The Plant Press

Critically Endangered Gesneriad Discovered in the Pakaraima Mountains of Guyana

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

By Elizabeth Jacobsen, Botany Intern

Its range may be small, and its flowers even smaller, but it couldn’t hide forever: Anetanthus disjuncta (Gesneriaceae) is described for the first time by Laurence Skog and John L. Clark in the journal Phytotaxa. The new find is located at a single location on Mt. Ayanganna in the Pakaraima Mountains of Guyana, at elevations between 800 and 1100 m. This restricted range signals that A. disjuncta should be listed as Critically Endangered according to IUCN Red List criteria.

Anetanthus disjuncta gets its name from its spatial separation from the other two Anetanthus species, which are found farther west—in Brazil and the Andes from Colombia to Bolivia. Anetanthus gracilis, described in 1877, is the most widespread species in the genus, and it contains a subspecies, Anetanthus gracilis subsp. munchiquensis, which was described in 1995. The remaining Anetanthus species, A. rubra, is known only from its type locality in Amazonas, Peru, and was described by Skog in 1982. Skog and Clark are the world’s leading experts on neotropical gesneriads. Skog is an emeritus research botanist at the Smithsonian and Clark has been a Research Associate at the Smithsonian since 2006.

Anetanthus disjuncta was first collected from Guyana by David Clarke in 2001. (Photo by John L. Clark during a 2014 field expedition to Mt. Ayanganna).

The Smithsonian has a long history of research in the Guiana Shield, most visibly since 1983 when the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program (BDG) got started in the Guianas. The area known as the Guiana Shield includes parts of Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana. The region is biologically rich, but much remains to be uncovered by scientists. Its largely pristine conditions are threatened by logging and mining, and the BDG has been dedicated to studying and preserving this biodiversity hotspot, an especially important task as it continues to reveal new species like Anetanthus disjuncta.

Highlights from Botany 2015

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

By Monica Carlsen, with contributions from Laurence Dorr, Paul Peterson and Jun Wen

During the week of July 25-30, the city of Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada welcomed more than 1,600 botanists and mycologists for Botany 2015, the annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America and 13 other similar Canadian and international societies. Very pleasant 60°F sunny summer days and spectacular views of the North Saskatchewan River valley greeted us at the Shaw Conference Centre, a former coal mine from the 1800s. The place is now transformed into a convention center with big halls and smaller lectures rooms, as well as steep stairs that served as our daily workout when trying to run from one talk to the next.

The Botany Department of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History was well-represented at the conference by curators Laurence Dorr, Ashley Egan, Paul Peterson, Laurence Skog, Warren Wagner, Jun Wen and Kenneth Wurdack, along with Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow Monica Carlsen and botanical illustrator Alice Tangerini, as well as many former Smithsonian scientists and collaborators. More than 600 talks and over 500 posters included a variety of topics from agronomy to paleobotany, biogeography to phylogenomics, and everything else in between.

Wiersema Receives the ASPT Peter Raven Award

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

The American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) awarded John H. Wiersema the 2015 Peter Raven Award. Wiersema, a Research Associate at Smithsonian’s Department of Botany, is a botanist of the National Germplasm Resource Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service (USDA-ARS), The award is named for Peter Raven, eminent botanist and President Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, who has made significant contributions to research, education and outreach in botanical sciences throughout his esteemed career.

Wiersema has greatly served the plant systematics and broader plant biology communities during a long, productive career that includes over 25 years of service to the U.S. government. Fellow scientists working for museums and governmental organizations in four countries wrote in strong support of his nomination, highlighting the various roles he has played supporting international botanical research. In his current position with USDA-ARS, Wiersema has been principally responsible for the development and oversight of the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) website, <http://www.ars-grin.gov/>, a worldwide resource for taxonomic and nomenclatural information about cultivated, weedy, and economically important plants.

Wagner Receives the ASPT Asa Gray Award

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

The American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) selected Warren Wagner for its 2015 Asa Gray Award, one of the most prestigious honors in the botanical sciences. The award is named for Asa Gray (1810-1888), considered by many to be the most important American botanist of the 19^th century. The award recognizes outstanding lifetime achievement in the field of plant systematics.

Kenneth Sytsma (left) presents the 2015 Asa Gray Award to Warren Wagner during the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) banquet in Edmonton, Canada. (photo by Ally Boni)

Wagner’s recognition follows a nomination consisting of numerous testimonial letters from experts from across the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. Kenneth Sytsma (University of Wisconsin – Madison), the primary nominator, attributes this broad show of support to Wagner’s impressive contributions to not only plant systematics, but to disciplines including biogeography, ecology, restoration biology, and conservation. Letter writer Peter Hoch (Missouri Botanical Garden) spoke to Wagner’s core passion for biodiversity when he wrote, “As a ‘field and floristic’ taxonomist, there are few in his generation who have accomplished more.”

Wen Joins Editorial Board of Journal of Systematics and Evolution

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

Jun Wen has joined the editorial board of Journal of Systematics and Evolution as the Co-Editor-in-Chief. Journal of Systematics and Evolution (JSE, since 2008; formerly Acta Phytotaxonomica Sinica) is an international journal in systematics and evolution dedicated to the description and understanding of biological diversity that covers the description of new taxa, monographic revisions, phylogenetics, molecular evolution and genome evolution, evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary ecology, population biology, conservation biology, biogeography, paleobiology, and evolutionary theories. JSE is an official journal of Botanical Society of China, sponsored by the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Several research scientists from the Botany Department have recently published in JSE, including Rob Soreng, Paul Peterson, and Konstantin Romaschenko's recent cover article on the worldwide phylogenetic classification of the Poaceae, and several papers by Vicki Funk, Jun Wen, Elizabeth Zimmer, Ning Zhang and Morgan Gostel in the new special issue on “Phylogenomic Approaches to Deciphering the Tree of Life.” Laurence Dorr also serves on the JSE editorial board.

New Faces

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

In September, Erika Gardner became the newest employee of the Botany Department as a Museum Specialist on the Core Collections Management team. Gardner arrives with an excellent knowledge and understanding of classic taxonomy and brings a great deal of experience in herbarium collections. A native of southern California, Gardner received her bachelor’s degree in Biology from Cal Poly-Pomona in 2009, and recently completed requirements for her master’s degree in Botany from Claremont Graduate University. She began her career as a Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Intern at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden working with Sula Vanderplank. Upon graduation, she went full-time at RSA and, over the last 7 years, has been involved in all aspects of collections management. Her data management and digitization skills contributed to the success of the Latin American Plants Initiative and Global Plants Initiative projects at RSA. She has done extensive geo-referencing of herbarium specimens, conducted field work in support of her master’s thesis on the floristics of the Scodie Mountains in Kern County, California, and is Arc-GIS certified by ESRI. Most recently, Gardner has been responsible for acquisitions processing in the RSA herbarium, supervising a large volunteer staff, graduate students, and undergraduate interns.

Chair With A View: Transitions

From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 4, October 2015.

By Laurence J. Dorr

To be perfectly frank I have mixed feelings about becoming Chair of Botany. It is clearly an honor to be entrusted with this position but it comes with a price. My personal scientific ambitions will have to be subordinated to the needs of the Department, the Museum, and the Institution. In those fleeting moments when I am being honest with myself, I will have to admit that I will never finish all of the research projects I contemplated or even a number of those that I initiated. This might have been the case regardless of whether or not I became Chair, but now I can delude myself and blame my new administrative responsibilities for my failure to realize all of my dreams. My tendency to complain (well known to my fellow curators) also will have to be severely curtailed. The reason for this should be obvious: I am not fond of criticizing myself. I will however accept responsibility for my decisions and I trust that most of them will be reasonable and fair.

Laurence Dorr began his first week as Chair of the Botany Department while on vacation in Egypt and Turkey. (photo by Lisa Barnett)

The transition to becoming Chair was interesting. Technically, the baton was passed on October 1, 2015, but anyone watching this race would have seen the former and present Chair running side by side for a good amount of time before then. In fact, I think we are still running side by side. Shortly before I officially took the helm, I felt as if a tidal wave had washed over me, but I appear to have survived. I never realized the extent of the email traffic the Chair receives nor could I have imagined the number of meetings one is required to attend. My first official act (a very wise one) was to go on annual leave but even while I was on vacation in Egypt and Turkey, I found myself reading email each day at breakfast and trying to respond to those messages that demanded my attention. If I had not done this, this column would not have been written by the deadline. I would also still be sorting through two weeks of accumulated emails.

One of the nice things about becoming the Chair of Botany is that it is liberating. By that I mean I feel free to approach other department and unit heads in the Museum (and elsewhere) and ask them how we in Botany can find common ground to improve our science, collections, and exhibits. I have worked at the Smithsonian for almost 25 years and I thought I had a good understanding of our Department, the Museum, and the Institution. I now realize that I do not. I am learning new things every day and I find this exciting and challenging.

During my tenure as Chair I intend to work hard and I expect all members of this Department to work just as hard. I am committed to helping all of you succeed with your research. We are very privileged to be working in this Museum and Institution and with privilege comes obligation. We are obligated to do the best that we can with the resources we are given. I know we need more money, more space, and more help, but placed in a global perspective our current resources are quite generous. I intend to have fun while helping improve our research and collections and I hope all of you will have fun, too. My ultimate goal as Chair is simple: I hope to help make a very good Department even better.

Laurence Dorr conducting field work in Guaramacal, Venezuela.