The Plant Press

Grand Challenge Awards

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Under Secretary for Science, the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, and the four Consortia Directors have announced the recipients of the 2010 Grand Challenges Awards. Smithsonian Grand Challenges Awards advance cross-disciplinary, integrated scholarly activities across the Institution which relate to one or more of the four Grand Challenges: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe, Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet, Valuing World Cultures, and Understanding the American Experience. These awards seek to advance research, as well as to broaden access, revitalize education, strengthen collections and encourage new ways of thinking that involve emerging technology.

Sixteen Level One and 13 Level Two awards were made. The Level One grants provide seed money to develop groups and projects around promising concepts. The Level Two grants are for larger amounts and are aimed at groups that are poised to mount major projects and prepared to secure external funding for those projects. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided support for the Grand Challenge Awards.

Within the Department of Botany, two teams received funding. Level One awards included the project “Developing and Establishing the North American Orchid Center,” led by principal investigators Dennis F. Whigham (SERC), Barbara Faust (Smithsonian Gardens), Charles Fillah (NZP), Gary Krupnick (NMNH), and Holly Shimizu (U.S. Botanic Garden). Level Two awards included the project “Next Generation Sequencing: Enabling Transformative Technology for Biodiversity Research and Collections,” led by principal investigators, Seán Brady (NMNH), Michael Braun (NMNH), Robert Fleischer (NZP), Owen McMillan (STRI), and Kenneth Wurdack (NMNH) and also including Jun Wen (NMNH) among the co-investigators.

An Odyssey of Knowledge

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

“An Odyssey of Knowledge – Medieval Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the National Library of Medicine” <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/odysseyofknowledge/index.html> is an online exhibition produced by Alain Touwaide and the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. The website examines how medical science took root in Southern Europe, was absorbed and modified by local medical practice and knowledge, and spread into the hinterland and beyond. It shows how European medicine is the result of the confluence of different streams of thoughts – from classical antiquity to pre-modern science, from Greece to Western Europe, and from discoveries based on reason to those rooted in tradition and experience.

Orchids: A View from the East

From Plant Press Vol. 14, no. 1

Orchid

The 17^th Annual Orchid Show titled “Orchids – A View from the East” will be on display 29 January 29­ to 24 April 2011 at the National Museum of Natural History in the Special Exhibits Gallery off the Museum’s first floor Rotunda. This exhibit is hosted by NMNH and a joint presentation of Smithsonian Gardens (formerly the SI Horticulture Division) and the U.S. Botanic Garden. It explores the cultural impact of orchids with a particular focus on China. Orchids have historically been an influential part of Chinese life, which is well documented through their prominence in art, literature, and legends. They have long served as social status symbols and been consumed in teas and medicines.

A circular moon gate, iconic of Chinese gardens, provides entryway to the show. Visitors are then free to explore displays featuring live plants in a variety of settings ranging from scholar’s and tea rooms, to a scholar’s garden, and a orchid competition with interactive plant judging. Cultural artifacts interspersed among the plants include 18^th­­­­–19^th century ­­­­Chinese scrolls depicting orchids (reproduced from SI holdings at the Freer & Arthur M. Sackler Galleries of Asian art) and a large scholar’s stone on loan from the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum (U.S. National Arboretum). Orchids are also highlighted in relation to contemporary Asian culture. Visitors will gain an appreciation for the importance of conservation measures needed to protect economically important native species, as well as the thriving horticulture industry in Taiwan, which is known for its world-class orchid breeding and international orchid show.

Department of Botany Curators Ken Wurdack and Jun Wen worked with Exhibit Developer Siobhan Starrs to develop the scientific content of the exhibit script. The SI Gardens’ Greenhouse Nursery Operations, which care for a collection of over 8000 orchids, moved during summer 2010 from the Armed Forces Retirement Home (known as the “Old Soldier’s Home”) to the Museum Support Center (MSC) grounds, close to the Botany research greenhouses. More information on the exhibit can be found online at: http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/orchids/index.html

Awards & Grants

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

Carlos García-Robledo, postdoctoral fellow, has been selected as a 2011 Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) Rubenstein Fellow. EOL is an international collaboration of scientific organizations and the general public with the shared mission to gather and share knowledge about all 1.9 million known species on the planet. Sixteen early-career scientists were chosen and will use EOL as a platform for sharing their biodiversity research with their colleagues and the general public. EOL Rubenstein Fellows awards are made possible through a generous donation by David M. Rubenstein to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. EOL Rubenstein Fellows are selected on the basis of stellar achievement, promise for continued accomplishment, and the diversity and relevance of their research. This year’s recipients specialize in a variety of taxonomic areas, ranging from rhododendrons of the world to African birds to flower flies.

García-Robledo is interested in modeling cascades of co-extinctions of insect herbivores under projected climate change and exploring the ecology, genetics, and evolutionary processes involved in the adaptation of insect herbivores to novel host plants. For his research, he uses Neotropical plants from the order Zingiberales and their insect herbivores, beetles from the genus Cephaloleia as a model system. His objective as a Rubenstein Fellow is to include taxonomic, ecological, phylogenetic, and evolutionary information for this well documented plant-herbivore interaction in the Encyclopedia of Life. For a full list of EOL Rubenstein Fellows, their specialties, and their institutional affiliations, please visit the 2011 EOL Rubenstein Fellows page <http://www.eol.org/content/page/2011eolfellows>.

Alain Touwaide and Emanuela Appetiti have been appointed as Research Associates of BRIT – Botanical Research Institute of Texas. Touwaide has also been appointed as Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK.

Staff Retirement

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. from January 2011.

Shirley Maina retired from the Department of Botany on 1 January 2011. Maina began her career 40 years ago, as a Museum Specialist in the Office of Ecology at the National Museum of Natural History. In 1975 she transferred to the Scientific Event Alert Network (SEAN). She joined the Department of Botany in 1982 as a research assistant for Mark Littler. Over the years she transferred to the original Plant Conservation Unit, the Latin American Plants Program, the Floristics Office, and most recently to the revised Plant Conservation Unit under the supervision of Gary Krupnick.

Seeking the Botanical Frontier in Guyana

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

By Sara Alexander, Kenneth Wurdack, and Karen Redden

The expedition team in upland savanna. Back (left to right) Delph Hunter, Hondel Hunter, Karen Redden, Sara Alexander, Kenneth Wurdack; front, Claudius Perry with pruning poles, Carlos Jacobis. Virgil Roland not pictured. (Photo by local guide).

Over almost three weeks in the field in the summer 2010, Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program (BDG) botanical expedition members had traveled from the capitol of Guyana, Georgetown, to the tepui-encircled town of Imbaimadai in the interior of the country, and almost to the Venezuelan border in a quest to reach Mount Tulameng. They had traveled by small aircraft over mountains and coaxed a leaky dugout canoe up the flooded Mazaruni River, the Kako River, and finally the shallow vine-festooned Cara Creek. There were daily downpours and rampant mildew. A tree frog visited the camp kitchen one morning, adding transparent eggs to the bucket that was collecting rainwater runoff from a tarp and that had been intended for drinking. During eight days of hiking and camping on the slopes of Tulameng, they had ascended through the rainforest using inconspicuous trails cut and expertly navigated with compass, GPS, and intuition by the team’s Amerindian guides.

Unnamed waterfall on eastern slope of Mount Tulameng. Team members (left to right) Carlos Jacobis, Sara Alexander, Karen Redden. (Photo by K. Wurdack).

In the process, the team had collected hundreds of specimens towards their goal of 800 numbers, as well as capturing a large photographic library. During a four hour, 600 meter elevation-gain hike toward the summit of Tulameng, the team encountered cloud forests dripping with bryophytes, rocky streams bridged by single logs, a nest of painful bullet ants (Paraponera clavata), and a tribe of jeering monkeys. The team briefly admired the low montane forest they found and began their descent soon after in order to reach camp before nightfall. They anticipated good collecting when returning the next day, instead they were then faced with downpours of chilly rain – 55° F read the pocket thermometer attached to a compass – that obscured the view, made the slopes treacherous, and coated everyone’s pants legs in slippery mud. During times like these the only thing that could be done was to keep moving and muse, “Well, we are in a rainforest… during the rainy season.”

Mountains higher than 1,500 meters are few in Guyana and clustered in the Pakaraima Mountains in the west-central part of the country. Tulameng was targeted for this expedition as one of these 1,500 meter peaks that had not yet been botanically explored, and because reasonably close water access made it logistically practical. The higher altitudes in Guyana are especially interesting to biologists due to their unusual biota with frequent new species and new records, and thus have been objectives of BDG expeditions. They are part of the famous Lost World region of northeastern South America, especially in southern Venezuela and adjacent Guyana, with its sandstone table mountains or tepuis jutting out of the jungle and often surrounded by nearly insurmountable vertical rock escarpments.

The Evolution of Life on Pacific Islands and Reefs: Past, Present, and Future

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

The Pacific realm occupies a third of the planet’s geographic area and includes over 25,000 distinct islands which are scattered across the Pacific Ocean. As a group the Pacific Islands have long been known for their remarkable diversity of ecological environments and a high level of endemism in the flora and fauna. The biota of the Pacific islands are currently experiencing dramatic ecological shifts stemming from species endangerment and extinction, environmental deterioration, invasive species, global climate change, and the loss of indigenous knowledge about biodiversity. To better understand the rapid changes which are occurring in the ecological and evolutionary processes of the region Smithsonian researchers, together with many external collaborators from across the Pacific Region are organizing an international symposium on the biogeography of Pacific Islands and Reefs.

The symposium, The Evolution of Life on Pacific Islands and Reefs: Past, Present, and Future, will be held at the East West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii from May 26-29, 2011. The symposium will provide Pacific biologists, geologists, cultural experts, and students a forum for the active discussion of current research being undertaken in the Pacific while building the foundation for future research initiatives, collaborations and publications. The three-day conference will include five scientific sessions with invited speakers and contributed papers, pre-conference workshops, poster sessions, a luau banquet, and field trips.

The event is being organized by a cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional committee of 16 scientists and is currently sponsored by a group of five prominent institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, National Tropical Botanical Garden, and the University of Hawaii. Committee members also serving as session organizers include David Burney, National Tropical Botanical Garden; Chris Filardi, American Museum of Natural History; Rosemary Gillespie, University of California, Berkeley; Patrick O’Grady , University of California, Berkeley; Gustav Paulay, Florida Museum of Natural History; Jon Price, University of Hawaii, Hilo; and Tom Ranker, University of Hawaii, Manoa. A conference coordinator, Nancy Khan, NMNH, is providing logistical and communications support.

Symposium highlights will include special presentations by Bruce Baldwin, University of California, Berkeley; Brian Bowen, University of Hawaii; Kerry Shaw, Cornell University; Alice Cibois, Natural History Museum of Geneva; Michael Soule, University of California, Santa Cruz; and other knowledgeable experts. As well, a pre-conference workshop on current plant conservation efforts will report on some of the approaches currently being taken in Hawaii, with the hope of stimulating discussion and feedback during the symposium. The event will conclude with a traditional Hawaiian luau at the Bishop Museum. Additional information and online registration can be accessed at http://botany.si.edu/events/2011_pacific/index.htm.

As a member of the executive planning committee I have been involved in developing this symposium from its inception with other Smithsonian researchers including Rob Fleischer, NZP/NMNH; Vicki Funk, NMNH; Doug Herman, NMAI; Helen James, NMNH; and Chris Meyer, NMNH. I am excited that this international symposium will significantly advance the knowledge base and information sharing of Pacific researchers and build the foundation for creating an integrated, cross-cutting program of Pacific research and education, coordinated at the Smithsonian Institution.

Recipients of the Jose Cuatrecasas Award Visit NMNH

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

The following botanists visited the U.S. National Herbarium with the support of a 2010 Cuatrecasas Award.

Fabio Ávila

Fabio Ávila, from the Universidad Distrital in Bogota, Colombia, visited for a month (18 October – 19 November). He identified, evaluated, and circumscribed the species of the neotropical genus Lasiocephalus Willd. ex Schltdl., within the Senecioneae group of Compositae. Since the last reinstatement by Cuatrecasas in 1974, the genus has been without new advances in its systematic. In this way, he is supporting in the taxonomy of the genus for further advances in its phylogeny. His previous research was conducted at the Charles University in the Czech Republic. During his stay, Ávila revised about 400 specimens and the type collections of four species of Lasiocephalus. In his revision, he proposed the synonyms by locating two names published in the former work of Cuatrecasas: L. caldasensis and L. mochensis, in L. involucratus and L. loeseneri, respectively. Thus, he could confirm the identity of 12 species for Colombia and circumscribe the genus to 20 names in the tropics. He also corrected the older names, since the group was taxonomically considered within Senecio. In addition, he achieved to recognize the morphologic variation of the complex L. otophorus, under infra-specific categories by Cuatrecasas. Ávila’s research will contribute to the phylogeographic studies in that species in the Andean Range. Finally, the Cuatrecasas Fellowship has made it possible to review all the variation of the genus from Venezuela to Bolivia, and supported the last steps for a next issue of the Flora of Colombia.

The leaf morphotype GD5 from the Guaduas Formation of the Late Cretaceous of Columbia is the focus of Camila Martínez Aguillón's research.

The research of Camila Martínez Aguillón, from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, focuses on dating of plant phylogenies based on the fossil record and molecular data, biogeographical reconstructions and the diversification processes in the Neotropics. Her Master’s thesis focuses on the identification of a leaf morphotype called GD5 from the Guaduas Formation of the Late Cretaceous of Colombia, based on morphological and anatomical characters. During her visit to the Smithsonian, Martínez Aguillón focuses on the identification of leaf morphotypes and a broad revision of the overall morphology of angiosperms that present a similar morphology as the morphotype GD5 (below). Some of the genera that she revised belong to Menispermaceae, Aristolochiaceae, Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Piperaceae. Once the revision of the cleared leaves was completed, she concluded that the Piperaceae shared more characters with the fossil than any of the other families. She made a bibliographic revision of previous macrofossils associated with the family and fortunately three of them were stored in the U.S. paleobotanical collection. Martínez Aguillón then made a wide revision of the order Piperales, including other genera of the families Aristolochiaceae, Hydnoraceae and Saururaceae. Within Piperaceae she evaluated the genera Zippelia, Manekia and Verhuellia. Given that Piper is a pantropical genus with around 2,000 species, she decided to describe the leaf architecture of the genus, based on approximately 320 species previously sampled to construct the molecular phylogeny. She started the evaluation of the genus Piper with the paleotropical clades and then she continued with the less representative clades. Once the description of the leaves is completed and the taxonomic affinity of the fossil is established, she will calibrate the phylogeny of the genus and try to elucidate the origin and the migration of the genus.

 

Carlos Alonso Maya Lastra

Carlos Alonso Maya Lastra, a graduate student from Universidad del Quindío, Colombia, conducted studies on the taxonomy of the genus Dalechampia (Euphorbiaceae). He analyzed more than 600 collections of Dalechampia from the Neotropics and 57 specimens from Colombia. Overall, he has studied 320 collection of Dalechapia for Colombia from 13 different herbaria, with the material from US corresponding to 15.2 percent of the total sample, which covers a large time span contributing greatly to his work. Through the study of general collections and types he was been able to clarify numerous species concepts and understand their distributional patterns and morphological variation. Maya Lastra was able to uncover collections representing undescribed species and verify new synonymy and range extensions. He also benefited from using the large collections of literature housed in the Botany Library.

 

Maria Alejandra Jaramillo

Maria Alejandra Jaramillo, from Universidad Icesi, Cali, Colombia, conducted research on the “Geographic Differentiation of Piper Species Complexes along the Chocó Region and Central America.” She examined herbarium specimens, including several type specimens, as well as consulted the library and made copies of protologs of all species and their synonyms. She compiled a database with all specimens belonging to the Piper trianae (Piperaceae) complex. The database includes geographic information for 350 entries—of which the data will be used to produce distribution maps and predicted localities that need to be visited for a through sampling. A portion of leaf tissue was taken from selected specimens (with permission) to include in future molecular phylogenetic analyses. Many species of this complex are only known from the type collection. In particular a number of them correspond to collections made by José Cuatrecasas during his expeditions in Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Type specimens of nine of the 16 species of the complex are at US. Jaramillo also examined specimens of other clades of Piper, i.e. Ottonia and Enckea. She was able to identify at least two new species, one from Ecuador (a very distinct taxon of the Peltobryon clade with peltate leaves) and another from Guyana, belonging to the Ottonia clade.

From 16 September to 2 October, Ana Isabel Vásquez-Vélez, from Universidad del Valle, Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, studied 70 species of Pilea Lindl. (Urticaceae), 25 of which are distributed in Central America and 45 in South America. These included 91 types, 29 of which are from Central America and 62 from South America, including 31 from Colombia. She built a database recording numerous morphological characters that are useful in the classification of the genus. These include length of masculine and feminine inflorescences, flower size, number of tepals, size of flower clusters, fruit size; size and shape of leaf cystoliths; stipule size; and presence or absence of pubescence. In total, she was able to study and identify about 200 specimens of Neotropical Pilea.

Ana Isabel Vásquez-Vélez

The dissertation objectives of José D. Zúñiga, from the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate University, include phylogenetic studies within Sabiaceae and Meliosma, as well as taxonomic work on Neotropical Meliosma. The Cuatrecasas Fellowship allowed him to study the morphological variation of vegetative and reproductive characters in Meliosma, with focus on subgenus Meliosma sect. Lorenzanea, and to study the type collections of Sabiaceae. Zúñiga studied over 30 type specimens of Neotropical Meliosma and three belonging to Ophiocaryon species. Notes and measurements on reproductive and vegetative morphological features were made for each specimen. When present, flowers were rehydrated and dissected with a light microscope (with previous consent from herbarium staff) to document with detail floral morphological characters that are of taxonomic importance in these two genera. He gathered label data from type specimens and general collection specimens. This data is already being used to inform future field work. He also annotated the specimens of Central American Meliosma.

50 Years of Mounting Specimens

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

Mary Skinner has significantly contributed to the U.S. National Herbarium by crafting well-mounted plant specimens for fifty years, mounting an estimated 150,000 specimens in that time. She began her career as a plant mounter at the Smithsonian in 1961. During some single years she mounted as many as 5,000 specimens, serving this Institution and other government agencies. Since her retirement from the Smithsonian in 1986 up to the present day, she has continued to mount specimens for the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program, which are also deposited in the U.S. National Herbarium. Her service and her career as a plant mounter is so remarkable that she was recently featured in the Roanoke Times (Virginia) on December 8, 2010; the full text can be found on the Roanoke Times website at http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/268209.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Dilkea clarkei Feuillet

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 1 from January 2011.

Dilkea clarkei Feuillet (Passifloraceae) was collected by David Clarke in 1996 on the Kamoa Mountains and on the Makawatta Massif in southwest Guyana. It differs from others species of subgenus Dilkea by the combination of small elliptic leaf blades and spherical fruits neither hard apiculate nor tapering at base. Clarke was the eighth and final full-time Resident Plant Collector to participate in a collecting expedition sponsored by the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program.