From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 3, July 2022.
The 19th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Life on the Edge: Exceptional Plants in Exceptional Places,” was held on 13 May 2022. The invited speakers specializing in conservation, ecology, systematics, and genetics explored plant survival in extreme parts of the natural world. Below are the abstracts from the papers that were presented by the invited speakers.
Susan Pell (far left), USBG Deputy Executive Director, and Eric Schuettpelz (far right), Chair of the Botany Department, join the speakers of the 2022 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium at the National Museum of Natural History (from left): Fabián Michelangeli, Ben Nyberg, Jenna Ekwealor, Tanisha Williams, and Jessica Allen. (photo by Ken Wurdack)
Jessica Allen
Eastern Washington University
“Urban Lichens: Symbioses in the built environment”
Densely populated urban areas are centers of exceptional human culture, wealth and political power. The biodiversity that occupies major cities alongside their human inhabitants, while typically not exceptional in their rarity, are exceptional in their adaptability and resilience. Of the biodiversity observed in cities, lichens are some of the most colorful and ubiquitous. These quintessential symbioses are the dominant and most diverse organisms in many of the harshest environments on the planet, yet they are incredibly sensitive to anthropogenic change. In this talk I will discuss how lichens have responded to urbanization in the Northeast Megalopolis over the past two centuries and will compare these patterns to those observed in select cities around the world. I will discuss the lichens of New York City, the heart of the Northeast Megalopolis, in depth, where a documented decline occurred throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the 1970s there has been a notable rebound in the lichens of New York, and I will introduced you to some of the remarkably resilient city-dwelling species that have managed to grow, and even thrive, in one of the mostly densely urbanized regions on the planet.
Jenna Ekwealor
Smithsonian Institution
“The secret lives of desert moss”
Desert plants experience extreme fluctuations in light, temperature, and water availability. These intense conditions shape the development, life history, and evolutionary trajectory of desert mosses. In this talk, I will present on two such processes: vegetative growth and sexual reproduction. First, I discuss the discovery of Mojave Desert mosses occurring as hypoliths under milky quartz rocks. To characterize this unique moss microhabitat, we deployed microclimate dataloggers and collected samples in a Mojave site containing quartz hypoliths. The results of this study highlight the need to consider microhabitats, especially in extreme environments, where mosses may find refuge from the prevailing macroclimatic conditions. Second, I discuss how natural populations of many desert mosses appear highly female-biased based on the presence of reproductive structures. The dryland moss Syntrichia caninervis is notable for its low frequency of sex expression and strong female bias. Using molecular methods, we uncovered the genetic sex of non-expressing shoots and compared the patterns of phenotypic and genotypic sex ratios in Mojave populations. The findings shared in this talk contribute to our understanding of how the environment may modulate habitat filtering, vegetative growth, and sexual reproduction in S. caninervis, either through its direct influence on physiology or through selection.
Fabián A. Michelangeli
New York Botanical Garden
“Endemism and adaptations in the flora of the lost world”
The dramatic landscape of the “tepuis”, the table-top mountains raising over the forest and savannas of the Guayana Shield, have fostered great interest in the biota of the region. In spite of that, our knowledge of the flora and its relation to other tropical biomes is far from complete. During this talk we will discuss our understanding of high levels of endemism at the species and generic levels of the tepui flora and the remarkable diversity of adaptations to the poor and acidic soils, and high levels of irradiation.
Ben Nyberg
National Tropical Botanical Garden
“A conservation airlift: applications of drone technology in plant conservation”
Cliff habitats are hard to study since their extreme topography can make access difficult and dangerous. New tools are changing that equation. Drones are now being applied to allow botanical survey of vertical surfaces. Over the past few years, this aerial technology has led to a number of important discoveries as well as comprehensive inventories of rare cliff species. A new project is underway to allow remote collection of plant material and assist with identification and conservation in these difficult environments.
Tanisha M. Williams
Bucknell University
“Protecting the Fynbos: climate change insights from South Africa”
The clock is ticking as we try to save the world’s biodiversity from climate change. Projections have calculated that by the end of 2100 up to one and every six species will become extinct or will be at a breaking point setting its path towards extinction. Such drastic events will have significant impacts on biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functioning. Scientists are urgently working to understand historical and contemporary responses to increasingly stressful environments, conserve species and their habitats, and make meaningful projections. South Africa is home to several biodiversity hotspots and has the fifth highest number of plant species in the world. The Fynbos, a South African hotspot, has recently seen record breaking droughts and fires devastating this unique ecosystem. Collaborations between a global network of scientists, government offices, nonprofit organizations, and concerned community members are helping to document, monitor, and conserve species in the Fynbos. A multidisciplinary approach, using herbarium records, trait-based ecology, genomics and other methods, is being used to understand the mechanisms that influence species distributions and their responses to climate change. This talk will take you on a tour of how we are trying to save this threatened biodiversity hotspot.
Acknowledgments
The success of the Symposium was due to the significant time and efforts of the following people:
Organizing Committee: Pedro Acevedo, Amy Bolton, Janelle Burke, Rose Gulledge, Gary Krupnick, Susan Pell, Paul Peterson, Eric Schuettpelz, Kenneth Wurdack, and Elizabeth Zimmer
Administrative Support: MaryAnn Apicelli, Marisol Arciniega-Melendez, and Adriana Reynolds
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