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Table of Contents
COLLECTING FOR EDUCATION: HERBARIA AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
In Memoriam
» R. C. Jackson (1928-2008)
» Arthur Galston (1920-2008)
» Charles Adam Schexnayder (1926-2008)
Award & Garnt Opportunities
» American Philosophical Society, Research Programs
Other News
» Brooklyn Botanic Garden Announces Summer Highlights - Reflections:
Water in the Garden
» Chicago Botanic Garden to Break Ground on Rice Plant Conservation Science Center
» African Journal of Plant Science (AJPS)
» International Organization Launched to Address Problems in Cultivated Plant Taxonomy
» Revealing Double Lecture Explores the Shroud of Turin - Missouri Botanical Garden
» Dr. Brent Elliott Receives Greensfelder Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden
BOOKS REVIEWED
BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVEIW
COLLECTING FOR EDUCATION: HERBARIA AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
Amy E. Boyd, Biology Department, Warren Wilson
College, CPO 6074, PO Box 9000, Asheville, NC 28815-9000 telephone:
828-771-2018
Natural history collections have served numerous valuable functions for both
biologists and society for hundreds of years. Funk (2003) has outlined 72 different
uses for herbaria, natural history collections of plants preserved, labeled,
and systematically arranged for use in scientific study. These uses range from
verifying nomenclature and providing material for DNA analysis to documenting
minor cycles in climate and providing inspiration for painters. One of the most
important uses of natural history collections today is the documentation and
study of biological diversity (Gotelli 2004, O'Connell et al. 2004, Schatz 2002).
In this time of severely declining biodiversity due to human impacts on the
environment, scientists are pressed for time to determine the biodiversity that
exists in the world, as well as the geographic distribution, geologic history,
and ecology of that diversity(Gotelli 2004). Natural history collections like
herbaria serve as repositories of all of these types of information, as well
as centers for research on biodiversity (Ertter 2000, Krishtalka and Humphrey
2000, Snow 2005, Suarez and Tsutsui 2004).
A second important function of natural history collections has always been
the training of new taxonomists and natural historians. Today, with the growing
emphasis on molecular studies in research and funding, we face a crisis in the
decline of taxonomists and natural historians. Just when these specialists are
needed most urgently to study the declining biodiversity of our planet, we are
failing to encourage students to go into studies of organismal biology and failing
to support the institutions that can train them (Snow 2005, Krishtalka and Humphrey
2000).
Despite their value in the face of declining biodiversity, natural history
collections today are struggling to maintain support. Universities are closing
the doors of natural history museums and herbaria, ostensibly to save money
despite the fact that these collections may be relatively inexpensive to maintain.
Research grant priorities tend to fall on the side of molecular and medical
research, leaving organismal biologists and their institutions without the funding
to continue their important work (Dalton 2003, Gropp 2003, Suarez and Tsutsui
2004). Small herbaria have received even less attention, and while historically
their importance has generally been limited to the institutions in which they
are housed, the potential of connecting small herbaria into a large-scale database
and network may lead to their value increasing and broadening in the near future.
SERNEC, a collaborative of herbaria in the southeast, has recently received
grant funding to work on exactly this issue (www.sernec.org).
In this paper, I report on a qualitative study of 19 herbaria at small liberal
arts colleges across the U.S. My main objectives for this study were (1) to
determine in what ways these small college herbaria are used, (2) to survey
faculty who curate these herbaria as to what their goals, wishes, and missions
are for these collections, and (3) to develop a profile of the ideal herbarium
for small liberal arts colleges. After discussing the results of this survey,
I will end with recommendations as to what the mission of an herbarium collection
should be at a small liberal arts college and what resources could make these
collections more accessible, useful, or valuable.
Colleges were chosen for inclusion in the study based on (1) the size and nature
of the institution, (2) whether they had an herbarium, and (3) whether they
had a faculty member who was willing to participate. I sought to include as
many colleges in the study as possible. Out of the 33 schools I attempted to
include in the study, 14 did not participate. Several schools chose not to participate
because their collections were quite small and the faculty felt their information
would not be useful to me; others were contacted but did not respond to my inquiry.
The results presented below represent the 19 schools that chose to participate.
I visited five of the colleges included in the study and interviewed their
herbarium curators in person. Faculty at the remaining 14 colleges were contacted
via email and responded to the survey either electronically or in a phone interview,
based on their preference. The questions included in the survey can be found
at: http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~aboyd/herbquestions.htm.
The size of the student body at these various colleges ranged from 750 to 3500
students, with a mean of 1664. The number of biology faculty at these colleges
ranged from 4 to 19, with a mean of 10. The herbarium collections at these institutions
varied from approximately 500 to approximately 27,000 specimens, with a mean
of 13,000. I believe that this sample mean is high relative to the actual mean
size of herbaria at small liberal arts colleges; some colleges did not respond
to the survey because of the small size of their collections, and other collections
may have escaped my detection because of their small size. Therefore, the collections
included in this survey can be thought of as generally larger and more active
than the average small-college herbarium. Interestingly, I found no relationship
between size of herbarium and size of student body (r2 = 0.014, F = 0.237, p
= 0.632) or number of biology faculty (r2 = 0.000086, F = 0.0015, p = 0.97).
Universally, the herbaria are curated by biology faculty, though the person
in charge is not always a field botanist or taxonomist. In fact, one of the
herbaria is curated by an entomologist (Elzie McCord, New College of Florida)
at an institution that currently does not have a botanist on the faculty. Although
the majority of the faculty associated with these collections are botanists,
only 53% reported having specific herbarium training, and this ranged from solely
undergraduate training to Ph.D.-level experience.
Based on anecdotal conversations with faculty, the existence of an herbarium,
as well as its size and quality, at these small schools appears to be mostly
dependent on one (or, occasionally, several) dedicated field botanist/taxonomist
serving as curator at some point in the collection's history. The establishment
dates for the herbaria ranged from the late 1800s through 1989. Many of the
collections were largely created by a single faculty member who was particularly
interested in floristic or taxonomic studies; this person may or may not have
been the one who began the collection, but the bulk of the collection was dependent
on that person's enthusiasm, experience, and hard work.
The organizational system used in the herbaria was split, with 50% using a
taxonomic system and 50% arranged alphabetically by family. Those that use a
taxonomic organization were mostly based on Cronquist (1968), though a few were
based upon the published flora for their region, and one was organized according
to the 1908 Gray's Manual of Botany (Robinson and Fernald 1908).
Only five of the 19 colleges included in the study had computerized databases
for their herbarium collections, and these were not always complete. Five more
described the rudimentary beginnings of a database or partial databasing (e.g.,
database for only one taxonomic group of interest, or only for one county).
One reported a very old database that would be difficult to access today. Only
one had a substantial part of the database online and searchable. Several reported
having data on 3x5 file cards or on computer punch cards. Eight reported having
no database at all.
USE OF THE HERBARIUM
The single most common use of these herbaria is as a resource in teaching undergraduate
courses. Most of the faculty interviewed described using specimens from the
herbaria in their teaching, and some said that other faculty in their department
would occasionally use specimens for teaching as well. A few faculty used the
herbarium in their own research, but this was rare due to limited time for research
and/or the fact that their research interests didn't involve field collections.
Several of the faculty discussed, and some lamented, the trend of college biology
towards eliminating taxonomy and/or botany from the curriculum. As mentioned
above, one of the schools did not have a botanist on the faculty, and those
that do have botanists most commonly have plant ecologists or plant physiologists,
not plant taxonomists. Only three of the faculty interviewed are actually plant
taxonomists by training and/or research emphasis. All three of these use their
herbaria extensively in their research.
Many of the faculty report that students use the herbarium collection to confirm
ID of plants; at some institutions this is rare or periodic, while at others
it is quite common. At some of the herbaria, students regularly or occasionally
contribute to the collection through research projects or collections made for
courses. Several of the faculty involve students in their research on floristics
or plant ecology and the students learn to use the herbarium in association
with this research. One school (New College of Florida) indicated that students
with special interest in organic gardening or medicinal plants sometimes use
the herbarium as a resource.
Use of the herbaria by off-campus parties is common, though not frequent, and
is quite varied. Only 5 of the faculty interviewed indicated that there was
no use of the collection by individuals or groups from off-campus. Most report
some limited use: visitors from local plant societies, requests for loans or
information from other scientists, reference use by farmers/gardeners, visits
by faculty from other institutions or scientists from the state Department of
Natural Resources, Natural Heritage Program, or Natural History Survey, U.S.
Forest Service, or local environmental organizations. These uses by outside
parties tend to occur once to several times a year at most of these herbaria.
Several of the faculty interviewed indicated an interest in increased community
outreach.
For the most part, these herbaria do not receive outside funding. Most of them
do receive college funds, though these can range from plentiful to almost non-existent.
Four of the herbaria have received some outside funding, in the form of small
grants or scholarships, or from faculty contracts with the U.S. Forest Service
or state Department of Natural Resources. Two of the schools have special herbarium
funds or endowments established by alumni or emeritus faculty. Several receive
work-study funds for hiring student assistants as part of their institutional
funding.
When asked about who maintains the collections, almost all interviewees reported
that this work was entirely or in part in their own hands. Nine have students
helping out, either as volunteers or as paid work-study positions. Two have
a staff member who helps with caring for the collection in addition to many
other duties, and four reported having volunteers from off-campus who help in
collection maintenance.
GOALS AND WISHES
The two most common goals that the interviewees cited for their collections
were maintenance of the collection, and having the collection serve as a repository
and record of the local flora. Coming in a close second were updating nomenclature
on existing specimens, and creation of a searchable database. Several indicated
a desire to train students and get them interested in the science of taxonomy,
and several were interested in creating a website for the herbarium. Two interviewees
indicated that they had no goals or plans for the herbarium under their care;
they seemed to have little interest in the collections and/or thought that they
were of marginal value. Some other goals mentioned included training other faculty
to use the herbarium, becoming more visible with displays or tours, mounting
a backlog of specimens, digitizing label records or creating an image collection,
increasing the collection through new specimens, or hosting community events
for outreach.
When asked what a “wish list” for their herbarium would contain,
i.e., what would make their herbarium more useful, valuable, or accessible,
the most common responses involved more time as curator to work on the collection
and a complete, searchable database. Some also asked for funding for an assistant
(student or staff). A number of respondents listed things that could be done
by a faculty member with more time dedicated to the collection, such as updating
the nomenclature, creating an image collection, confirming ID by students, and
reorganizing the collection. Others named improved facilities, such as a dedicated
room, fireproofing, microscopes, and computers.
I asked each interviewee to describe what they thought the mission of a small-college
herbarium should be. Universally the respondents indicated education as the
first priority, including both education about plants and training of field
and curation skills. Beyond this, the most common responses are research and
local flora documentation. Several also thought that a small herbarium could
and/or should serve as a community resource. Individuals also cited documenting
campus arboretum specimens, K-12 education, and raising consciousness in the
local community about plant conservation and biodiversity.
Finally, interviewees were asked to describe characteristics of an ideal herbarium
for a small liberal arts college. A couple of these interviewees indicated that
they didn't think herbaria were very important resources and should not be a
high priority for resources or time. However, these were the minority, and most
had clear ideas of what these characteristics might be, including resources,
accessibility, and/or scope of the collection itself. In terms of scope of the
collection, all agreed that the local flora should be the main focus for these
small herbaria, with limited specimens of plants from other major biomes for
teaching purposes. Other high priorities were computers and staff/student assistance.
Regular maintenance and updating of the collection and a searchable database
were commonly mentioned, and are tasks that could be accomplished by the staff/student
assistance cited above. Faculty release time as well as faculty recognition
and summer compensation for work in the herbarium were also a high priority,
reflecting the need for more time dedicated to these collections as faculty
have busy schedules. Facilities such as cabinets, prep room, and microscopes
were also needed.
DISCUSSION
The primary use for herbaria at small liberal arts colleges is, universally,
undergraduate education in botany. This matches the primary focus of the institutions
where these collections are housed: small, liberal arts colleges are traditionally
devoted first and foremost to the mission of educating students, and only secondarily,
if at all, to the acquisition of knowledge (Michalak & Friedrich 1981).
These colleges also often advocate experiential education, and herbaria can
be great tools for providing direct access to and experience of the objects
of study. They provide a context for botany students not only to learn about
the plants themselves but to acquire skills in field study and curation. We
are in a time today in the biological sciences when biodiversity is disappearing
while the taxonomic skills necessary to study that biodiversity are also disappearing.
Natural history collections such as herbaria may be in danger of disappearing
as well at a time when they are most needed to train the field biologists of
our future.
Herbaria at small liberal arts colleges are faced with the same trend in the
biological sciences that face large institutions: growth in microbiology, molecular
biology, and prehealth professions that has led to shrinking funding and support
for natural history collections and research. In some ways, this trend has hit
smaller collections harder than the larger ones. Plant taxonomy and even botany
are more likely to disappear completely from a small, generalized department
of biology, leaving herbarium collections in the hands of botanists without
herbarium-related training, or even in some cases in the hands of zoologists
or microbiologists. Even when the collections have an enthusiastic curator,
that curator is likely to be severely limited in time available. Professors
at small colleges often teach a heavy course load, leaving little time for any
research or other professional activities. When these collections lack a curator
with the time for and/or interest in collection development and maintenance,
they may easily end up discarded, deposited at larger institutions, or simply
neglected, left to the exploits of bugs, humidity, and time.
On the other hand, collections at small collections also may be more likely
to “fly under the radar,” taking up little space or resources and
therefore not seen as a significant drain on the home institution. Because of
this, they may be maintained for many years with little notice, continuing to
be used for teaching and occasional research or community inquiry.
The most important resource for these herbaria--the one that has made the difference
between minimal, neglected collections and those that are well-developed and
well-used--is an engaged faculty curator. The main resource needed to make these
collections more valuable and useful, therefore, is faculty time for maintenance,
organization, establishment of a searchable database, training of student workers,
checking/updating identifications and classifications, and so on.
Small herbarium collections tend to focus strongly on their local flora and
may serve as a valuable repository for local floristic data. Searchable databases,
especially online, could make the collections more accessible to researchers
outside the home institution, thereby increasing their scientific value.
Based on my survey, the picture of an ideal herbarium for a small liberal arts
college emerges clearly and is not an outlandish, unachievable goal. The mission
of such an herbarium would be focused on undergraduate education, with student
research and taxonomic skills training as components. It would have basic equipment
and facilities (cabinets, dedicated space, microscopes, computer) to allow maintenance,
development, and usability of the collection. It would specialize on the local
flora, with some additional taxonomic and ecosystem breadth as a resource for
teaching. It would have an up-to-date, searchable computer database, linked
to the internet to allow searching from off-site. The collection would be curated
by a faculty member trained in herbarium curation skills and with an interest
in the collection (though this person need not be a plant taxonomist, necessarily).
The curator would have institutional support for time dedicated to the collection,
be it release time from teaching, summer support, an extra stipend or other
recognition. Lastly, the collection would be accessible to the outer community
as a resource for study and research.
How far are existing collections from this vision? It varies widely; some are
very close to what I've described, while others lack even the most basic resources.
I see three categories of collections that were covered in my study, with different
needs:
1) Collections that currently have no faculty member interested in herbarium
use or curation. There is probably very little that would make a difference
in these collections until and unless a faculty member emerges with an interest
in the collection. Without faculty support, there is very little hope that natural
history collections of any kind will be maintained at these small colleges.
2) Collections that have been neglected or underdeveloped but have an interested
faculty member overseeing them. The most useful resource for these collections
would be personnel time, for the faculty curator and/or for student or staff
support. Personnel support would allow for repair, updating, organization, new
acquisitions, and databasing, all of which would improve the value and usefulness
of these collections. Where needed, funding for basic supplies and equipment
(from mounting paper to cabinets and microscopes), either from the home institution
or from small grants, could also be an excellent investment into the preservation
and usefulness of these educational collections.
3) Collections that are well-developed, well-maintained, and have an active
curator. The most common criterion missing from these collections is an online,
searchable database. Support for databasing these collections and making them
accessible via internet would make these collections more useful both to their
home institutions and to scientists and other community members outside the
home institution.
Small-college herbaria have long been overlooked and undervalued. The results
of this study show that there is considerable agreement about what is needed
to make these collections more accessible, valuable or useful, and that the
goals are, indeed, achievable with a modest amount of support.
Acknowledgments: Many thanks to the participants in the survey that has led
to this article. Thanks also to Donna Ford-Werntz at University of West Virginia
for her mentoring during my sabbatical research, and to the Appalachian College
Association and Warren Wilson College for their financial support of the research.
Literature Cited
Cronquist, A. 1968. The evolution and classification of flowering plants. Houghton
Mifflin, Boston.
Dalton, R. 2003. Natural history collections in crisis as funding is slashed.
Nature 423: 575.
Ertter, B. 2000. Our undiscovered heritage: past and future prospects for species-level
botanical inventory.
Funk, V. 2003. 100 uses for an herbarium (well at least 72). American Society
for Plant Taxonomists Newsletter 17: 17-19.
Gotelli, N. J. 2004. A taxonomic wish-list for community ecology. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 359: 585-597.
Gropp, R. E. 2003. Are university natural science collections going extinct?
BioScience 53(6):550.
Krishtalka, L. and P. S. Humphrey, 2000. Can natural history museums capture
the future? BioScience 50(7): 611-617.
Michalak, S. J., and R. J. Friedrich, 1981. Research productivity and teaching
effectiveness at a small liberal arts college. Journal of Higher Education 52(6):
578-597.
O'Connell, A. F. Jr., A. T. Gilbert, and J. S. Hatfield, 2004. Contribution
of natural history collection data to biodiversity assessment in national parks.
Conservation Biology 18(5): 1254-1261.
Robinson, B.L. and M.L. Fernald, 1908. Gray's new manual of botany, a handbook
of the flowering plants and ferns of the central and northeastern United States
and adjacent Canada. 7th ed. New York: American Book.
Snow, N. 2005. Successfully curating smaller herbaria and natural history collections
in an academic setting. BioScience 55(9): 771-779.
Schatz, G. E. 2002. Taxonomy and herbaria in service of plant conservation:
lessons from Madagascar's endemic families. Annals of the Missouri Botanical
Garden 89: 145-152.
Suarez, A. V. and N. D. Tsutsui, 2004. The value of museum collections for
research and society. BioScience 54(1): 66-74.
Announcements
In Memoriam
R. C. Jackson (1928-2008) 
Raymond Carl Jackson, Horn professor emeritus at Texas Tech University,
died on April 7, 2008 following a long illness.
Dr. Jackson grew up in rural Indiana and fell in love with nature
as a boy. He and his other love from Indiana, June, were married
in 1947. After three years of service in the U.S. Army Air Corps-U.S.
Air Force, Ray entered Indiana University in 1949 earning a BA
in 1952. Upon completing his Master’s degree at Indiana,
he moved on to Purdue in 1953 where he earned a Ph.D. in 1955.
Ray's fondness for the Asteraceae began at IU thanks to some
persuasion from his mentor and long-time colleague and friend,
Charles Heiser. Soon after graduation, he packed up his wife,
two-year-old son and newborn daughter, and moved cross-country
to Albuquerque (UNM) where he accepted a faculty position that
included herbarium curator. Here he continued working on Helianthus
and other local composites, most notably, Haplopappus.
It was in New Mexico that he encountered the unassuming desert
annual Haplopappus gracilis and found it to have n=2
chromosomes, the lowest number ever reported for a plant. Realizing
the potential goldmine of this easy to culture, short life-cycled
composite as a model for chromosomal, genomic and genetic linkage
studies, Ray shifted his focus to cytogenetics – a shift
that coincided with a career move to the University of Kansas
in 1958. Here he flourished professionally, becoming a leading
figure in cytogenetics and plant biosystematics. In 1969 he was
appointed Chair of the Botany Department at KU and served in that
role until 1971 when he accepted the chairship of the Department
of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University.
In the 1980’s Ray became an authority on chromosome pairing
behavior in polyploids, proposing and testing models based on
random synapsis and non-random distribution of chiasmata. He modified
and applied these models to diploids, triploids, and tetraploids
through octoploids. He also proposed similar models for predicting
meiotic behavior in translocation heterozygotes.
Ray published eighty-some peer-reviewed articles throughout his
prosperous professional career including three in Science. He
was a member of several honor societies including Sigma Xi, Phi
Sigma, and Delta Phi Alpha (a national German language honor society);
and an active member of many professional societies serving in
several capacities including editor of the University of Kansas
Science Bulletin and of the Transactions of the Kansas
Academy of Science; associate editor of Evolution;
chair and founding member of the Genetics Section of BSA; founding
member of the Mid-continent Section of BSA; Chair of the Botanical
Section of AAAS-SWARM Div.; and President of AAAS-SWARM Div.,
to name a few. Throughout his career he was recognized with many
honors and awards including the BSA Merit Award, the BSA Centennial
Award, the AAAS-SWARM President’s Award, Outstanding Educator
of America (1974-75), and an annual award established in his name
for outstanding student presentation in the Mid-continent section
of the BSA. But perhaps the ultimate honor was in 1996 when he
was eponymized with the genus Rayjacksonia in the Asteraceae.
The family suggests memorials to the Department of Biological
Sciences, Texas Tech University. Type in “biology”
in the search window on the On-line Giving page (https://securejava.tosm.ttu.edu/onlineGiving/landing.do)
to select an endowed fund.
-Don Hauber, Department of Biological Sciences, Loyola University
Arthur Galston, Ph.D. (1920-2008)
Arthur Galston passed away the second week of June 2008 after
a short illness serving as Professor Emeritus from the Yale University
Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology in
his retirement. He served as President of the Botanical Society
of America (1968) wherein he and Graeme Berlyn resurrected the
Physiological Section (from the large number of members who had
switched to the American Society of Plant Physiologists from the
BSA). Galston also served as President of the ASPP. He was awarded
a series of academic honors, including Guggenheim, Fulbright and
Senior National Science Foundation Fellowships, both Phi Beta
Kappa and Sigma Xi visiting lectureships, and two honorary degrees.
His research concerned plant photobiology, hormones, protoplasts
and polyamines. The research contribution for which he is most
noted is his suggestion and first evidence of the role of riboflavin
(not carotene) as the photoreceptor for phototropism first published
in 1949 in the American Journal of Botany 36: 773-780.
1949 (also PNAS 35: 10-17, 1949; Science 111:
619-624, l950). He published more than 320 papers in refereed
journals, as well as more than 50 articles on public affairs,
several successful textbooks of plant physiology and two edited
anthologies of papers in bioethics. (This suggestion has recently
been proven by others, notably the laboratories of Winslow Briggs.)
He was a leading plant physiologist in the 1940s to 1970s in
the Botanical Society of America and American Society of Plant
Physiologists, both of which he belonged to throughout his life
and continued to contribute. In his lifetime he contributed not
only to Botany, but to International Relations, especially in
the Far East and to the field of Bioethics. He was born in Brooklyn,
NY in 1920. Galston received his undergraduate degree from Cornell,
and Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Illinois in 1943, then
spent a year at Yale and then became an assistant then associate
professor at the California Institute of Technology. He returned
to Yale in 1955 as an Associate Professor of Plant Physiology
in the former Department of Botany. He retired in 1990, at the
(then mandatory) retirement age of 70 and subsequently began teaching
and doing research in Bioethics. His unhappiness with the government
use of Agent Orange as a bio-weapon in Vietnam caused him great
personal distress so that he instituted at the BSA Business Meeting
in 1967 a coalition of botanists and eventually other scientists
who finally testified before the US Congress and were important
in ceasing the use of Agent Orange on the battlefield. He made
contact with the Chinese during his travels to Vietnam and lived
in China, becoming friends with Chou En-Lai. This helped pave
the way for the BSA exchange delegation to China in 1978 wherein
we were asked frequently about Professor Galston.
In his own words: “In 1936, at the age of sixteen, I found
myself enrolling as a freshman in the College of Agriculture at
Cornell University, where, importantly, tuition was free for residents
of New York state. I came not to study botany, but to spend one
year of study required as a prelude to entry into the College
of Veterinary Medicine at the same institution, where tuition
was also free. Veterinary medicine was also not my burning passion:
Inspired by Paul de Kruif's "Microbe Hunters" and similar
books, my true aspiration had always been to become an M.D. But
the year was 1936, The Great Depression was on the land, my father
had been out of work for several years, and there seemed not the
slightest possibility of my being able to enter the long and expensive
study required to become a physician. A friend happened to tell
me about the Agriculture and Veterinary Schools at Cornell, where
"the price was right". Since I was confident that I
could use my saxophone-playing skills to earn my living expenses,
after an arduous freshman year and a successful application for
admission to the Veterinary School, I declined the offer of entry
by then Dean William A. Hagan, and remained in the College of
Agriculture to major in Botany.
“The reason for this unanticipated change in direction was, simply, infatuation
with Professor Loren C. Petry, who taught the yearlong course in Elementary
Botany. Not only his remarkably skillful lectures, but also his entire persona
attracted me. I so admired him that I wanted nothing more than to imitate his
life style, impractical though that might have been. The attractiveness of the
academic career, with its opportunities in teaching and research, seemed to
me an ideal worth pursuing. So I stayed on in Botany, but deviated from Petry
in choosing to concentrate on plant physiology rather than on his specialty
of paleobotany.
“Cornell was then a center of excellence in the plant sciences.
I took advantage of this excellence by enrolling in every possible
botany course, then bootlegged as many College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences courses in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and geology
as were permitted to students in the Agriculture school. I emerged
with a BS in Botany in 1940. In the depression year of 1940 I
received only one offer of a Teaching Assistantship to support
my graduate study, which I gratefully accepted. In the fall of
1940, I ventured into the terra incognita of the American Midwest,
to begin my graduate study in the Department of Botany at the
University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. After a year of looking
around, I chose to work with Harry Fuller, a plant physiologist
who was a brilliant lecturer and coauthor, with another young
faculty member, Oswald Tippo, of an outstanding textbook in Botany.
Fuller introduced me to the world of plant hormones and photoperiodism
that were the subject of my 1943 PhD dissertation. Unfortunately,
because World War II had engulfed the United States in December
1941, Fuller was not able to give me much guidance, for when the
Japanese conquest of Malaysia made rubber unavailable to the Allies,
he was sent on an extended mission to South America to locate
remnant stands of Hevea brasiliensis. He remained absent
for several years, and I thus muddled through my research pretty
much on my own, except for occasional critiques by mail. Under
a wartime mandate, I had to finish my graduate work in three years,
working full time every summer. I felt short-changed, because
of the shortened period of study and also deprivation of my advisor.
“I had expected induction into military service immediately
after the receipt of my degree, but again, serendipity intervened
to change the course of my life. I had taken several courses in
biochemistry, including a lively literature seminar run by a young
faculty member, Herbert Carter. While every other student reported
on animal and microbial biochemistry, I spoke on such topics as
photosynthesis (Ruben, Kamen, and Hassid), auxin (Thiemann, Bonner)
and "florigen" (Chailakhian). Carter was delighted with
my "atypical" presentations. Convinced that I could
be of greater use to the country as a scientist than as a soldier,
Carter arranged for me to join Bonner's group at Caltech, working
on the Emergency Rubber Project, which sought to convert the Mexican
shrub, guayule (Parthenium argentatum Gray), into an
important rubber-producing plant. This was an exciting and ultimately
successful project, whose potential importance was short-circuited
by the simultaneous success of the synthetic rubber program. Finally
drafted, I joined the Navy as an enlisted man, and after many
vicissitudes, served as Natural Resources officer in Naval Military
Government on Okinawa.
“By the time I was slated for discharge in the spring of 1946, my wife
and I had become parents, and since all four grandparents lived in New York
City, I was urged to find a job in the east, despite an offer of continued employment
at Caltech. I spent the academic year of 1946-7 as an Instructor at Yale. I
then spent nine happy and productive years in Pasadena, first as Research Fellow,
and ultimately as tenured Associate Professor. I flourished in the plant physiology
group led by Went and Bonner, with young colleagues like Sam Wildman and George
Laties, and frequent contact with outstanding scientists like George Beadle,
Linus Pauling, Max Delbruck, and Richard Feynman. Yet early in 1955, mainly
for family reasons, I succumbed to an attractive offer from Oswald Tippo, newly
appointed Chairman of Botany at Yale, to return to Yale as a full Professor.
This was an important fork in the road for me; before the move, I was doing
experiments mainly with my own hands, but thereafter I was greatly involved
in planning, equipping, and staffing laboratories, teaching courses, and overseeing
the research of numerous grad students and postdocs. This was fulfilling work,
but very different from Caltech! In 1961, working with Edgar J. Boell, I was
instrumental in fusing Botany with Zoology to form the Department of Biology,
and planned the first unified Biology course taught by the new Department. In
1966-7, I served as Director of the Division of Biological Sciences and in 1985-8,
was Chairman of Biology. I opposed the dismemberment of Biology into MCDB and
EEB, but note with pleasure the recent strengthening of organismal biology in
EEB.
“Since retirement, I have been associated with the Institution for Social
& Policy Studies, and serve on its Executive Committee for the Interdisciplinary
Bioethics Project. For 12 years, I taught College Seminars in Bioethics, and
for two years, have taught a new introductory bioethics course in Yale College,
which in 2003-4, attracted more than 460 students, making it one of the largest
courses in Yale College.
“My major research contribution, made at Caltech, was to provide the
first evidence for flavin-based photoreception. This heterodox idea, opposed
by many pundits who favored carotenoids, including Thiemann, Went, Bünning,
Skoog, and Nobelist George Wald, led me into difficulties with granting agencies,
and I accordingly shifted my research to other areas. Time has proved this to
have been a mistake; one need only note the outstanding recent results in flavin
photoreception achieved by Briggs et al. with phototropins and by Cashmore et
al. with cryptochromes.
“Two other "decision points" affected my life
greatly. From 1956 to 1978, I had been a consultant to DuPont,
and at one point was tempted by an opportunity to leave academia
for industry. It was mainly my love of teaching and contact with
students that deterred me. The second critical decision developed
out of our government's use of Agent Orange and other chemicals
to defoliate and kill vegetation during the war in Vietnam. This
violated my deepest feelings about the constructive role of science,
and moved me into active opposition to official U.S. policy. Starting
with the business meeting in 1967, and working with like-minded
colleagues around the country, I began a time-consuming and distracting
campaign against this type of chemical warfare (Galston, 2001).
Our small group was eventually successful in helping to change
our country's policy, when President Nixon ordered the end of
the spraying at the end of 1970, almost five years before the
end of the war. Since we now know that Agent Orange contained
significant levels of teratogenic dioxins, this was an important
accomplishment. It was followed by five visits to Vietnam and
six to China, including the honor, with Ethan Signer of MIT, of
being the first American scientists invited to visit the People's
Republic of China. In 1971, we met Chou En-lai, then Prime Minister,
as well as King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, who then resided
in Shanghai. This pre-Kissinger-Nixon visit to China, as well
as my family's subsequent (1972) summer on an agriculture commune
(Galston, 1973) was page 1 news in many newspapers, including
the New York Times.
“Agent Orange also seems to have turned on other activist
genes in my makeup, and since then I have been drawn increasingly
by an interest in the social and ethical consequences of scientific
research. After my mandatory retirement from Biology in 1990,
I helped to organize a Bioethics Project at Yale, and am now an
active member of that group, teaching, leading seminars, and helping
to plan activities. Life does play funny tricks with our career
plans!"
LITERATURE CITED
Briggs WR, Huala E (1999) Blue-light photoreceptors in higher
plants. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol 15: 33-62
Briggs, WR, Jarillo JA, Wu YJ, Liu D (1999) Cryptochromes: blue
light receptors for plants and animals. Science 284:
760-765
Galston AW (1973) Daily Life in People's China. Thomas
Y. Crowell, New York
Galston AW (2001) Falling leaves and ethical dilemmas: Agent Orange
in Vietnam. In A.W. Galston, E.G. Shurr, eds, New Dimensions
in Bioethics. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The
Netherlands
-Anitra Thorhaug and Graeme Berlyn. School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences,
Yale University.
Charles Adam Schexnayder (1926-2008)
Charles Adam Schexnayder, professor emeritus of LSU and husband
of Claire Brown Schexnayder, passed away at 1 a.m. Wednesday,
June 4, 2008, at his home. He was born on April 18, 1926, at Lauderdale
Plantation in St. James Parish. He had been ill for almost a year
with pulmonary fibrosis. He graduated from White Castle High School
in 1943, joined the Naval Aviation Program and studied to be a
naval aviator in World War II. Following the cessation of hostilities
of the war, he enrolled at LSU, where he obtained a bachelor's
degree in vocational agriculture in 1948, a master's degree in
botany in 1950 and a Ph.D. in plant pathology in 1953. Upon completion
of his degree in plant pathology, he worked for the U.S. Department
of Agriculture at the Houma Federal Field Station with a specialty
in sugar cane production. In 1958, he was offered a position working
with the South Puerto Rico Sugar Corp. in La Romana, Dominican
Republic, where he worked as a plant pathologist and plant breeder
with sugar cane in the area of agronomy research. After four years,
he moved his family back to the United States and joined LSU with
the Department of Plant Pathology and Botany. He served on the
LSU faculty in 1962 as professor and chairman of botany for 12
years. He was appointed director of International Programs through
the LSU Agriculture Center. Dr. Schexnayder accepted a position
in Jamaica in 1988, where he worked to build an agriculture college
in Port Antonio on the Caribbean. The project was sponsored by
LSU and the Department of State for the benefit of Third World
countries. Much of his work with international programs was performed
in West African countries as chief of party providing educational
programs for helping African natives to cultivate crops for their
livelihood. He retired as professor emeritus in 1991 due to developing
problems with his health.
He is survived by his wife, Claire Brown Schexnayder; daughter,
Jacqueline Schexnayder MacMurdo Schneider and husband Brian; son,
Dr. Michael Schexnayder and wife Charlene Curole Schexnayder;
and five grandchildren, Christopher James MacMurdo, Ross Bailey
MacMurdo, Laura Elise Schexnayder, Charles Michael Schexnayder
and Matthew Steven Walker. Also survived by his brothers, Jean
Manfred Schexnayder and wife Sandra, Harold Joseph Schexnayder
and wife Mary Janice, and Lawrence Schexnayder and wife Jill.
-Russell L. Chapman, Ph D., FLS, Executive Director, Center for
Marine Biodiversity and Conservation 0202, Scripps Institution
of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman
Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093.
Award & Grant Opportunities
American Philosophical Society, RESEARCH PROGRAMS
All information and forms for all of the Society's programs can be downloaded
from our website, http://www.amphilsoc.org/.
Click on the "Fellowships and Research Grants" tab
at the top of the homepage.
INFORMATION about ALL PROGRAMS
Purpose, scope - Awards are made for non-commercial research
only. The Society makes no grants for academic study or classroom presentation,
for travel to conferences, for non-scholarly projects, for assistance with translation,
or for the preparation of materials for use by students. The Society does not
pay overhead or indirect costs to any institution or costs of publication.
Eligibility - Applicants may be residents of the United States
or American citizens resident abroad. Foreign nationals whose research can only
be carried out in the United States are eligible. Grants are made to individuals;
institutions are not eligible to apply. Requirements for each program vary.
Tax information - Grants and fellowships are taxable income,
but the Society is not required to report payments. It is recommended that grant
and fellowship recipients discuss their reporting obligations with their tax
advisors.
Contact information - Questions concerning the FRANKLIN, LEWIS
AND CLARK, programs should be directed to Linda Musumeci, Research Administrator,
at LMusumeci@amphilsoc.org or 215-440-3429.
BRIEF INFORMATION about INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMS
Franklin Research Grants
Scope - This program of small grants to scholars is intended
to support the cost of research leading to publication in all areas of knowledge.
The Franklin program is particularly designed to help meet the cost of travel
to libraries and archives for research purposes; the purchase of microfilm,
photocopies or equivalent research materials; the costs associated with fieldwork;
or laboratory research expenses.
Eligibility - Applicants are expected to have a doctorate
or to have published work of doctoral character and quality. Pre-doctoral graduate
students are not eligible, but the Society is especially interested in supporting
the work of young scholars who have recently received the doctorate.
Award - From $1,000 to $6,000.
Deadlines - October 1, December 1; notification in February
and April.
Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research
Scope - The Lewis and Clark Fund encourages exploratory field
studies for the collection of specimens and data and to provide the imaginative
stimulus that accompanies direct observation. Applications are invited from
disciplines with a large dependence on field studies, such as archeology, anthropology,
biology, ecology, geography, geology, linguistics, and paleontology, but grants
will not be restricted to these fields.
Eligibility - Grants will be available to doctoral students
who wish to participate in field studies for their dissertations or for other
purposes. Master's candidates, undergraduates, and postdoctoral fellows are
not eligible.
Award - Grants will depend on travel costs but will ordinarily
be in the range of several hundred dollars to about $5,000.
Deadline - February 15; notification in May.
Other News
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Announces Summer Highlights - Reflections:
Water in the Garden
Find cool relief from the sizzling summer heat at Brooklyn Botanic
Garden (BBG) with its Reflections: Water in the Garden interpretive
program highlights, from July 12 through September 7, 2008. In
the glittering reflection of BBG’s exquisite aquatic features,
visitors can experience the many diverse displays of water throughout
the “gardens within the Garden,” learn more about
water and conservation, and explore how plants use and live in
and around water. Reflections: Water in the Garden is BBG’s
first-ever program focusing on its exhilarating water features
and offers visitors an interactive self-guided tour of the aquatic
elements of BBG, free guided strolls, special educational workshops
for children and adults, and more.
The sound of a trickling brook calms the nerves, the glassy surface
of a pond inspires contemplation, and the playful jets of fountains
elicit joy. Water itself is an essential element, vital to all
living things. Reflections: Water in the Garden invites visitors
to revel in BBG’s distinctive landscape—including
fountains, water lily pools, a running brook, small waterfalls,
and an interactive water table for kids. Interpretive panels at
some of the most popular water features and colorful informative
signs about flora living in or near them will introduce visitors
to the myriad ways plants interact with water.
Visitors can pick up a special Reflections brochure and embark
on a self-guided adventure or meet one of BBG’s enthusiastic
Garden Guides for a FREE Reflections tour and receive a narrated
introduction to the featured water displays. On Tuesdays, FREE
Reflections tours begin at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., as well as 3 p.m.
on weekends. The Reflections tour will supplement the popular
1 p.m. free Seasonal Highlights tour.
Reflections: Water in the Garden will highlight ten areas within
the Garden, each of which is anchored by water. An interpretive
placard nearby also includes other interesting plants in the immediate
area. Compelling, on-site interpretive text helps visitors learn
about wetland plant species, submerged and emergent ecosystems,
and other water-related topics. Highlighted water features in
the Garden include the elegant Rose Arc Pool, where the Call of
the Sea statue is enveloped by cattails (Typha species) and celebrates
the freedom and vitality of open water. The Native Flora Garden’s
bog, pond, and ephemeral stream, which represent water habitats
native to this region that play a vital role in sustaining plant
and animal life in the Northeast.
Throughout the summer, visitors will experience the colorful
Discovery Carts with hands-on water-related activities for the
whole family. The Gardener’s Resource Center will help visitors
find answers to frequently asked water questions and inspire them
with a collection of beautiful books on water gardening, rain
gardens, and water features in breathtaking gardens around the
world.
The Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery will present Reflections
in Collage: Works by Diane Miller, an exhibit of striking collage
work that echoes the movement and textures of BBG’s water
features. Miller’s unique collages are inspired by the rocks,
trees, mists, clouds, and rain of the North Temperate Zone, and
offer a vision of unpolluted nature full of dramatic movement
and the textures of the earth.
In the Wonderful Water Plants! Discovery Workshops (Sunday, July
13 and Sunday, August 10, 2–4 p.m.), children will experience
the Garden’s interactive water table and learn all about
water plants. On Special Reflections Saturdays (Saturday, July
26 and Saturday, August 16, 2–4 p.m.), water-related mini-workshops
will include potting up a water plant or making a pond postcard
and can be enjoyed by visitors of all ages.
A container water garden display will be featured near the Terrace
Café during the summer season, adding to the sensual pleasure
of dining in the Garden. Home gardeners will be inspired to incorporate
water into their own garden designs. And to help them get started,
the Garden Shop and Gift Shop will offer a special collection
of interesting plants, fountains, books, and other water-inspired
gifts.
Romi Ige, manager of interpretation at Brooklyn Botanic Garden,
says, “We are very excited to present Reflections: Water
in the Garden and to offer our summer visitors an opportunity
to cool off beside the myriad water features of Brooklyn Botanic
Garden. Whether reveling in the lushness of the Native Flora Garden,
relaxing in the shady calm of the brook and terminal pond, or
gazing at the stunning composition of the lily pools, visitors
of all ages will be able to learn about plants while experiencing
the multisensory pleasures of water.” Ige adds, “Water
has a unique capability to alter or reflect a range of emotions
given all of its many permutations, from shooting sprays to placid
pools to gurgling brooks to splashing waterfalls—water ignites
the senses.”
In addition, there will be a special Reflections-themed display
in exhibition cases in the Rotunda. It will feature herbarium
specimens of aquatic plants and illustrations of water-lilies
and lotuses from the Garden’s rare-book and Florilegium
Society collections. Patricia Jonas, director of Library Services,
is also utilizing the Library’s new tagging feature to identify
and showcase nearly 100 books from the BBG Library that amplify
the Summer Interpretative program. Going to the online catalog
on the BBG Library pages and typing “Reflections”
in the tag field will allow visitors to look at Jonas’s
recommendations or create their own personalized water-based book
list to share with family and friends.
During the Reflections: Water in the Garden Opening Day Celebration,
July 12 from noon to 4:30 p.m., the festivities will pay tribute
to the wonderful water features of BBG. Visitors will have a special
opportunity to meet one of BBG’s curators who maintain and
nurture the plants in our Living Collections. The knowledgeable
Garden Guides will offer tours highlighting the water features
through out the Garden. Robin Simmen, director of Brooklyn GreenBridge,
will offer a free informative workshop, “Creating a Rain
Garden.”
CONTACT: Leeann Lavin, 718-623-7289 or Kate Blumm, 718-623-7241
Chicago Botanic Garden to Break Ground on Rice Plant Conservation
Science Center
The Chicago Botanic Garden has announced that it will break ground
June 3 on the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science
Center, a facility designed to serve as an international center
for plant conservation research and home to the nation’s
only doctoral program in plant biology and conservation.
When completed in fall of 2009, the 36,000-square-foot Daniel
F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center will provide
state-of-the-art laboratories and teaching facilities for over
200 PhD scientists, land managers, students, and research staff,
and will include teaching facilities required for a unique doctoral
program in plant biology and conservation that the Chicago Botanic
Garden will conduct with Northwestern University.
While the Chicago Botanic Garden has conducted a plant conservation
research program for more than ten years, the Rice Center will
enable the Garden to expand research capabilities into the study
of native plants for medicinal and economic benefits, reproductive
biology, seed biology and population genetics, and soil research
that could lead to better understanding of the manner in which
native plant habitats can absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
The building will feature a viewing gallery designed to provide
the Garden’s 760,000 visitors with an opportunity to see
Garden plant scientists at work. It will also feature a 10,000
square-foot living green roof, open to the public to demonstrate
the best plants for green roofs in the Midwest.
Designed by Booth Hansen, the Rice Center will use materials
and systems to earn a “gold” rating for sustainable
design from the U. S. Green Building Council.
The groundbreaking ceremony will be preceded on June 2 with an
afternoon “Seeds for the Future” ceremony involving
students from three Chicago Public Schools. Together with Garden
scientists, the students will contribute items to a “Seeds
for the Future” time capsule, which will be placed in the
Rice Center to be opened in 50 years.
Why Save Plants?
According to the World Conservation Union, 30 percent of the world’s
plants are threatened with extinction by 2050. Since plants provide
all the necessities of life, food, shelter, clothing, medicine
and oxygen, the continued loss of plant life poses enormous threats
to the health and well being of humans.
The new Rice Center will provide the facilities to enable the
Garden to conduct research that will impact the work of those
trying to save plants around the world.
For example, the Chicago Botanic Garden is on a mission to collect
20,000 seeds from each of the 1,500 native plant species of the
tall grass prairie, one of the world’s most threatened ecosystems,
now reduced to less than 0.01 percent of its former range. The
Rice Center will provide the seed banking equipment and facilities
to bank seed more effectively, seeds that one day may cure disease,
provide food for millions or become viable parts of healthy ecosystems.
African Journal of Plant Science (AJPS)
The African Journal of Plant Science (AJPS) is currently
accepting manuscripts for publication. AJPS publishes high-quality
solicited and unsolicited articles, in English, in all areas of
plant science research. All articles published in AJPS will be
peer-reviewed.
Our objective is to inform authors of the decision on their manuscript
within five weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper
will normally be published in the next available issue.
One key request of researchers across the world is open access
to research publications. The African Journal of Plant Science
is fully committed to providing free access to all articles as
soon as they are published. We ask you to support this initiative
by publishing your papers in this journal.
Please visit our website - http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPS
for the Instruction for authors and other details. Prospective
authors should send their manuscript(s) to ajps.acadjourn@gmail.com,
ajps@academicjournals.org.
AJPS is also seeking for qualified reviewers as members of its
editorialboard. Please contact me if you are interested in serving
as a reviewer.
Best regards,
Prof. Diaga Diouf, Acting Editor
African Journal of Plant Science
E-mail: ajps.acadjourn@gmail.com
E-mail: ajps@academicjournals.org
http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPS
International Organization Launched to Address Problems in Cultivated Plant Taxonomy
Plants have been in cultivation for millennia, but it is becoming
evermore difficult to maintain clarity and understanding in the
science of naming cultivated plants. This has been exacerbated
in recent decades by the proliferation of not only cultivars,
but trade designations and other devices used to market them.
To provide necessary leadership in the field of taxonomy and nomenclature
of cultivated plants, a new organization was launched during the
5th International Symposium on the Taxonomy of Cultivated Plants
in Wageningen, The Netherlands on October 18, 2007: the International
Association for Cultivated Plant Taxonomy (IACPT).
Although often underestimated, there is significant value of
knowing a plant's precise name and understanding its origin, development,
description, classification and performance potential. Stability
and harmonization in cultivated plant names can be achieved only
with clear and widely accessible information. The IACPT seeks
to make information sharing the core of its mission, and will
encourage international cooperation among individuals and institutions
interested in this field and related disciplines.
To achieve its goals, the association will sponsor symposia,
publish a journal dedicated to cultivated plant taxonomy, develop
databases and on-line resources for improving stability in the
nomenclature of cultivated plants and become a vehicle for discussion
and provide advice on the implementation of the International
Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP).
Members include taxonomists, international cultivar registration
authorities, representatives of plant breeders rights authorities,
industry scientists and specialists, public garden professionals
and many others. Memberships are now being solicited, and as of
April, 2008, there are 70 members from 13 different countries.
Five individuals represent the US and Canada on the IACPT council:
John Wiersema, Michael Dosmann (Vice-president for the Americas)
and Dennis Collins (Secretary) for the US; Freek Vrugtman and
Bernard Baum for Canada. Additional information on joining can
be found at: www.iacpt.net.
Although there is yet no policy for institutional memberships,
inquiries on the subject are welcome and some mechanism will address
this in the future.
For more information, contact Dennis Collins at 617-607-1961
or e-mail at dcollins@mountauburn.org.
Revealing Double Lecture Explores the Shroud of Turin - Missouri Botanical Garden
WHAT: Double lecture, “Botany of the Shroud
of Turin,” by Dr. Avinoam Danin, and “The Shroud of
Turin: The Holographic Experience,” by Dr. Petrus Soons
WHEN: Monday, Aug. 18 at 5:30 p.m.
WHERE: Shoenberg Theater, Missouri Botanical
Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd. in south St. Louis
COST: Free
INFO: General Garden info, www.mobot.org
or (314) 577-9400
The Shroud of Turin, believed to be the traditional burial cloth
of Jesus of Nazareth, has been on public display only a handful
of times in the past century, yet it is one of the most studied
and researched artifacts in the world. Dr. Avinoam Danin, Emeritus
Professor of Botany at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has
spent decades examining images of plant remains he discovered
on the shroud; collectively, these indicate a geographic origin
of the burial in the vicinity of Jerusalem during the months of
March or April. Recently, he located about 300 additional flowers
and parts of plants on the cloth, providing additional evidence
about its provenance. Dr. Petrus Soons, retired M.D., has used
digitized photos of the linen cloth to create another device for
study: three-dimensional holograms. Discover what their research
has revealed about the botany of the shroud during a double lecture
on Monday, Aug. 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The event is free.
The “Botany of the Shroud of Turin” will be presented
by Dr. Avinoam Danin, who is co-author of the Flora of the Shroud
of Turin. Of the plant images he originally uncovered on the shroud,
the presence of three plant species were used as geographic indicators
to show the origin of the garment as the Holy land between Jerusalem
and Hebron. Eight of the species were used by Danin to determine
that the placing of these plants on the deceased person’s
body took place in the months of March or April.
Using photographs of the shroud taken by Vernon Miller in 1978,
Danin recently discovered over 300 additional flowers and plant
parts on the head area of the cloth. The size and morphology of
the flowering heads closely resemble those of Matricaria and Anthemis,
two genera in the sunflower family. The stalks and stems of the
flowers have been removed, and the flowers appear in an orderly
arrangement, suggesting their intentional placement on the body
that was covered by the garment. More recent research has uncovered
what appear to be four flowering heads from the Carduus genus
of thistles, and three spines from the deciduous shrub Rhamnus
lycioides; possible evidence of the Biblical “crown of thorns.”
“The Shroud of Turin: The Holographic Experience”
will be presented by Dr. Petrus Soons, whose work involves the
digitization of shroud photographs taken in 1931. Soons enhanced
the original photos to improve details, and then translated the
enhanced grayscale images into depth data. The result was a sequence
of nearly 625 images for each photo, which computer expert Bernardo
Galmarini combined using a Holoprinter to produce three-dimensional
(3-D) holographic images of the shroud. This unprecedented new
view of the artifact yielded the discovery of previously unseen
details, confirmation of many previous findings, and a few surprises.
“The production of the first 3-D photographs greatly benefited
both Dr. Soons’ and my ongoing study of the shroud,”
said Danin.
“These studies represent an impressive case of the application
of botanical information to the interpretation of a venerated
historical object,” said Garden President Dr. Peter Raven.
“They offer telling information about where and when it
was used.”
The double lecture will be held in the Shoenberg Theater, lower
level of the visitors’ center at the Missouri Botanical
Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd. Admission to the event is free and open
to the public. For general information, visit www.mobot.org or
call the recorded line at (314) 577-9400.
Since 1983, the Vatican has owned the Shroud of Turin, which
is kept in Turin’s Roman Catholic cathedral in Italy. Pope
Benedict XVI recently announced that the shroud will go on public
display in 2010.
Dr. Brent Elliott Receives Greensfelder Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden
The Missouri Botanical Garden has awarded Dr. Brent Elliott, librarian and archivist at the Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library in London, with the 2008 Greensfelder Medal. Dr. Elliott was honored at the dedication of the Doris Waters Harris Lichtenstein Victorian District at the Garden on June 13.
Dr. Elliott is a renowned authority on Victorian gardens who collaborated on the landscape design and interpretation of the new Victorian District. The unified and enhanced area comprises the historic southeast corner of the Garden and includes the Kresko Family Victorian Garden and Tower Grove House, country home of Garden founder Henry Shaw.
The Albert P. and Blanche Y. Greensfelder Medal was established in 1980. It honors individuals who have made significant contributions to landscape, garden and park planning, and design for urban improvement.
Books Reviewed
Life in the Soil: A Guide for
Naturalists and Gardeners.
Flora of China Illustrations.
Volume 22, Poaceae.
Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells:
Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes, and Genomes.
Handbook of Plant Science,
Volumes 1 and 2.
The Origins of Genome Architecture.
Nature’s Palette: The
Science of Plant Color.
Trees in the Life of the Maya
World
Natural dyes: scope and challenges
Life in the Soil: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners.
James B. Nardi. University of Chicago Press. 293 pp. ISBN 13:978-0-226-56852-2.
Now here is a book I’ve been waiting for. Like most BSA
members, I’ve got shelves full of books about plants –
how they are related, how to identify them, which ones I can eat,
which ones I could use for what ails me. Yet I’ve got far
fewer references on the substrate upon which most of those plants
are growing. Sure, there’s my old, worn copy of The
Nature and Structure of Soils and there’s Miller and
Donahue’s Soils in our Environment, the textbook
used for my undergrad soils course. But where is that one book
that really, finally, illuminates the dark and dynamic habitat
lying under our feet and the biota it supports? As far as I can
tell, it didn’t exist until now.
Let me just come clean (or soiled, perhaps) right off the bat:
I love this book. As I read it, I got that old feeling that used
to come over me when I was a kid engrossed in a Golden Guide –
like I was being let in on some big secret in nature and all I
needed to decode the mystery was the book in my hand. That’s
what Life in the Soil is like, and in no small part this
is due to James Nardi’s wonderful illustrations. These are
scattered throughout the book and provide detailed views of critters
we never see so clearly, for reasons of scale or because they
lead hidden subterranean lives. Whether the rendering is a comparison
of several types of actinomycetes, a cut-away view of a pocket
gopher’s burrow, or a step-by-step breakdown of rotifer
locomotion, Nardi’s artwork is a show-stealing complement
to the written text.
This is not to say that the text is lacking. Rather, it is written
in a style that is indicative of an author who is obviously an
effective teacher. Complex concepts are tackled with ease, and
much of the text reads more like a good story than a textbook.
This is no small accomplishment because this book is packed with
a volume of information that could easily be presented in a less
accessible and far less colorful manner. I imagine that arriving
at this goal took much hard work and editing, and it appears to
have been a worthwhile labor.
The book is divided into three main sections. Part One, titled
“The Marriage of the Mineral World and the Organic World”,
is where most of the plant-related information is encountered.
The short, general treatments of roots and their nitrogen-fixing
symbionts (2 pages), mycorrhizal associations (4 pages), and the
direct interactions between roots and soils (7 pages) have the
potential to leave botanists somewhat dissatisfied (I was, at
first). Plants do, however, get their due in the remainder of
Part One as Nardi highlights their importance as the foundation
of all that is living in our soils. This includes an enlightening
journey in which he traces an abscised oak leaf from the moment
it lands on the ground to the time it becomes any number of tiny
fragments in a bit of humus.
Having already laid out the five factors that contribute to the
making of soils: climate, topography, parent material, time, and
living organisms; Nardi dedicates what is by far the largest section
of his book to the last factor, the soil biota. In Part Two, “Members
of the Soil Community,” the author provides treatments of
60 different taxonomic groups. Eight of these are included in
the “Microbes” section: 1) Eubacteria and Archaebacteria;
2) Actinomycetes; 3) Algae; 4) Fungi; 5) Chytrids, Hypochytrids,
Oomycetes; 6) Lichens; 7) Slime Molds; and 8) Protozoa. The systematists
among us may cringe at a few of these partitions, but a detailed
reading of the treatments of these groups shows that Nardi is
fully aware of where things really belong. These categories are
used by convenience and, most importantly, because they make sense
to the audience for which the book is largely written: amateur
naturalists and gardeners with a biological acumen. I took comfort
in the information boxes inserted at the beginning of each treatment
in which the taxonomy and diversity of the group is summarized.
As an example, the Algae (including cyanobacteria) inhabiting
soils are described as members of seven listed groups from three
kingdoms. [Nardi chose to use a three-domain system in which the
Eukaryotes are divided into five kingdoms: Protozoa, Chromista,
Fungus, Animal, and Plant.]
The bulk of Part Two (around 170 pages) is dedicated to invertebrate
and vertebrate animals, from flatworms to kangaroo rats. It’s
all fascinating reading, and the text in this section is chock
full of entertaining and informative narratives describing the
myriad ways that animals create, use, and maintain soils. You
might be familiar with the importance of earthworms, or dung beetles
(great stuff here on them), or burrowing mammals (woodchucks excavate
as much as 700 pounds of subsoil and associated material for a
single burrow!), but Life in the Soil casts an equal
opportunity spotlight that shines on many others. To wit: Woodlice,
already of considerable interest as landlubbing crustaceans, are
among the first things to begin breaking down leaves into humus.
Mites, some predatory and others scavengers, are present at densities
of up to 100,000 per square meter of soil. Moth fly larvae (Family
Psychodidae) are not only colored like the soils in their neighborhood
but they camouflage themselves further by attaching chunks of
soil along their backs.
The third and final part of the book, “Working in Partnership
with Creatures of the Soil,” is a short (11 pages) foray
into the things we can all do as soil stewards. The prevention
of erosion and salinization, wise use of fertilizers, avoidance
of biological invasions, and the use of composting “as an
antidote to soil abuse” are all given attention here. This
is followed by three appendices: a guide to observing life in
the soil (including tips for locating and collecting soil organisms),
a glossary, and three pages of suggested additional readings.
This review now done, one would expect that I would put my copy
of the book on my shelves and leave it there for future reference
- but I am actually inclined to just start reading it again. Life
in the Soil is what descriptive natural history books should
all be, but too few actually are. It is appropriately detailed
and comprehensive, but it is also easy and fun to read. The enthusiasm
of the author and his own sense of wonder come through loud and
clear in both his words and his artwork. There is more happening
beneath us than most folks could ever imagine, but Nardi has made
it a heck of a lot easier to do so.
-Christopher T. Martine, Department of Biological Sciences,
SUNY Plattsburgh
Flora of China Illustrations. Volume 22, Poaceae. Wu Z. Y., P. H. Raven & D. Y. Hong, eds. 2007. ISBN 978-1-930723-61-0 (cloth, US$140.00) xii + 937 pp. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.
This publication is the 12th in a series of 24 volumes of illustrations
that parallel the text volumes of the Flora of China
(FOC). It accompanies FOC Volume 22, which was
published in 2006 and treated 226 genera with 1,795 species in
the Poaceae. This volume of illustrations includes 904 plates
representing 1,271 species, 24 subspecies, and 50 varieties in
226 genera of Poaceae. The illustrations are arranged according
to the sequence of tribes, genera, and species in FOC
Volume 22. Latin names of recognized taxa are followed by their
Chinese names with the pinyin transliterations. Scale bars are
given for about half of the plates.
The family Poaceae was covered in five volumes of the Flora
Republicae Popularis Sinicae (FRPS), published between
1987 and 2002. Most of the beautiful drawings that were published
in FRPS (particularly Bambuseae) are now available in
the volume under review. However, for taxa not or insufficiently
illustrated in FRPS, this volume also includes many original
drawings and illustrations from other published sources (particularly
Poeae). The total number of illustrations in FRPS was
somewhat larger, but this is partly due to smaller number of currently
recognized species in some genera. For example, 231 species in
the genus Poa were recognized in FRPS and 127
of them were illustrated. There are only 81 recognized species
in this genus in FOC and 44 of them (plus 18 subspecies)
are illustrated. Illustrations are, in general, of very high quality,
clearly showing inflorescences, spikelets, florets, glumes, etc.
Cross sections of leaf blades are included in almost all illustrations
of 45 Festuca species. Personally, I would like to see
more vegetative characters (ligules) in some of the illustrations.
The Flora of China is a monumental international achievement.
The editors, all contributing authors, and artists should be congratulated
for this milestone in plant systematics!
-Marcel Rejmánek, Department of Evolution and Ecology,
University of California, Davis, CA 95616.
Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells: Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes,
and Genomes. Doležel, Jaroslav, Johann Greilhuber,
and Jan Suda (eds). 2007. ISBN 978-3-527-31487-4 (Cloth US$190.00)
454pp. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.
In the era genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics it is difficult
to keep up to date with all these new technologies. Older methods
are therefore often overlooked, although they may actually find
new applications. The book by Dolezel and co-editors on flow cytometry
is a wake-up call. In 18 chapters the most prominent authors in
the field demonstrate the many possibilities that this technique,
originally designed for biomedical purposes, offers for many questions
in all kinds of botanical studies. Although as pointed out by
Loureiro & al. (chapter 18) more than 80% of the current applications
of flow cytometry are concerned with ploidy level and genome size
estimation, it is used in as different fields as ecology, systematics,
physiology and genetics. Flow cytometry has many advantages as
repeatedly stressed throughout the book, such as ease of sample
preparation, rapidity of the analysis, no requirement for dividing
cells and low cost once the flow cytometer has been set up. But
the book is not a one-sided promotion of flow cytometry. Technical
problems such as those caused by secondary compounds are again
and again considered for the various applications discussed. Consequently,
the book is not so much a book discussing results from studies
using flow cytometry but rather a guide to best laboratory practice.
Its main purpose, however, seems to be highlighting the possibilities
of the method. What Pfündel & Meister (chapter 11, p.
252) wrote is probably true for most of these chapters: “We
believe that the rare use of FCM [flow cytometry] in chloroplast
research results from a lack of awareness of its possibilities
rather than from any limitations of the method”.
The book starts with an extensive history of the technique by
Shapiro, leading on to an in-depth description of the technique
by Robinson & Grégori, which is probably over the head
of most plant biologists. Although these may be the less frequently
visited chapters of the book, they definitely round up the book.
After these introductory chapters, Dolezel, Greilhuber & Suda
introduce the diverse applications, from genome size measurement
to flow sorting and phytosanitary screening and onto the quantification
of secondary metabolites. Additionally, they introduce the plant-specific
problems with the technique that are then discussed in more detail
in the specific chapters. The chapter, thus, forms the central
cornerstone of the book. Whenever a plant biologist thinks he
doesn’t need flow cytometry, he should read this chapter.
Chapter 4 by Greilhuber & al. gives an introduction to the
complex terminology of genome size studies and a detailed analysis
of methodological problems in genome size estimation. The part
on the terminology is a must-read for anybody publishing on genome
size and ploidy variation. The methodological part of the chapter
represents a highly useful compilation of these small observations
and recommendations that are normally not found in publications
other than in well-hidden side notes and so the chapter will likely
spare users from desperate emails on the various email listservers.
The variation of ploidy levels discussed in chapter 5 (Suda &
al.) may be the most frequently used application of flow cytometry,
because it allows a rapid survey of populations for its ploidy
level. For groups in which chromosome numbers are known this presents
an easy way of detecting the distribution limits of cytotypes
and rapidly increases our knowledge on ploidy level variation
within populations, occurrence of intermediate cytotypes such
as triploids and so on. Chapter 6 by Matzk extends the question
of ploidy level variation to the intraindividual level and the
question of reproductive modes such as detection of unreduced
gametes and the determination of endosperm ploidy.
Leitch & Bennett (chapter 7) review what is known about genome
size variation and its implications. Of course, a single chapter
can only discuss correlations of genome size with some biological
features but not all that have been suggested. Nevertheless, the
chapter provides an insightful overview over the topic to those
not as familiar with the topic. A more specialized topic is discussed
by Meister & Barow (chapter 8). Comparing the measurements
of the same material once with a base-specific dye and once with
an unspecific dye allows estimation of GC/AT-content in different
genomes. Considerable differences between GC/AT-contents exist
in investigated species but these do not seem to have a taxonomic
significance and currently no convincing biological relevance
is known. After this the more unusual applications of flow cytometry
are presented, although the order is not entirely clear to me.
It starts with the screen for plant pathogenic microorganisms
discussed by Bergervoet & al. (chapter 9), probably the most
applied application rather than one used in basic research. Galbraith
(chapter 10) then discusses the technical approach to measure
protoplast size, senescence, cell death, protein content and physiological
parameters using flow cytometry. These topics are so diverse that
here most often only the topics are briefly touched upon and the
reader is then referred to the original literature. The analysis
of chloroplasts introduced by Pfündel & Meister (chapter
11) seems to be in its infancy. The chapter is mostly preoccupied
with discussing methodological problems and only mentioning one
issue, in which flow cytometry has been used successfully, the
detection of C4-photosynthesis.
Whereas most of the studies using flow cytometry worked with
vascular plants, the potential applications in the study of non-vascular
plants are even more diverse as outlined in the next two chapters.
While Voglmayer in chapter 12 focuses on the technical problems
of genome size estimation in bryophytes and algae and reviews
the current state of knowledge, chapter 13 by Dubelaar discusses
the application of flow cytometry in the study of phytoplankton.
Here, flow cytometers have been developed furthest and sometimes
look rather like a submarine. The lack of morphological characters
to distinguish plankton species has been overcome by flow cytometry
when it was shown that different types of plankton can be distinguished
by their autofluorescent characteristics (i.e. that of their chlorophyll).
The parallel species identification and number estimation allows
detailed ecosystem monitoring and changes over short times and
distances. Further advancements in these kinds of analyses are
to be expected by staining plankton with species-specific oligonucleotides.
This could, for example, allow in-situ detection of toxic algae
species.
From ecology, the theme then shifts in the next four chapters
back to plant genetic topics. Pfosser & al. review the analysis
of cell cycles, not only using flow cytometry. As the authors
state that the use of flow cytometry in cell cycle analysis is
rather limited, I wonder whether this excellent chapter may not
be well hidden in this book from researchers interested in cell
cycles. The authors give an extensive list of drugs affecting
the cell cycle and systems for its study as well as a guide on
how to synchronize cell lines. In contrast, the review of endopolyploidy
by Barow & Jovtchev (chapter 15) depends to a large extent
on flow cytometry and, therefore, a review of its estimation and
factors modifying endopolyploidy was to be expected. Dolezel &
al. (chapter 16) then introduce into the topic of flow sorting
mitotic metaphase chromosomes. It is certainly one of the most
demanding applications of flow cytometry and the extensive difficulties
are discussed in much detail. It finds its use in karyotyping,
for example in agriculture, and assigning sequences to specific
chromosomes when combined with FISH, providing a resolution of
as little as 70kb. The authors finish by outlining a strategy
to generate chromosome-specific markers and BAC-libraries. A technically
even more demanding application of flow cytometry is its use in
gene expression analysis (chapter 17). Galbraith discusses extensively
microarrays and only briefly mentions how flow sorting protoplasts
could help locating the expression of specific genes. Overall,
however, I had the impression that in this topic flow cytometry
plays and will play only a minor role. (Alternatively, Galbraith
did not convince me of its importance.) Finally, Loureiro &
al. present the FLOWer database (chapter 18; http://flower.web.ua.pt),
a comprehensive database with bibliographic information on all
articles dealing with flow cytometry in plants. This database
is surely a remarkable resource for anyone interested in flow
cytometry for various reasons, for example when looking for technical
help. It allows searching and sorting of the literature according
to buffer, standards, fluorochromes used in the study, the purpose
of the study, the journal in which the study was published and
the country in which the study was conducted.
Overall, the book is certainly a must-have for any plant biology
library and I recommend reading the chapters closest to your interest.
I am sure, several ideas on how to use flow cytometry in your
own research will come to your mind. However, the book also gives
ample warnings that things may not be as easy as they may appear
in the beginning. Especially, the more demanding applications
will certainly continue to be conducted only in a handful of laboratories
world-wide.
-Dr. Dirk Albach, Institut für Spezielle Botanik, Johannes
Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Bentzelweg 9b
55099 Mainz. Germany.
Handbook of Plant Science, Volume 1. (Functional
Plant Anatomy, Plant Tissues and Cells, Plant Cell Biology, Plant
Growth and Development, Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology)
Handbook of Plant Science, Volume 2 (Evolution,
Plant Primary Metabolism, Plant Secondary Metabolism, Photosynthesis,
Plants and their Environment, Plants and Other Organisms) Roberts,
Keith (ed.). 2007. ISBN 978-0-470-05723-0 (Cloth US$590) 1599
pp. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester,
West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England.
This two volume compendium is comprised of over 250 articles
extracted from a larger opus, the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
(ELS), now published by Wiley, but first on-line in 2001. The
ELS has about 4,000 articles, and is “updated regularly”.
Thus, the present volume ought to be a snapshot of what was available
in a certain range of disciplines on a certain date, sometime
in 2007, if one judges by citations in the newest articles.
The editor of this volume is a well known scientist, now emeritus
of the John Innes Center in the U.K. There are about 400 contributors,
each focusing on their own specialty, with articles varying from
2 - 10 pages in length, averaging about 5 pages of text. Some
have no specific citations, only a list of further readings, while
others are extensively annotated with more than 20 specific references,
and sometimes more general “further readings”. This
is, in part, a deliberate matter of style, with some articles
that provide broad overviews to major topic areas, such as evolution
of flowering plants, or plant bioenergetics, and others examining
more specialized topic like the shikimic acid pathway of amino
acid synthesis or fitness costs of plant disease resistance.
Articles with few specific references, and a limited number of
“further readings” are what one would expect of traditional
encyclopedia entries. Those with many citations are more like
mini-reviews that are commonly published by cutting edge research
journals and would be suited only for advanced students and specialists.
There are in total 48 pages of color plates tipped into the centers
of the two volumes. These repeat illustrations that appear in
black and white in the articles, which are well written and produced
to a high standard. The exposition is usually clear, although
in some subject areas the use of many acronyms is an impediment
to easy understanding. No doubt a few errors have crept in but
I didn’t pick up any big ones. The Handbook, taken as a
whole, is probably best viewed as a supplement to traditional
textbooks, or for post-graduates to broaden their knowledge outside
their own specialty.
There is unavoidably some overlap between individual chapters
when a plant is dissected into topical areas of functional anatomy,
tissues and cells, cell biology, growth and development, molecular
genetics and biotechnology, evolution, primary metabolism, secondary
metabolism, photosynthesis, plants and their environment, plants
and other organisms. Any such overlap of content is probably essential
for articles to make a coherent read in themselves. Most topic
areas have 20-30 articles and something over 100 pages allocated,
with evolution the shortest section having only 7 articles and
a total of 50 pages. Articles are cross-referenced to a limited
extent, so that it is possible to follow some topics from one
article to another.
The 50 page subject index contains over 1700 entries, fairly
well insuring that there are several entries for each article.
For instance, parenchyma has 22 subtopics, with 6 of these in
articles other than the primary one. On the other hand, “organ
primordia”, and its subtopic patterning, has no citations
outside the primary article. Yet, an entry for “radial patterning”
turns up this same article and another, while hand searching through
articles on the meristem turns up still more instances. I would
expect that a good search engine going through this same encyclopedia
would identify many more overlaps. Such on-line search capability
would make this a much more useful collection.
Biochemistry and molecular biology of plants one way and another
receive a large emphasis here. This is an area growing so rapidly
with application of bioinformatics, that one cannot hope to keep
up with it. This book is no exception to that problem. Also, it
should be noted that Wiley sells a Handbook of Plant Biotechnology,
for a price approaching $1000. So they are unlikely to have put
much of their new material into this volume. For instance, just
one chapter addresses micro-arrays in a substantial way, and bioinformatics
is nowhere in the index. While a description of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) is quite up to date, the article on potential
impacts of GMOs is unfortunately an extremely biased, out of date
(~1998) view from a strictly European perspective.
The original concept of an online encyclopedia was developed
more than a decade ago, and had a long gestation. Looking at the
references within each of the articles once can see that the most
recent citation for some articles is as long ago as 1994, which
means that any progress since that time, may well have gone unnoticed.
Of course in some areas there may not be such rapid progress that
citing the latest publications is essential, but authors typically
tend to pull in a few citations to very recent works, just to
make their article look up-to-date. So we may conclude that a
fraction of the work discussed here is at least a decade old.
For close to 60 % of the articles, the most recent citation is
from 2001 when the encyclopedia went on-line. For about 1/4, the
most recent citation is in 2005-2007. The years in between are
sparsely represented.
The pattern of citation indicates that what we have is in fact
two books merged. First came an encyclopedia that went online
around 2001. Then there is the product of an updating process,
like the yearbooks produced to supplement a classical encyclopedia.
Some of these were written relatively recently. Genome sequencing
projects are covered briefly through 2006 but the discussion of
transgenic plants is about a decade older. Interfering RNA is
discussed in an up to date way through 2006 in an article on systemic
signaling rather than in the article on gene silencing. The latter,
initially written about 2001, has a number of references through
2005 appended as “further reading” with no mention
of their relative significance. That is a bit of a dodge that
really doesn’t work except for the most sophisticated reader.
Why should I belabor this point? Because I believe that you should
know what you are buying. Pulling an article at random, I came
upon a review by Daniels and Chrispeels, on aquaporins. It is
a well writen, clear exposition, but the most recent citation
is from 1998. Since that time our understanding of this specialty
has exploded. Those authors had only very vague cryoelectron microscopy
images to work with. Now the same technique has been used with
a plant aquaporin to gain a better than 4 A resolution (2005)
and for a bovine aquaporin a 2.2 A resolution X-ray structure
is available since 2004. Recent textbooks (2007) show this structure,
complete with mechanistic details. You need only do a quick search
of the internet to learn all this.
So, for whom is this book likely to prove useful? Regretfully,
I would say, only for those with lots of money and little internet
access. One could purchase the past decade of Annual Reviews of
Plant Biology with over 200 reviews, current at the date of their
publication, for about the same price as the present volumes.
Or for teaching, one might buy a couple of good textbooks in botany
and plant biochemistry and then use the internet to supplement
them more effectively for less money.
True, the example I happened to draw on might be an extreme case,
but it might not. It does reflect the difficulty with the traditional
encyclopedia model, even when translated to the online world.
Few of us like to write revisions of articles, or course notes.
We’d rather go on to something new, or use the old ones
until they turn yellow and crumble. Keeping an encyclopedia, or
text book, current, is a herculean task. Getting authors to revise
their reviews is a sisyphian task.
The ELS, with 4000 articles, would have to add 400 new ones per
year to have a revision time of a decade. The apparent pace is
slower than that, with 300 added during 2007. Searching the on-line
version indicates that 55 articles were added to the area designated
Plant Science, during 2007. They appear to be included here as
part of the 1/4 with recent citation patterns..
A more effective model for an on-line encyclopedia is to discount
the access price of older editions, and to update them frequently.
This actually has been done for a source that I happen to use
in teaching about psychopharmacology. The publishers of that series
are in the “fifth generation”, and the fourth, now
over a decade old, is available free, at least where I live. Incidentally
it is published by Wiley, for a society.
A much better buy than the present volumes for most libraries
would be a subscription to the online version of Handbook of Plant
Sciences at some reasonable rate of say $100/yr. That works out
to $1000/ decade, higher than the purchase price of this book.
But it would assure that new information could be added to articles
as needed, keeping them up to date. Or new authors could be persuaded
to write new chapters. Unfortunately, the price from Wiley for
the entire ELS is close to $3000/yr for an institution the size
of mine. For the Handbook, which is 1/15 of the whole ELS it would
likely be over $300/yr, and it is not offered yet on a subscription
basis. (The annual subscription price of the Handbook of Plant
Biotechnology having about 70 articles and 1500 pages is over
$500, indicating that a purchase price for the paper bound version
is a “bargain” at under $1000, for it is surely not
being revised more often than once in three years.) The present
subscription model is clearly not a workable one, or a good buy,
for most institutions. But it is hard to see that the present
volumes justify their price.
-Lawrence Davis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
The Origins of Genome Architecture. Lynch, Michael.
2007. ISBN 978-0-87893-484-3 (cloth US$59.95) 494 pp. Sinauer
Associates, Inc. P.O. Box 407, Sunderland MA 01375-0407.
This is a truly remarkable book, which will forever change your
view of evolutionary biology. Anyone with even tangential interest
in evolution needs to read the preface, epilogue, and especially
the fourth chapter on population size. Lynch takes a detailed
knowledge of molecular genetics and genomics, combined with a
refined fluency in population genetics, to create sound sweeping
descriptions and predictions about evolution.
Lynch shows how modern genomic data imply that large eukaryotes
- e.g. plants and animals - are largely immune from selection.
Drift and mutation are much more salient drivers of their evolution,
virtually mocking adaptationist explanations. Empirically, he
shows how small effective population size also results in reduced
recombination, increased linkage disequilibrium, greater genetic
hitchhiking, and increased mutation rates. By contrast, with small
eukaryotes with few cell types, selection reigns supreme. This
does create tension. Rich Lenski pioneered experimental evolution
in prokaryotes, a field that others have expanded to protists
and fungi, showing that selection drives evolution of large populations.
For better or worse, Lynch shows that such results cannot be extrapolated
to larger, more complex eukaryotes. He thereby resurrects Sewall
Wright¹s early vision that drift matters. Botanists need
to heed his words and stop always looking for adaptationist explanations.
For example, why are angiosperm radiations invariably thought
to be adaptive? Evolutionary botanists need to look elsewhere
for answers, especially to the roles of gene duplications, where
polyploidy is the most dramatic case, in driving drift, mutation,
linkage, epistasis and pleiotropy.
This book is not aimed at botanists. In fact, Lynch knowledgeably
covers all life and even life¹s progenitors. The chapter
on gene duplications, which are prevalent in plants, will probably
be most useful to plant scientists, especially his discussions
of neo- and sub-functionalization, which is greatly strengthened
by Keith Adams¹ beautiful work on reciprocal epigenetic silencing
of homeologous genes in cotton.
Alex Haley¹s Autobiography of Malcolm X was ironically not
an autobiography. Charles Darwin¹s Origin of Species was
ironically not about the origin of species. Lynch follows in this
grand tradition. His book is not is much about the origins of
genome architecture, but rather about ramifications of that architecture
to evolutionary trajectories.
The only faults that I could find with this book are extremely
minor. More extensive coverage of epigenetic effects would have
been nice. His discussion of centromeres omitted mention of karyotypic
fission and perpetuated the inaccurate suggestion that only one
of four products of meiosis survives in most female organs (cf
Ed Klekowski¹s wonderful diagrams of angiosperm megagametophytes,
which show more than just the textbook Polygonum type). While
Lynch¹s index is moderately good, a more comprehensive index
would be a great addition to any revision.
This is not a book for the meek. The genetic and population genetic
details, while accessible, are still extraordinarily rich in detail.
Many of the arguments are cumulative throughout the volume. But
it is worth the effort wading through these details, which, while
important in their own right, add up to an expecte |
