The Plant Press

Art by Alice Tangerini: Prestoea montana (R. Graham) G. Nicholson

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 3 from 2011.

Prestoea montana (R. Graham) G. Nicholson. (Illustration by Alice Tangerini)

Endemic to the West Indies, Prestoea montana (Arecaceae) can be found while climbing Mount Liamuiga, the highest mountain on St. Kitts (see cover story, “Island Explorations and Evolutionary Investigations”). This illustration of P. montana was part of an exhibit titled, “Palms of the Lesser Antilles,” on display in the Rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History from 24 May to 20 July 1980. The exhibit featured 15 illustrations by Alice Tangerini and three palm herbarium specimens from the U.S. National Herbarium. The exhibit was the idea of Robert Read who had the drawings previously published in “Flora of the Lesser Antilles” for which he contributed the section on palms. The exhibit traveled to the Hunt Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in November 1980, at the invitation of their Curator of Art, James White.

Island Explorations and Evolutionary Investigations

From Plant Press Vol. 14, No. 3 from July 2011.

By Vinita Gowda

Female Purple-throated Carib (Eulampis jugularis) tagged with a unique band for individual identification. Male and female Purple-throated Caribs were monitored over multiple years to understand their dependence and interaction patterns with the native heliconias. (Photo by Vinita Gowda)

For over a century the Caribbean region, held between North and South America, has been an active area of research for people with interests in island biogeography, character evolution, speciation, as well as geology. Most research have invoked both dispersal and vicariance processes to explain the distribution of the local flora and fauna, while ecological interactions such as niche partitioning and ecological adaptations have been used to explain the diversity within the Caribbean region. One of the biggest challenges in understanding island colonization in the Caribbean, however, has been its complex, dynamic and variable geological history, which varies both along a North-South and an East-West axis.

The Caribbean region is divided into the Greater Antilles (Northern Islands) and the Lesser Antilles (Southern Islands). The Lesser Antilles archipelago, the focus of my research interests, is 850 km long with a radius of curvature of 450 km, and consists of 19 islands. The Lesser Antilles stretches from South American continental margin (eastern Venezuela) to the Anegada Passage, which marks its boundary with the Greater Antilles (Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands platform).

Map showing the locations of St. Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, and St. Vincent within the Lesser Antillean chain of islands. Field work and study sites were set up at all the three islands to study heliconias and their interactions with the native hummingbirds. (Photo by Vinita Gowda)

Geologically, the Caribbean region is estimated to have formed in the Cenozoic era (~65 mya), following the separation of North and South America during the Mesozoic era. The volcanic islands, today’s Lesser Antilles, are proposed to have emerged from the tectonically active Aves Arc after a series of subsiding volcanic islands migrated eastward after the Aves Ridge was formed to the West. Although, the Lesser Antilles is commonly referred to as a volcanically active chain of islands, not all of the Lesser Antilles is volcanic. Based on geological origin and elevation all the islands of the Lesser Antilles can be divided into two groups: a) Limestone Caribbees (outer arc: calcareous islands with a low relief, dating to middle Eocene to Pleistocene), and b) Volcanic Caribbees (inner arc: young volcanic islands with strong relief, dating back to late Miocene).

For over more than a decade John Kress, Ethan Temeles (Amherst College) and their team of researchers have been investigating mutualistic interactions between heliconias (Heliconia: Heliconiaceae) and their sexually dimorphic hummingbird pollinators the Purple-throated Caribs (Trochilidae: Eulampis jugularis) throughout the Eastern Caribbean Islands. Based on their studies they proposed the Caribbean Heliconia-hummingbird system as a case for adaptive evolution between the beak morphology of the Purple-throated Caribs and the floral morphology of the two native heliconias (Temeles et al. 2000 Science; Temeles and Kress 2003 Science). My involvement in this project started in September 2002, or more appropriately from July 2002 when I first met John at the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) meeting in Bangalore, India. At the time, I was investigating a Mussaenda frondosa-insect interaction in the Western Ghats, India and I was ready for new and bigger research challenges.

Computer Science and Biology Come Together to Make Tree Identification a Snap

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 3 from July 2011.

Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution have pooled their expertise to create the world’s first plant identification mobile app using visual search—Leafsnap. This electronic field guide allows users to identify tree species simply by taking a photograph of the tree’s leaves. In addition to the species name, Leafsnap provides high-resolution photographs and information about the tree’s flowers, fruit, seeds and bark—giving the user a comprehensive understanding of the species.

“We wanted to use mathematical techniques we were developing for face recognition and apply them to species identification,” said Peter Belhumeur, professor of computer science at Columbia and leader of the Columbia team working on Leafsnap. “Traditional field guides can be frustrating—you often do not find what you are looking for. We thought we could redesign them using today’s smartphones and visual recognition technology.”

David Jacobs of the University of Maryland and Belhumeur approached John Kress to collaborate on remaking the traditional field guide for the 21^st century.

“Leafsnap was originally designed as a specialized aid for scientists and plant explorers to discover new species in poorly known habitats,” said Kress, leader of the Smithsonian team working on Leafsnap. Kress was digitizing the botanical specimens at the U.S. National Herbarium when first contacted by Jacobs and Belhumeur, so the match between a botanist and computer scientists came at a perfect time. “Now Smithsonian research is available as an app for the public to get to know the plant diversity in their own backyards, in parks and in natural areas. This tool is especially important for the environment, because learning about nature is the first step in conserving it.”

Users of Leafsnap will not only be learning about the trees in their communities and on their hikes—they will also be contributing to science. As people use Leafsnap, the free mobile app automatically shares their images, species identifications and the tree’s location with a community of scientists. These scientists will use the information to map and monitor population growth and decline of trees nationwide. Currently, Leafsnap’s database includes the trees of the Northeast, but it will soon expand to cover the trees of the entire continental United States.

Faust Honored with Tyge Christensen Prize

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 3 from July 2011.

The International Phycological Society (IPS) has awarded the Tyge Christensen Prize to the monograph “Taxonomy of Gambierdiscus including four new species, Gambierdiscus caribaeus, G. carolinianus, G. carpenteri and G. reutzleri (Gonyaulacales, Dinophyceae)” by R. Wayne Litaker, Mark W. Vandersea, Maria A. Faust, Steven R. Kibler, Mireille Chinain, Michael J. Holmes, William C. Holland and Patricia A. Terster (Phycologia 48: 344-390; 2009).

The Tyge Christensen Prize is awarded annually for the best paper published in Phycologia. The prize consists of a cash award as well as commemorative certificates for each author. Judging of the awards is based on scientific significance, originality in subject matter or techniques, comprehensiveness, and clarity of presentation.

Dinoflagellate species in the genus Gambierdiscus have a pantropical distribution and are found throughout the Caribbean, the Hawaiian Islands, French Polynesia, Australia and the Indian Ocean. Recently, Gambierdiscus has been found in the Gulf of Mexico off of Texas and North Carolina. The impetus for studying species in the genus Gambierdiscus is the production of precursor toxins, bioaccumulation in fish and the cause of ciguatera fish poisoning. This monograph represents the first comprehensive overview of the morphology of the toxicologically important species belonging to the genus Gambierdiscus. Consequently, a major goal of this study was to provide the research community with detailed morphological differences and phylogenetic analyses of the species within this important genus.

“The research by Litaker et al. highlights the utility and importance of alpha taxonomy in biological research, and a premier journal like Phycologia specializing in the description of internationally significant algal species is the appropriate venue to recognize this importance,” said Giuseppe C. Zuccarello, Chair of the Christensen Prize committee and IPS Vice President. “This work shows the heights that careful descriptive research can reach, both aesthetically and practically, and deserves this year’s Tyge Christensen Prize.”

James J. White, 1941-2011

From Plant Press, Vol. 14, No. 3 from July 2011

On 12 April, James J. White died from a degenerative neurological disease. He was supervisor of the Herbarium Services Unit in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian Institution (1969–1978), where he often found original botanical artworks in the same drawer as herbarium specimens. He joined the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation staff in 1978 as Assistant Curator of Art and became Curator of Art in 1982. After 32 years at the Hunt Institute, he retired due to medical reasons in 2010 as Curator of Art & Principal Research Scholar, Emeritus.

A native of Johnson City, Tennessee, White received his B.A. (1963) and M.S. (1968) at East Tennessee State University. After moving to Washington, D.C., in 1969, he took courses in botany and art at George Washington University and the Corcoran School of Art.

At the Hunt Institute he worked alongside Curator of Art John V. Brindle (1911–1991) to augment the botanical art collection and to curate a regular schedule of exhibitions. As Curator of Art, White refined the triennial International series (begun in 1964) into one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary botanical art and illustration in the world. He was involved with the curation of over 50 exhibitions and contributed many articles about items in the Art collection to the Bulletin of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation and articles on botanical art in India to Huntia, a journal of botanical history. White oversaw the cataloguing of the entire Art collection, making the information available first in a nine-part print edition (1985–1998) and in 2001 as a database on Hunt’s Web site. In the early 1990s he began compiling the Register of Original Botanical Art, a guide to the location of mostly public collections of original botanical paintings and drawings from any time period done in traditional media, such as watercolor, pastel, ink or pencil, and added the database to Hunt’s Web site in 2002.

In 2007 he received the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) Award for Excellence in the Service of Botanical Art in recognition of his outstanding work in support of botanical art, and in 2010 this award was renamed in his honor.

Plant Conservation has 2020 Vision

From Plant Press Vol. 14, no. 3

Editor's Note
By Gary A. Krupnick

In October 2010, in Nagoya, Japan, the 10^th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a Decision incorporating a consolidated update of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) for the period 2011-2020. Over 180 countries backed the Global Strategy when it was first introduced to the CBD in April 2002. They recognized that up to two thirds of the world's plant species could be threatened by the end of this century unless urgent steps are taken to safeguard tens of thousands of species.

The original strategy set 16 targets in plant conservation to be achieved by 2010. These 16 outcome-oriented targets fall into five categories: understanding and documenting plant diversity, conserving plant diversity, using plant diversity sustainably, promoting education and awareness about plant diversity, and building capacity for the conservation of plant diversity. The new GSPC has revised targets set for 2020.

The ultimate and long-term objective of the Strategy is to halt the current and continuing loss of plant diversity. The mission of the Strategy is a catalyst for working together at all levels – local, national, regional and global – to understand, conserve and use sustainably the world's immense wealth of plant diversity while promoting awareness and building the necessary capacities for its implementation.

To help nations meet the targets, a consortium of international and national plant and conservation agencies have formed the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation. The Partnership brings together international, regional and national organizations in order to contribute to the implementation of the GSPC and provide tools and resources on how each country can plan and act to meet the targets. The National Museum of Natural History is a member of the Partnership.