The Plant Press

By the numbers

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.

The staff of the Department of Botany continues to make a strong push to make the U.S. National Herbarium’s collection of over 5 million specimens available online. The Botany Specimen Catalog is available at https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/botany/?ti=2. As the current pandemic continues, Botany staff sequestered in their homes continue to accomplish the goals of a fully accessible catalog of specimens. Below are some notable numbers and figures from the digitization project:

___________

4.14 million

The number of catalog records online

___________

3.6 million

The number of catalog images

___________

577,000 and 635,000

The number of catalog records and images, respectively, added in 2020

___________

95%

The percentage of all pressed sheets that have a catalog record

___________

325,000

The number of cryptogam (lichens and bryophytes) catalog records coming online soon

___________

Top 5

The country with the most collections is the United States, followed by Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru

János Xántus, a 19th century collector

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

By Julia Beros.

“There are thousands and thousands of ways to dig out a little plant, even if one has to resort to digging with his own nails,” such is the acumen of János Xántus, rather John Xantus, or perhaps Louis Vesey, or potentially and more accurately, J. Xántus de Vesey. A man enrobed by myth and lore Xántus was a famed Hungarian lawyer, then Lieutenant and then exile, but foremost a self-taught collector of plants and animals who contributed to the foundations of the Smithsonian Institution and the namesake to many novel species. Depending on where you look for information he is described as a zoologist, or an ornithologist, a naturalist, but never defined as a botanist. In a recent publication in Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. Hung. (111: 145-177; 2019) by Daniel Pifkó of the Hungarian Natural History Museum’s Botany Department, researchers endured a massive undertaking of finding and accurately cataloging Xántus’ early plant collections from the 1850s in North America, which were sent largely unidentified and with jumbled data, ultimately delivering clarity and placing his collections in context with its greater and mythic history.

Holotype of Mimosa xanti (Fabaceae) collected in Cape San Lucas, Mexico by János Xántus between August 1859 and January 1860.

Born in Hungary in 1825, Xántus finished his secondary schooling and promptly pursued a legal career. In 1848, the Hungarian Revolution spurred war and Xántus at age 23, equipped with cartographic skills, became a chief lieutenant. He was captured and sent to Austria to be enlisted in the army there, but was soon freed and while fleeing was arrested again in Prague, where he somehow escaped and absconded to the United States. Arriving with seven dollars, Xántus made a career of odd jobs, visiting different cities and leaving “after picking conflicts” with locals, and then enlisted in the U.S. army where his unlikely career in science began. Enlisting under the name “Louis Vesey” his first station was at Fort Riley in Kansas where he met William Alexander Hammond, military physician and neurologist who made a hobby of collecting biological specimens for naturalist friend Spencer Fullerton Baird (Smithsonian Curator who served as Assistant Secretary and then as the Smithsonian Institution’s 2^nd Secretary from 1878-87). The serendipity of this first assignment for Xántus gave him not only opportunity and motivation to collect biological specimens but training and mentorship from one of the world’s leading naturalists of the time as well. As one of Baird’s goals was to make the natural history collections more robust he was happy to enlist more collectors (keeping a vast list of contacts around the continent to solicit for collecting and sending material) and continue building the nation’s collections of a practically unstudied flora, essentially from scratch.

Molecular techniques in focus: Common misconceptions about tissue preservation for DNA

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

By Gabe Johnson.

Countless Ph.D. research botanists sincerely believe such misconceptions as: ethanol immediately destroys DNA in leaf tissue collections, leaves in both fresh and spent silica gel are equally dry, desiccated tissues rehydrate in absolute ethanol, and that EDTA inhibits all deoxyribonuclease (DNase) activity. Ethanol treatment of plant tissue for molecular studies is especially misunderstood by researchers in recent times, even though it can be a useful tool to improve DNA preservation for molecular studies. In this Information Age with the ability to sequence and process trillions of nucleotides of data in a single study, the capacity to isolate high quality DNAs must advance to utilize these new technologies to their fullest potential. Greater DNA quality and quantity are required for many of these next-generation sequencing methods than were necessary for traditional PCR-based Sanger methods. Obtaining sequenceable DNAs from a more complete taxonomic sampling will require an equally diverse set of DNA extraction tools, including ethanol preservation and pretreatment.

Biological tissues typically undergo a “treatment” such as freezing or drying prior to DNA extraction. The degree to which this treatment preserves the nucleic acid content of the leaf depends on the needs of the researcher and the logistical limitations of the field work. Such treatments can be as simple as allowing harvested leaves to dry in ambient conditions (usually with poor results) or the use of one of an array of desiccants, solvents, buffers, or cryogens (see Funk et al., Biodiversity Data J. 5: e11625; 2017). While a diversity of tissue treatment methods has been used to preserve DNA (i.e., Hamilton et al., Anal. Biochem. 49: 48-57; 1972), by the mid 1990’s silica gel desiccation was the default method for plant systematics studies (Chase et al., Taxon 40: 215-220; 1991). This preservation method has many virtues by being simple, inexpensive, non-toxic, and satisfactory for most major lineages of plants from algae to angiosperms, as well as fungi. However, the resulting DNA quality has limitations, and in particular is more fragmented than if extracted directly using fresh or frozen tissues.

Tissue from a collard leaf, Brassica oleracea L., is preserved in 96% ethanol to preserve DNA. (A) Since vascular tissue contains much less DNA per unit area, the large veins are removed. (B) Leaf lamina is quickly torn into ~1 cm2 pieces by hand. The ruler to the right is in cm. (C) Leaf fragments very easily fit into the mouth of a 50 mL conical vial. (D) The name of the plant and collection information is written in pencil on card stock and inserted into the vial; pencil writing does not dissolve away in ethanol. (E) To prevent excessive evaporation or accidental spills, the cap is sealed with parafilm. (F) The outside of the plastic vial is labeled with a special solvent resistant permanent marker. (G) Leaf fragments sink into the ethanol and chlorophyll leaches from tissues, leaving an off-white color. If the leaf fragments float and remain green after a couple hours, cut tissue into even smaller pieces. Adding isopropanol to the ethanol can also help. (photos by G. Johnson)

Just as DNA in herbarium specimens is better preserved for some lineages more than others, better DNA is extracted from silica dried tissues for certain taxa more than others. Tissue preservation media, dry or liquid, have a dual purpose: to protect the DNA within the tissue and to prepare the tissue for homogenization and efficient DNA isolation. Upon separation from the plant, a leaf undergoes a physiological stress response that initiates many cellular processes related to senescence: wound formation, polyphenol oxidation, and apoptosis. These cellular changes can rapidly degrade the DNA through programmed exonuclease activity and oxidative stress from reactive chemical species used in wound defense.

ForestGEO celebrates 30th anniversary

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

As 2020 came to a close, the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) marked three decades as a global research network with a landmark new paper published in Biological Conservation (253: 108907; 2021), “ForestGEO: Understanding forest diversity and dynamics through a global observatory network.” The article describes the network’s history, methodology, contributions to forest science, future directions, and need for ongoing financial support.

What began as a single plot with a powerful new methodology grew into a global network collaborating to examine the drivers of forest dynamics. Every five years ForestGEO field crews at all 71 research sites map, measure, tag with a number, and identify to species every stem with a diameter at breast height or DBH (the standard for measuring trees) equal to or greater than 1 cm in plots that are typically between 15 and 50 hectares. In addition to contextualizing the growth and evolution of the network, the new paper authored by Stuart Davies and an international team of 156 co-authors synthesizes key metrics from each plot in a data-dense table that identifies each site’s area, first census year, tree count, species count, Fisher’s alpha, census count, elevation, mean annual temperature, and mean annual precipitation. This table highlights the diversity of the ForestGEO plots, and it offers a platform from which to consider future cross-site analyses.

The Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) is a global network of forest research sites and scientists dedicated to the study of tropical, temperate, and boreal forest function and diversity. The multi-institutional network comprises 71 forest research sites across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

America’s crop cousins are numerous, imperiled, and more needed than ever

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

Wild cranberries have a sanctuary in West Virginia and wild peppers have a protected area on Arizona’s border with Mexico. But many hundreds of other crop wild relatives native to the United States – including those related to apples, hops, grapes, pumpkins and sunflowers, to mention but a few – do not have designated conservation areas or, even when warranted, protected status.

The cucumber-leaf sunflower (Helianthus debilis Nutt. subsp. cucumerifolius), a wild relative of the cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus), is native to Texas. Khoury et al. (2020) modeled the distributions and determined conservation priorities for 600 wild relatives native to the U.S., including this species. (photo by Katarzyna Stepien)

The plight of America’s crop wild relatives is an overlooked subtheme in the era of human-driven biodiversity loss. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2007029117> for the first time outlines how poorly protected these plants are: More than half of the 600 plants assessed in the study may be endangered in their natural habitats, while only 7% are well represented in conservation repositories such as public gene banks and botanical gardens. The study was authored by scientists at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Saint Louis University, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS), Colorado State University, Museo de Historia Natural in Peru, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and NatureServe.

“We don’t usually think of the United States or North America as a hotspot of globally important agricultural biodiversity, compared to regions like the Fertile Crescent, Southeast Asia, or Mesoamerica where so many of the crops we grow originated,” said Colin Khoury, the study’s lead author and researcher at the Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT. “But our research shows that there’s a stunning number of native plants that are, or could be, key to the future of agriculture.”

The plants can be found across the U.S., including in Alaska, Hawaii, and in its overseas territories, although certain regions of the continental U.S. are particularly diverse. “We also show that previous efforts to conserve these plants, while laudable, haven’t been sufficient to safeguard this cultural and natural heritage,” said Khoury, who is also affiliated with Saint Louis University and hosted at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS), National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation.

Discovering the hidden pollinators of Platanthera

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

A massive community science project using interval photography to capture rare and unknown pollinator relationships across North America has been launched by scientists at Texas A&U University, with guidance from the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC), Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and the New York Botanical Garden. The goal of the project is to discover and more deeply understand the evolutionary history and trajectory of one of the most speciose groups on North American orchids, Platanthera. The key to unlocking its secrets lies in part in finding its pollinators.

Platanthera huronensis in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Salt Lake City Utah. (photo by Lydia Morley)

As it stands, little is known about pollinator relationships in North American orchids, and Platanthera is no exception. Of the approximately 200 species of North American orchids, just over 100 have published records of pollination. Discoveries of orchid pollinators are important: most flowering plants need pollinators. Pollinators mediate reproduction, gene flow, dispersal, and in some cases even speciation.

In order to understand how the members of Platanthera evolved and diversified in North America, orchid scientists must come to know their pollinators. With this information, researchers will not only be able to unravel how they came to be, but will also be able to predict where they might be now and how they might adjust to climatic and geographic changes in the future.

This project needs your help. We are asking the dedicated and passionate orchid, pollinator, and naturalist communities to go out and document their observations. A strategy for pollinator observation has been devised using interval photography and everyday digital cameras, in the hopes that with enough participants around the continent, even the most elusive relationships can be captured. The pilot study will hopefully be launched this field season. If you are interested in participating, feel free to reach out directly or visit the project website for more information. Contact Lydia Morley at Lydia.morley@tamu.edu, or visit the project website at https://platantherapollinators.wordpress.com/. 

ForestGEO welcomes 72nd plot to the network: Ordway Swisher, Florida, USA

From Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 4, October 2020.

ForestGEO is pleased to introduce its newest research site, the Ordway Swisher Forest Dynamics Plot, a 23.04-ha upland sandhill forest near Melrose, Florida, USA, that undergoes a regimen of prescribed burning every three to four years (including during the establishment of the plot). Field crews began the census in March 2019 and completed it in February 2020, less than one month before the coronavirus pandemic brought fieldwork around the world to a halt. Staff have entered and screened census data, which is now available upon request in the ForestGEO Data Portal. Dan Johnson and Stephanie Bohlman, both of the University of Florida, are the plot’s Principal Investigators.

Photos of the plot, after the jump...

“What wood is that?”: Expanding the toolbox for species identification

From Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 4, October 2020.

By Julia Campbell-Such

The National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian holds many beautiful works of art made from wood, but only rarely do our records indicate what species of wood the artist used. This is not unusual for a museum, but it is a shame since so much can be learned about a piece of art from understanding the materials that were used to make it. Artists choose their materials carefully for their physical characteristics but also, especially in the case of art originating on the African continent, for their symbolic value. Certain tree species can impart meaning, or even metaphysical powers, to an object made from its wood. The identification of which tree species used in African art and belongings can help researchers recreate the history of artworks with uncertain provenance and elucidate the symbolic worlds of those who created them.

Tangential section of a sample from the National Museum of African Art Jane Smith Collection of West African Woods, most likely Entandrophragma utile, under 16X magnification.

Increasingly, species identification is also important in the context of the enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international treaty to prevent species from becoming endangered or extinct because of international trade. Without proper documentation demonstrating that objects are not made with endangered species, museum artworks travelling to exhibitions abroad may be held, confiscated, or even destroyed by customs officials. Knowing which wood was used can help protect artworks when they travel.

As an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Object Conservation at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, I have been investigating ways to answer the question, “What wood is that?”, for artwork in the museum’s collection for the past two years. Using the Jane Smith collection of 64 hand samples representing over 50 species of West African woods, I have been comparing traditional wood anatomy to newly developed methods that use the tree’s chemistry, as well as its anatomy, to identify it. With the generous support of the Botany Morphology Lab at the National Museum of Natural History, under the supervision of Kenneth Wurdack and the kind, generous tutelage of Stanley Yankowski, I have been preparing and examining wood slides from this collection. I have then been comparing the results of that anatomical analysis to direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) of the same samples, conducted at the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute under the supervision of G. Asher Newsome.

Summer explorations: Descubre la historia natural [Video]

From Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 4, October 2020.

Marcos Caraballo Ortiz teaches students how to draw different types of leaves during the five-day Spanish-language virtual program, ¡Descubre la historia natural!

In early August, scientists from the Departments of Botany, Vertebrate Zoology, and Mineral Sciences joined staff from across the museum to participate in ¡Descubre la historia natural!, the last of a three-week-long online Summer Explorations series hosted by the National Museum of Natural History’s Office of Education, Outreach, and Visitor Experience. The Spanish-language program attracted audiences from across North and South America, as well as participants from Europe. The five-day program was led by educators Odalys Lugo-Morales and Juan Pablo Hurtado Padilla. It featured Efrain Tejada (Museum Educator) and Chris Mooney (Insect Zoo) giving an introduction to the museum, Vanessa Gonzalez (Genomics Scientist) on genomics, Hurtado Padilla (Microscopy Educator) on electron microscopy, Adela Roa-Varon (Ichthyologist) discussing what makes a fish a fish, Marcos Caraballo Ortiz (Botanist) exploring the structure of fruits and seeds, and Gabriela Farfan (Mineralogist) on the art and science of creating gems. 

Pages from a student’s personal natural history field book created during the five-day Spanish-language virtual program, ¡Descubre la historia natural!

The program was recommended for students in grades 3-7, but was open to all ages. Science skills were taught through live webinars, recorded videos, and hands-on activities and projects. During the week, participants were encouraged to create their own personal natural history field books and they were invited to share their entries at the end of the program. All lessons have been archived and are available on the program’s website at <https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/natural-history-summer-explorations/descubre-la-historia-natural> and submissions from the participants can be seen at <https://spark.adobe.com/page/WeEqVWMAgvz1F/>.

Video after the jump...

New funding opportunity for botanic gardens

From Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 4, October 2020.

By Morgan R. Gostel¹, Jean Linsky¹, Abby Meyer²

Together with support from the United States Botanic Garden and Botanic Gardens Conservation International, the Global Genome Initiative for Gardens (GGI-Gardens) has announced a new funding opportunity for botanic gardens that supports collection and preservation of genomic tissues new to the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) from botanic gardens. This program will support up to 15 awards of up to $4,500 each.

GGI-Gardens was founded in 2015 with the goal of fulfilling the GGI mission – ­to preserve and understand the genomic diversity of life on Earth ­– for the plant tree of life. Since its beginning in 2015, GGI-Gardens has collected over 400 and 4,500 families and genera of vascular plants, respectively, from 16 active collecting sites and 26 international partners. We hope to collect at least one sample from each family and 50% of genera of plants on Earth. These samples will help facilitate international biodiversity research priorities, such as large-scale genome sequencing projects.

If you are interested in applying, please visit https://www.bgci.org/our-work/services-for-botanic-gardens/global-botanic-garden-fund/bgci-ggi-gardens-partnership-award/

Application deadline: 15 November 2020

GGI-Gardens collecting team in front of the Bartholdi Fountain at the United States Botanic Garden. Left to right: GGI-Gardens intern, Kristen Van Neste; GGI-Gardens Founder and Senior Research Botanist and Curator, Vicki Funk; GGI-Gardens Director, Morgan Gostel; and GGI-Gardens intern, Sarah Gabler. (photo by Kyle Wallick)

¹Botanical Research Institute of Texas and GGI-Gardens, Fort Worth, TX, USA
²Botanic Gardens Conservation International-US, San Marino, CA, USA