A recent acquisition of mine is a copy of Synopsis of the Natural History of Great-Britain and Ireland. This 1795 systematic arrangement of plants in Britain illustrates many of the interesting nuances of early systematic classification, and unlike other classifications of this era, it is printed in English. Coming not long after Linnaeus's original description of the 24 classes of the plant kingdom, this book includes my favorite, Tetradynamia (class 15). The characters for this class (6 stamens, four long, two short) are now used to describe the family known today as Brassicaceae (previously Cruciferae). At this time, the class Tetradynamia was split into two orders, siliculosa and siliquosa, descibed by silicle fruit type versus silique fruit, respectively. This convention is no longer used, as it is now known that fruit type is a poor character. In fact within many Brassicaceae genera, both silicles and siliques may be found.
It's interesting how useful this book is for field identification, and how the characters for the most part hold up well with those used in modern floras. For instance, here the genus Myagrum (now Camelina) is described by an entire valve apex, a character which continues to be one of the most reliable for identification of this genus. The only species listed here, Myagrum sativa (now C. sativa), appears to be the only known species found in Britain at the time. It's not clear from this description if C. sativa was grown as an oil seed crop in Britain in the 18th century, but there is a note about its weediness of flax fields.
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Charles Darwin is known foremost for his work on The Origin of Species, but he wrote extensively on a variety of topics from earthworms to geological phenomena. One piece of evidence that Darwin had for his theory of evolution was that of orchids and their co-evolution with pollinating insects.
My fascination of orchids, Darwin, and books, propelled me to seek out the first edition copy of Darwin's Fertilisation of Orchids book at Washington University's Olin Library special collections. This book was the subject of a history of science video series presented by the Department of Biology's own Garland Allen - the video can be watched here. It is unique in being an original copy of Darwin's 1862 work outlining the methods of insect fertilization of orchid flowers. Accompanying the book is a handwritten note from the author (Darwin himself) to the book's recipient (British Entomologist John O. Westwood) asking for a bee specimen (see below). Within, Darwin describes an orchid species (Angraecum sesquipedale) with an exceptionally long nectar spur, hypothesizing that there must be a moth with a tongue long enough to feed from the necatary and in doing so achieve cross-pollination. Sure enough, in support of Darwin's theory a species of sphinx moth, Xanthopan morganii pradedicta, was discovered and described forty years later as the long tongued moth responsible for pollinating the orchid. Lately, I've been distracting myself from political affairs with a little bit of macro photography. These pictures are taken from my current round of Camelina growing in the WUSTL greenhouse. I really love macro photography, but sometimes the blurry, out of focus background can distract the observer from the true subject. In order to highlight only the subject, I've been experimenting with flash falloff, a method that achieves nearly black backgrounds even in daylight conditions. This is done by engaging the flash with a very fast shutter speed. This results in a high proportion of light returning from the nearby focal subject, but very little from the more distant background. An advantage of this method is that the fast shutter speed will produce more crisp images, even without a tripod. Camelina rumelica Velen. (Above) Camelina microcarpa Andrz. ex DC. (Below) Trifolium repens L. (Above) Paspalum vaginatum Sw. (Below) Some graduate students in EEPB got together over the weekend for a camping trip and bonding experience. This annual fall EEPB camping trip took place in the Mark Twain National Forest, at the Silver Mines recreation area. Situated next to the St. Francis river, this site is well suited for wildlife, and especially reptiles. I couldn't pass up a good opportunity to go herping, so I spent most of my time hiking trails in search of reptiles, a well rewarded decision. This venomous cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) was a surprise to find only feet off of a well frequented trail. A species of pit viper, the cottonmouth (aka water moccasin) opens its mouth wide when threatened, revealing its white mouth and sharp fangs.
I've always loved munching on the occasional coffee cherry at the WashU greenhouses in-between attending to my plants and setting up new projects. After a massive fruit set, I thought it was time to take advantage of the excess cherries and get to roasting my own coffee! Check out this article on how to prepare your own coffee at home using the wet process.
This weekend was the St. Louis Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (SLEEC) retreat at Principia College, in Illinois. This year was well attended and featured a great lineup of speakers and events. The Olsen lab's Sara Wright gave a compelling talk on local adaptation in white clover, and I was able to once again present my Camelina research during the poster sessions. The best part of this annual retreat is that it brings together students and faculty from many regional institutions, providing a venue to catch up with friends and colleagues.
The phenomenon of 3D printing has been around for a while now, but it seems as if the technology is just now arriving at a turning point. I believe that we are entering a new era of accessibility and innovation that will facilitate a sort of "saltation" in the sciences. I can see the life-sciences being particularly impacted by the upcoming ability to print laboratory equipment and disposable items with leisure. This technology is revolutionary for three reasons: It's on demand, inexpensive, and fully customizable. Did that pesky thermocycler lid-clasp finally give out? Or perhaps you just want a pipette hanger for your bench? This technology is already delivering these types of innovations with many more promised in the near future. The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (DDPSC) has been on the frontier of exploiting this technology for developing new solutions in the plant sciences. The Maker Lab has the capability to assist labs in designing, printing, and testing objects specifically tailored to unique projects, equipment fixes, and etc. One particular piece of equipment printed by the Maker Lab was a plastic plate to hold magnets used in bead purification kits when an industry made plate had cracked and become unusable, a fix that saved hundreds of dollars. I made the plunge to buy my own personal 3D printer and I ended up being quite surprised at the level of accessibility and ease of use. While there are a lot of little issues that demand troubleshooting, there's abundant resources on the web to help overcome them and get some very high quality prints, even with a low-end printer. The 3D printing community is alive and well, with tons of new projects and models posted daily. I like www.thingiverse.com because not only is there an abundance of open-source projects to choose from, there's also a lot of constructive criticism and feedback put into projects by users thus facilitating the refinement of projects. Many DIY biology projects already exist to print and assemble laboratory equipment such as mini-centrifuges, stir plates, and gel electrophoresis rigs. While this is especially useful for a lab on a budget, I'm more excited for the capability to print components for custom projects that demand parts that have never been made before. I purchased a relatively inexpensive model called the Monoprice Maker Select Mini (pictured above), and thus far I've been impressed with its capabilities. The array of different filament types allows for printing very specific objects. While plastics like ABS and PLA are ubiquitous in 3D printing, other materials are also available for niche applications. For instance, filaments infused with magnetic iron and other metals (even bismuth) allow for printing high density objects with metallic properties. Biodegradable, dissolvable, conductive, flexible, and chemical resistant filaments also exist, allowing for nearly any imaginable object to be printable. Printing resolution is one important consideration. High resolution prints like the truck above (printed with 0.1mm layer height) take longer to print but can achieve features that low resolution prints cannot. Infill dictates the percent fill of an object, for instance whether it is solid, hollow, or contains a lattice internal support. Together, layer height and infill will determine the bulk of an object's properties.
Several species of Camelina occur as weeds worldwide, but some climates are especially amenable. On a recent trip to Colorado I observed Camelina on many occasions: along field margins and park trails, but also growing among stands of other weeds. Something about the climate just east of the Rocky Mountains allows dense patches of Camelina to thrive. To me this makes sense because the warm and dry summers and rocky steppe-like terrain is very similar to that found in the Irano-Turanian floristic region in which Camelina is thought to have originated and diversified. In planning for future collection trips in the U.S., I will strongly consider Colorado as a location for surveying the genetic diversity of these fascinating weeds.
One thing I often hear is that scientists (specifically plant scientists) are disconnected from the reality on the ground. That is to say, that many plant scientists haven't been to farms and seen crop production first hand. Having had these experiences myself, I can speak to the fact that they are incredibly beneficial. My time at the University of Arizona allowed me to study a diversity of plant related subjects, one of which was crop science. This allowed me to get a feel for the farmer mindset, and try to understand some of the challenges that they face and the factors shaping their decisions. It's too easy to design projects for crop enhancement without actually taking into account the elements of selection on the farmers part - and clearly developing better crops is only a worthwhile endeavor if farmers will benefit from growing them. A ripe pecan ready for harvest, but with these delicious nuts scatted across a large tree, an elegant solution for harvesting is needed (see below). One consideration with any perennial crop is picking the right genetics for the region. Pecan trees are long lived and can remain in production for decades, even hundreds of years, so farmers must carefully consider which varieties to plant. This pecan orchard in Green Valley, Arizona uses an army of harvesters to shake pecans loose, with row sweepers that come to collect fallen nuts. In the United States most farms are highly mechanized, but few stop to think about how farmers are able to afford expensive machines. Acreage, crop type, and finances dictate the machinery used on a farm, but often the costs of new machinery is too prohibitive and farmers may be forced to take out loans, rent, or join a co-op. Furthermore, machinery is often crop-specific and thus switching crops may require the purchase of new equipment. An onion field in Mexicali, Mexico. Understanding agricultural practices in the United States is important, but making comparisons to other countries is invaluable. An especially stark contrast is that of the Mexicali valley on either side of the U.S. Mexico border. One major factor in this region is water rights, which dictate what may be grown in this otherwise arid valley. The U.S. side of the valley is visibly "greener" than the Mexican side, and this can be attributed to the water rights agreements between the two nations. The valley is crucial, responsible for growing much of the winter vegetables consumed in North America. Finally, an often overlooked aspect of agriculture for scientists is food preparation and marketing. It's not enough to develop a better crop, there must also be a market for it and infrastructure must be in place to process and ship the product. This facility in Mexico processes vegetable crops in Mexicali and distributes across North America in the winter when demand is high and local production ceases.
By visiting farms, researchers may better understand the needs of farmers and the industry and develop projects that appropriately address the mounting issues facing agriculture. My OTS course in Tropical Plant Systematics is now over and I'm back in St. Louis. During the last two weeks I was stationed at La Selva Biological Station, an amazing research location with extensive trails and a variety of forest types including many primary forests. During my time here I worked on two research projects (with my classmate, Nate Hartley) for the course, one a systematic-based study on the diversity of Ericaceae that we collected in the Talamanca mountain range, and the other, a passion of Nate's - a study looking at leaf functional traits across epiphytes, hemiepiphytes, and terrestrial members of the Araceae (Aroid family). In all, the course was a grueling experience, jam-packed with work, traveling and fun, but one I will not soon forget. Here's a look at what I've seen and done during the past couple of weeks: One species in which Nate and I examined leaf function traits was Dieffenbachia nitidipetiolata Croat & Grayum. The strawberry poison-dart frog, Oophaga pumilio Schmidt (pictured below), also called the blue-jeans frog, relies on Dieffenbachia at La Selva to rear tadpoles. A collapse in the Dieffenbachia population due to peccary herbivory is attributed with a decline in the strawberry poison-dart frog populations studied at La Selva (McKone et al. 2014). Collecting aroids can be hard work! Here I use pull pruners (aka "pullers") to harvest intact leaves of the hemiepiphytic Philodendron jodavisianum G.S. Bunting. My independent project involved collecting several representatives of Aracaeae in order to investigate properties of their leaves including leaf area, wet vs. dry mass, and leaf toughness. This work aims to investigate leaf functional traits associated with different life history strategies of understudied herbaceous under story plants. For example, some aroids invest high amounts of carbon into energetically expensive leaves that are thick and long lived, while others choose to invest in thin and cheap leaves that can be generated relatively rapidly. How do these strategies determine a plant's affinity to epiphytism? Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), pictured above is one of many members of this genus cultivated for food and timber. This tree is growing under cultivation at La Selva. Passiflora spp. at La Selva. This massive Iguana came out in the sun to feast on some fallen guavas. This one is probably big enough to bite my hand off. This wild Vanilla orchid was growing in the forest at Braulio Carrillo National Park, a great find and one of my favorite plants! This Antherium species has a curiously truncated spadix covered in fruits, but why? I had found a couple of plants with these very short spadices but it's not clear if this morphology is caused by environment or mutations, or instead if this is a trait for this species. Having always been fascinated with Piperaceae, I was ecstatic to learn more about the genera and species found in the Neotropics. Unfortunately, the two most common genera found in Costa Rica, Piper and Peperomia, are so diverse and the keys so complex that it is nearly impossible to identify some species. The showy bright red inflorescence bracts of this Psychotria give this lovely plant the name "hot lips" for obvious reasons. Members of this genus, especially Psychotria viridis, have a variety of uses in indigenous medicines and may be most notable for their role in ayahuasca, a psychotropic concoction used in shamanism and medicine. Nate Hartley (Right - Aroid in hand) and I posing for a photo on the canopy observation tower at Las Cruces. The OTS Tropical Plant Systematics (2016) course was a phenomenal experience that provided me a wealth of broad-scale plant systematics tools, but moreover this experience allows me to view my own research in the broader context of plant macroevolution and biogeography.
I have met so many amazing people on this trip, and it wouldn't have been possible without the hard work and dedication of Mauricio Bonifacino, Robbin Moran, James Horn, Amanda Grusz, Lena Struwe, and Esteban Jiménez (TA). I especially want to thank Mauricio ("Aster Master") for putting up with me on the course and devoting his own personal time to teach me a number of valuable skills in graphic design and mapping. Oh and how could I forget to mention my roommate and research-partner, Nate Hartley (Duke University), who instilled in me a great deal of Aroid knowledge, and made this trip an amazing and fun experience. McKone, Mark J., et al. "Rapid collapse of a population of Dieffenbachia spp., plants used for tadpole-rearing by a poison-dart frog (Oophaga pumilio) in a Costa Rican rain forest." Journal of Tropical Ecology 30.06 (2014): 615-619. |
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November 2019
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