecasas Medal
• 1:20 pm - Naomi Pierce (Harvard University), "Context dependent evolution of the African ant acacia, Vachellia drepanolobium, and its multitude of symbionts"
• 1:40 pm - Jay Bolin (Catawba College), "Hydnora from fungus to foul flower: the natural history of the strangest plants in the world"
• 2:00 pm - Posy Busby (Oregon State University), "Assembly and function of the leaf microbiome"
• 2:20 pm - Panel Discussion

Schedule for Friday, May 14, 2021 (Eastern Time)
https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kZLs2Iv5S8aQCl5OI87ZPA

• 1:00 pm – Welcome
• 1:10 pm - Leonora Bittleston (Boise State University), "Convergent interactions in carnivorous pitcher plant microcosms"
• 1:30 pm - Dong Wang (University of Massachusetts Amherst), "Indentured servitude: host control of intracellular bacteria in the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis"
• 1:50 pm - Manuela Dal Forno (Fort Worth Botanic Garden | Botanical Research Institute of Texas), "The lichen dilemma: unveiling diversity in multi-species symbioses"
• 2:10 pm - Panel Discussion

Rare lichen unique to Florida discovered in museum collections, may be extinct

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.

-Adapted from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Scientists have found a new species of fleshy verdigris lichen, thanks to DNA analysis of museum specimens. Misidentified by its original collectors, the lichen is only known from 32 specimens collected in North and Central Florida scrubland between 1885 and 1985. Now the hunt is on to find it in the wild – if it still exists.

Heart lichens belong to the genus Cora, whose name is derived from the Latin prefix for “heart,” a reference to the shape of their lobes. (photo courtesy of Robert Lücking)

The lichen, named Cora timucua in honor of Florida's Timucua people, is critically endangered, even more so than the federally protected Florida perforate reindeer lichen, and possibly extinct. Researchers are holding out hope that C. timucua may persist in undisturbed pockets of the state's dwindling pine scrub habitat, though recent searches came up empty.

If Cora timucua still exists, it is most likely living in pockets of undisturbed pine scrub habitat in Florida’s Ocala National Forest, pictured here, and O’Leno State Park, researchers said. (photo courtesy of Dani Tinker, CC BY-NC 2.0)

"The million-dollar question is 'Where is this lichen?'" said Laurel Kaminsky, a digitization manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study. "The optimist in me says it's still out there."

Kaminsky said the sparse information recorded by the lichen's collectors makes it difficult to retrace their steps. More widespread in the early 20^th century, C. timucua was collected only from the Ocala National Forest and O'Leno State Park after 1968, two of Florida's last remaining scrub ecosystems. Citrus groves and urban developments have replaced up to 90 percent of the state's sand pine scrub.

"If it's anywhere, it's going to take a lot of looking in very specific habitats to find it," Kaminsky said.