The Plant Press

Collections-based Science in the 21st Century

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

A recent open-access paper published in the Journal of Systematics and Evolution (a journal co-edited by Botany Department member Jun Wen) discusses the importance of collections based research from the 1700s to 2100 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jse.12315).

In the article, the author, Botany Curator Vicki Funk, discusses discoveries from collections-based science that have changed the way we perceive ourselves, our environment, and our place in the universe.

Some of the biological collections housed at the National Museum of Natural History. (photos courtesy of NMNH Photo Services; assembled by Alice Tangerini)

The narrative begins with the 18^th century, which saw the beginning of formal classification with Linnaeus proposing a system to classify all of life. Passing through the 19^th century, the age of exploration ushered in as naturalists undertook large-scale collecting expeditions leading to major scientific advances (the founding of Physical Geography, Meteorology, Ecology, Biogeography, and Evolution) and challenging long held beliefs about nature. Moving into the 20^th century, Funk explains how collections were central to paradigm shifts, including theories of Continental Drift and Phylogenetic Systematics, and explains how Molecular Phylogenetics added testable hypotheses and computerized specimen records gave rise to the field of Biodiversity.

In more recent times, the first 15 years of the 21^st century, Funk suggests that tree-thinking has pervaded the life sciences leading to the emergence of Evolutionary Medicine, Evolutionary Ecology, and new Food Safety methods. Finally, Funk looks into the future and how collections-based research is staged to produce even more advances: 1) open access to large amounts of specimen data & images; 2) linking of collections and climate data to phylogenies on a global scale; and 3) production of vast quantities of genomic data allowing researchers to address big evolutionary questions. Because of collections-based science, people see themselves not as the center of all things, but rather as part of a complex universe.

The paper concludes by stating that it is essential that we integrate new discoveries with knowledge from the past (e.g., collections) in order to understand this planet we all inhabit, and suggests that we must come together and plan for the future.

This paper is posted on ResearchGate, a social networking site for scientists and researchers, where readers can post comments.

Wonderful World of Plant Microtechnique

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

Summer interns at the National Museum of Natural History received a tour of the Plant Anatomy and Histology Laboratory.

A tour of the Department of Botany’s Plant Anatomy and Histology Lab was presented for National Museum of Natural History interns on June 20. This event was coordinated by the Academic Resources Center’s Intern Team for Activities and Events. Participants had the opportunity to learn in detail how plant anatomy is useful in taxonomic research, and especially about the intricate methods that reveal anatomical structure and cellular organization in plants. Featured lessons included fixation, paraffin embedding, microtomy, whole mount clearing, critical point drying, and microscopy. The interns observed microslide preparations in brightfield, polarized light,and phase contrast, and research being conducted on the morphology of Vitis sp. (Vitaceae) seeds. The highlight of the tour was to section buds using a rotary microtome to produce exquisitely thin paraffin ribbons.

New Faces

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

Based in Lagos, Nigeria, Temitayo Ogunbiyi is a visual artist who creates work that considers and constructs contemporary channels of communication. She is currently working on a series that fuses hairstyles with botanical forms. This will be honed and developed further during her Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Working with Gary Krupnick and John Kress, her research in the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History will focus on medicinal plant species that thrive in the tropics. Her findings will inform forthcoming works on paper and playground sculptures. She is also conducting research at the National Museum of African Art, the National Museum of American History, and the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum. Ogunbiyi’s work has been shown at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the Center for Contemporary Art Lagos (Nigeria), Tiwani Contemporary Gallery (London), Stephen Friedman Gallery (London), the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (Perm, Russia), and Berlin Art Projects (Berlin). She recently took part in Strange Attractors, an artist book that was produced as part of the 10^th Berlin Biennale. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in Art History, Visual Art, and African-American Studies and an M.A. in Curatorial Studies and Critical Art Theory from Columbia University.

Retiring from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland after more than 30 years, John H. Wiersema will be continuing his taxonomic and nomenclatural work at the National Museum of Natural History as a Research Associate in the Department of Botany, a position he has held since 2014. Previously he was a taxonomist for the USDA’s national germplasm system’s GRIN database. This position provided the opportunity to develop GRIN Taxonomy into an extensive and exhaustive taxonomic resource on economic plants important to global agriculture. Through this work Wiersema gained global standing as a specialist in plant nomenclature, and now has direct editorial involvement with both the botanical and cultivated plant codes of international nomenclature and the international journal Taxon. Wiersema is also well known as a specialist on the taxonomy of the water-lily family, especially the genus Nymphaea, is responsible for the discovery and description of several new species, and has participated in over 30 scientific publications on the group. He expects to pursue both of these interests here in the Botany Department.

Staff Research & Activities

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

Manuela Dal Forno, Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow

Manuela Dal Forno is now a Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow under advisor Eric Schuettpelz. Her project title is “Starting from scratch: Using whole genome sequencing to understand lichenization in Basidiomycota.” Dal Forno received her Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Public Policy with an emphasis on lichen molecular systematics from George Mason University in May 2015. She is interested in understanding the evolutionary relationships and biodiversity of lichens, particularly tropical lineages of basidiolichens. During her Buck Fellowship, Manuela will sequence the genomes of both partners in the symbiosis Cora­-Rhizonema to investigate patterns of gene loss and gain associated with the lichenization process; to assess presence of horizontal gene transfer; and to develop new genetic markers to understand the remarkable diversity within the Dictyonema clade (Basidiomycota, Agaricales).

Peter Schafran presented a poster “The Isoëtes flaccida (Isoëtaceae) complex in the southeastern United States,” on 18 May at the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium in Washington, DC. Schafran also presented a lecture on 5 June to the Botanical Society of Washington titled, “Botanizing in hostile territory: field work in Iraq and the Deep South.”

Among the Pioneers of Open Access in Botany, PhytoKeys is Celebrating its 100th Issue

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

-Adapted from Pensoft Publishers

Eight years, more than 500 articles and no less 13,000 pages since its launch, Pensoft's flagship botanical title PhytoKeys, celebrates its 100^th issue. Among the open access pioneers in its field, the journal brings more than just numbers to the table when it comes to achievements and innovation. PhytoKeys' most notable milestones over the last 8 years are featured in the Editorial of its anniversary issue.

Poa laegaardiana, a rare species known only from the type collection in Provincia Bolivar, Ecuador, is featured in the 100th issue of the journal PhytoKeys (https://dx.doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.100.25387).

Following its main objective to speed up research in the field of botany, in its 100^th issue the journal features a rare species, previously unknown to science – Poa laegaardiana, a new grass species found on sandy, volcanic soil in Ecuador, described by Smithsonian botanists Paul Peterson and Robert Soreng.

Launched less than a decade ago in 2010, PhytoKeys main objective was to accelerate research and free information exchange in fields such as taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography and evolution of plants, implementing the latest technology and innovative workflows. As a result, PhytoKeys was the first botanical journal to introduce a XML-based publishing workflow, pre-publication registration of new taxa with the International Plant Name Index (IPNI), semantic markup and tagging of taxonomic treatments and taxonomic names, extensive data publishing modalities, and many more.

With a total of 466 new taxa published since its launch (including 1 tribe, 26 genera or subgenera, and 439 species or infraspecies) the journal can confidently claim to be succeeding in its original mission to speed up the publishing and documenting of plant diversity in a world loss is occurring at unprecedented rates.

Graham Receives 16th Cuatrecasas Medal

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

The Department of Botany and the United States National Herbarium present the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The award is named in honor of Dr. José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist and taxonomist, who spent nearly a half-century working in the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Botany. Cuatrecasas devoted his career to plant exploration in tropical South America and this award serves to keep vibrant the accomplishments and memory of this outstanding scientist.

The winner of this prestigious award is selected by a committee made up of four botanists on staff in the Department in consultation with other plant scientists outside of the Smithsonian Institution. Nominations for the Medal are accepted from all scientists in the Botany Department. The award consists of a bronze medal bearing an image of José Cuatrecasas on the front with the recipient’s name and date of presentation on the back. Highlights from past presentations to the recipients are available at <http://botany.si.edu/cuatrecasas/cuatrecasasMedal.cfm>.

Kenneth Wurdack presents Alan Graham with the 16th José Cuatrecasas Medal in Tropical Botany. (photo by Gary Krupnick)

Alan K. Graham is the 16^th recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany. Graham received B.A. (1956) and M.A. (1958) degrees from the University of Texas. His Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1962 under paleobotanist Chester Arnold was followed by postdoctoral work at Harvard University. He had a long tenure (1964–2002) as a Professor of Biological Sciences and Geology and distinguished teacher at Kent State University, and since 2002 has been a Research Associate at the Missouri Botanical Garden. He has published over 200 scholarly works, including authoring four books. His latest book, Land Bridges: Ancient environments, plant migrations, and New World connections, was published in March 2018 by The University of Chicago Press. He has endowed research funds and been honored with Paleobotany and Biogeography, A Festschrift for Alan Graham in His 80^th Year (Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2014), and the Asa Gray Award from the American Society Plant Taxonomists (2009).

Graham’s long interest in pollen and utilizing microfossils to track American vegetation history included starting a reference slide collection, as an undergraduate, that eventually grew to 25,000 slides when it was gifted to the Smithsonian in 2008. His long-term studies on Neotropical paleobotany were supported by the National Science Foundation and have focused on late Cretaceous and Cenozoic terrestrial paleoenvironments. The Cuatrecasas Medal selection committee took special note of Graham’s focus on understanding the origins and history of neotropical floras that has culminated in impactful synthetic works. This paleo-perspective, which spans Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, is of special relevance to this year’s Smithsonian Botanical Symposium.

Turn Back Time: Plant Fossils Find a Way

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

By Kayleigh Walters and Gary A. Krupnick

Speakers, conveners, and award recipients at the 2018 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium at the National Museum of Natural History (from left): Laurence Dorr, Sir Peter Crane, Alan Graham, Kirk Johnson, Selena Smith, Surangi Punyasena, Andrew Leslie, Jonathan Wilson, Susana Magallón, Saharah Moon Chapotin, and Mónica Ramírez-Carvalho. (photo by Ken Wurdack)

This year's Smithsonian Botanical Symposium explored the deep time of botany with the theme, “Plants in the Past: Fossils and the Future.” Seven speakers presented a whirlwind of information over the course of a day, focusing heavily on the benefit brought by developing technologies to the field of paleobotany. The symposium, held on 18 May 2018, convened at the Warner Bros Theater at the National Museum of American History, a change in scenery from past symposia as Natural History’s Baird Auditorium undergoes renovations.

Leslie Overstreet and Allie Newman give background information about the Botanical fossil books on display at the Cullman Rare Book Library. Overstreet also talked about the library and the services they offer. Questions are encouraged, so when asked where the best donations to the library have come from, the group was surprised to find out that most are acquired from retired Smithsonian Institution researchers. Oftentimes these donors know little of the history of the book. (photo by Rose Gulledge)

Herbarium diluviarum by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer was first printed in 1709. Scheuchzer theorized that fossils were leftovers from the Great Flood of Noah’s Ark fame, which is depicted on this title page. (photo by Rose Gulledge)

Before the symposium began, the Joseph F. Cullman 3^rd Library of Natural History opened its doors to attendees for special tours of the library's paleobotany books. The Library put on display a wide selection of publications that highlight fossil plants, from Boccone's Recherches (1674), through the editions of Scheuchzer's Herbarium diluvianum (1709, 1723), to Brongniart's works in the 19^th century, and more. Attendees learned the tale of Johann Beringer, a professor in 1725 who was made a fool when two of his colleagues planted fake fossils for him to find and research. Fortunately, this was the only fakery of the day.

The symposium began with opening remarks by Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the National Museum of Natural History and Laurence Dorr, Chair of the Department of Botany. Johnson was pleased with the theme of the symposium this year, as the symposium coincides with the development of the Natural History Museum’s Deep Time exhibition, a major overhaul of the National Fossil Hall, which is scheduled to open to the public in June 2019.

Before the speakers’ talks began, Kenneth Wurdack presented the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany to Alan Graham, a paleobotanist from the Missouri Botanical Garden. Graham recalled his time as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and his “first social responsibility” in hosting a dinner for José Cuatrecasas and his wife. He was honored to be able to do that then, and now 56 years later, thrilled to be receiving an award in Cuatrecasas’ name.

Sir Peter Crane concludes that many of the seed-plant lineages we now treat as independent may be closely allied. (photo by Gary Krupnick)

Sir Peter Crane opened the symposium with a talk on the origin of flowering plants called “The Enigmatic ‘Mesozoic Seed Ferns.’” He introduced the complexity of studying the topic by discussing how the field of paleobotany has changed in recent decades. In the 1970s, paleobotany was a field that was literally frozen in stone due to a lack of high-quality fossils and tools to study them. Sir Peter demonstrated how far the field has come when he showed a digital reconstruction of a fossilized flower “bloom” for the crowd. Technology such as this allows scientists to study internal structures of fossilized plants.

Having demonstrated the advantages conferred by recent advances in technology and their impact on paleobotanical research, Sir Peter launched into his updated theory on seed ferns. He presented a new understanding of the origin of angiosperms based on his research of fossils collected from the Early Cretaceous in Mongolia. He explained that the origin of the outer integument and the carpel are two key questions for understanding the origin of angiosperms. He argued that the curvature responsible for the second integument in angiosperms has deep evolutionary roots. He explained that the origins of this curvature could be seen in diverse seed plants of the Mesozoic, such as Caytonia, corystosperms, and similar plants. Curvature results from the curvature of a seed-bearing axis that sometimes also bears modified bracts. Sir Peter explained that in pre-angiosperm seed plants, this curvature might be associated with a flotation based pollination mechanism involving saccate pollen, which appears to be basic in all but the very earliest diverging seed plant lineages. He concluded that many of the seed-plant lineages we now treat as independent may be closely allied.