IN THIS ISSUE...
PLANTS Grant Recipients and Mentors Gather at Botany 2015!
SPRING 2016 VOLUME 62 NUMBER 1
PLANT SCIENCE
BULLETIN
A PUBLICATION OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Hawai‘i botanists com-
plete assessments for
IUCN Red List of Threat-
ened Species .... p. 4
American Journal of Botany
kicks off 2016 with two Special
Issues.... p.7
Introducing BSA’s Education
Technology Coordinator, Dr.
Jodi Creasap Gee... p. 34
SPECIAL FEATURE: BOTANICAL SOCIETY ENGAGEMENT IN CITIZEN SCIENCE
Spring 2016 Volume 62 Number 1
PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN
Editorial Committee
Volume 62
Kathryn LeCroy
(2018)
Environmental Sciences
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904
kal8d@virginia.edu
L.K. Tuominen
(2016)
Department of Natural Science
Metropolitan State University
St. Paul, MN 55106
Lindsey.Tuominen@metrostate.edu
Daniel K. Gladish
(2017)
Department of Biology &
The Conservatory
Miami University
Hamilton, OH 45011
gladisdk@muohio.edu
Melanie Link-Perez
(2019)
Department of Biology
Armstrong State University
Savannah, GA 31419
melanie.link-perez@armstrong.edu
From the Editor
Greetings!
It is fair to say that one of the current trends in
science is the application of “Citizen Science.” Re-
searchers are relying more and more on amateur
scientists and the general public for data collection
and increasingly incorporating crowd-sourced
data into their analyses. However, this movement
has not been without its challenges and skeptics.
In this issue of Plant Science Bulletin, I am pleased
to present a special feature on Citizen Science as it
relates to botany. On page 10, Maura Flannery de-
scribes Citizen Science, discusses the response of
the botanical community, and argues the impor-
tance of these kinds of projects for plant research.
Following this (page 16) are brief descriptions of
projects in which BSA members and botanical in-
stitutions have been involved. I want to send a spe-
cial “thank you” to those of you who responded
to my request for these project descriptions that
exemplify the types of citizen science that we, as
botanists, can undertake.
I also want to share some important news regard-
ing Plant Science Bulletin. Starting with this issue,
PSB will be published three times a year (March,
July, and October). My goal is to produce con-
tent-rich and reflective issues of PSB. Publishing
fewer times a year will allow us to better focus on
each issue and to assemble more special content,
such as we did for this issue. Two other factors
were important in shaping our decision. First,
news and announcements are now distributed
virtually immediately via email, the BSA home-
page, and social media. Updated news can always
be found at http://botany.org/news/ and,
therefore, PSB has become less important as a ve-
hicle for timely announcements. Second, starting
in 2017, American Journal of Botany will no lon-
ger be distributed in print, eliminating the need
to coordinate mailings of PSB with those of AJB.
I am confident that this will be a positive change
for Plant Science Bulletin and I
am looking forward to the rest
of 2016
.
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SOCIETY NEWS
Big Policy Year for Science .........................................................................................................................2
New Funding Opportunity .............................................................................................................................2
“IUCN Red List Assessment Training and Bioblitz” Workshop at Botany 2016 ..........3
AIBS Policy News Reminder .......................................................................................................................3
Hawai‘i Botanists Complete IUCN Red List Assessments for 90
Endemic Species (and Counting!) ......................................................................................................4
The
American Journal of Botany Kicks Off 2016 with Two Special Issues ..................7
New bush tomato species is the link between botany and an Oscar-nominated
Hollywood movie ...........................................................................................................................................8
ARTICLES
Citizen Science Helps Botany Flourish .............................................................................................10
Botanical Society Engagement in Citizen Science ...................................................................16
RETurn to the Classroom: Linking Science Teaching and Science
Experience for Pre- and In-service High School Teachers ...............................................25
ANNOUNCEMENTS
In Memoriam - F. Thomas Ledig (1938–2015) ...........................................................................30
#OhiaLove Campaign to Help Save Hawaii’s Forests ............................................................33
SCIENCE EDUCATION
Welcome to Dr. Jodi E. Creasap Gee, BSA’s Education Technology Coordinator .......34
PlantingScience continues to expand ......................................................................................................36
Seeking Volunteers to staff outreach booth at USA Science and Engineering
Festival in Washington D.C. .................................................................................................................37
STUDENT SECTION
Conversations about Grad School and What Happens Next ..............................................38
BOOK REVIEWS
Ecological ..........................................................................................................................................................43
Genetics ..............................................................................................................................................................44
Historical .............................................................................................................................................................46
Physiology ..........................................................................................................................................................48
Systematics ......................................................................................................................................................50
www.botanyconference.org
Submit your abstract and register now for the
conference you don’t want to miss!
2
The BSA Public Policy Quarterly
By Marian Chau (Lyon Arboretum
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa) and
Morgan Gostel (Smithsonian Institution),
Public Policy Committee Co-Chairs
Big Policy Year for Science
Presidential election cycles are exciting times
for public policy, and 2016 is moving forward
on the heels of an incredibly important year
for both national and international science
policy. One of the most important of these de-
velopments was an increase in federal funding
for US science programs. Compared to the
fiscal year 2015 budget, 2016 received import-
ant gains that will help sustain important bio-
logical research. The Consolidated Appropri-
ations Act of Fiscal Year 2016 was signed into
law on December 18, 2015, and it includes
$7.463 billion for the National Science Foun-
dation (1.7% above FY2015).
President Obama’s budget for Fiscal Year 2017
was released on February 9, 2016. AIBS has
completed their annual Budget Report for
Biological Sciences Research and Education,
which identifies several important updates.
Their summary indicates that the adminis-
tration is proposing $152 billion for federal
research and development, which translates
into a $6 billion increase over FY 2016. We
recommend you look at the AIBS Budget Re-
port and see how this proposed budget might
impact your research activities by visiting
https://www.aibs.org/public-policy/budget_
report.html!
New Funding Opportunity
The BSA Public Policy Committee has teamed
up with the ASPT Environmental Science
and Policy Committee to craft a new $1000
funding opportunity—the Botany Advocacy
Leadership Grant! One successful applicant
for this award will receive $1000 toward de-
veloping new (or enhancing existing!) bo-
tanical advocacy projects. Such projects may
include founding a new native plants society,
facilitating local plant conservation events
(e.g., invasive species removal or planting a
native garden), or developing a campaign for
local, state, or regional representatives to ben-
efit botany programs. For more information,
go to http://botany.org/file.php?file=Site-
Assets%2Fawards%2FBSA_BAL_Call.pdf.
SOCIETY NEWS
PSB 62 (1) 2016
3
“IUCN Red List Assess-
ment Training and Bioblitz”
Workshop at Botany 2016
BSA Public Policy co-chair, Marian Chau, is
facilitating a Botany 2016 workshop led by
George Schatz of the IUCN Species Survival
Commission. Participants will become Red
List Assessors for their specialty area and have
an assessment ready to submit to IUCN by the
end of the workshop. Read the article on the
following page to learn more!
FROM THE PSB ARCHIVES
60 years ago: Victor A. Greulach discusses the academic origins of American botanists. A survey of
2015 botanists indicated that the top five American universities for granting Bachelor’s degrees to botanists
were (1) The University of Wisconsin, (2) The University of California, (3) The University of Minnesota,
(4) Cornell, and (5) The University of Nebraska. The top five universities granting doctorates were (1) The
University of Wisconsin, (2) The University of Chicago, (3) Cornell, (4) Harvard and (5) The University of
Minnesota. Forty-six universities provided 98% of the doctorates earned by botanists. (PSB 2(1): 4 –7)
50 years ago: Lawrence I. Crockett reported on the status of the American Journal of Botany: “Five
years ago we were publishing approximately 80 pages per issue, and it is hoped that in the coming five years
this figure will double. However, if we are to publish 160 pages per month, the editor of that day will be edit-
ing the equivalent of 20 issues of the 1959-1960 period! The burden on the editorial office will be staggering.
. . .
Advertising during the last two years has shown signs of improving. . . Circulation increases can also be
planned on during this period. Smaller institutions are growing and expanding their libraries. The govern-
ment will no doubt continue to pour money into higher education.” (PSB 12(1): 5)
AIBS Policy News Reminder
If you haven’t already, join the AIBS Legisla-
tive Action Center (http://policy.aibs.org/)
and stay up to date on important develop-
ments regarding federal science policy by
signing up for Public Policy Reports (http://
www.aibs.org/public-policy-reports/).
PSB 62 (1) 2016
4
Hawai‘i Botanists Complete IUCN
Red List Assessments for 90
Endemic Species (and Counting!)
By Seana Walsh, Maggie Sporck-Koehler,
and Marian Chau
T
he International Union for the Con-
servation of Nature (IUCN) “helps the
world find pragmatic solutions to our most
pressing environment and development chal-
lenges.” The IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species is important because it allows experts
to evaluate the risk of extinction for any given
species, providing open-source data that can
be used for research, funding, and conserva-
tion prioritization. The IUCN World Conser-
vation Congress will convene in Honolulu in
September 2016, which will be the first time
the Congress is held in the United States—so
this is an exciting time for American botanists
to become more involved with plant conser-
vation at a global level.
Hawai‘i has the unfortunate distinction of
being “the endangered species capital of the
world,” but a positive aspect of this is that
Hawai‘i is home to an incredible array of bio-
diversity. Approximately 90% of flowering
plants and 70% of ferns are endemic to Ha-
wai‘i, found nowhere else in the world (Fig-
ures 1-3). Over 30% of the flora is state and
federally listed as threatened or endangered,
and nearly 10% of the flora is already extinct.
In the late 1990s, a group of botanists came
together to form the Hawaiian Rare Plant
Restoration Group. In the 2000s, this group
officially became the Hawaiian Plant Special-
ist Group under the IUCN Species Survival
Commission. We come from various fed-
eral and state agencies, NGOs, universities,
and other organizations, with a shared goal
to enhance collaborations and facilitate suc-
cessful restoration of rare plant species. After
Honolulu was announced as the location for
the 2016 World Conservation Congress, we
decided to make Red List assessment of our
incredible endemic flora a high priority.
In August 2015, the National Tropical Botani-
cal Garden (NTBG) hosted Hawai‘i’s first ever
Red List workshop, at its headquarters in the
Botanical Research Center on Kaua‘i. Near-
ly two dozen participants from state, federal,
and private agencies across the islands, as well
as three participants who flew in from the
continental U.S., convened for five days. The
workshop was led by Dr. George Schatz, Cura-
tor in the Africa and Madagascar Department
at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and mem-
ber of the IUCN Species Survival Commis-
sion’s Plants Conservation Sub-Committee.
During the first two days, we learned how to
Society News
PSB 62 (1) 2016
5
Society News
conduct a thorough Red List assessment. This
followed weeks of preparation, in which many
participants completed the online IUCN Red
List training course. The last three days of the
workshop, we put what we learned into prac-
tice by working together to complete assess-
ments for selected species. Those on Kaua‘i
got together to assess plant species endemic
to Kaua‘i, the island with the highest number
of single-island endemics at about 250 taxa.
Those from the neighboring islands got to-
gether to work on select plant species from the
other Hawaiian Islands. It was inspiring to see
how much was accomplished in such a short
time. The whole group was lively and enthusi-
astic, and everyone had a great time.
Within two weeks after the workshop, Red List
assessments and reviews were completed for
a total of 90 plant taxa. These were submitted
to the IUCN Red List Unit for final review and
eventual publication on the IUCN Red List
of Threatened Species. The idea, drive, and
support for the workshop came through the
foresight, inspiration, and determination of
NTBG President, Director and CEO Chip-
per Wichman. Chipper says, “Red Listing
Hawai‘i’s plants is important because, even
though Hawai‘i is already globally recognized
as a distinct floristic region, doing so raises
awareness and interest in the flora, which un-
derscores threats but can also potentially lead
Figure 1. Asplenium dielmannii, endemic to the is-
land of Kaua‘i, is an extremely rare species with fewer
than 50 wild individuals remaining. This species had
not been seen in the wild since around 1900, but re-
markably it was rediscovered in 2003. The natural
habitat for A. dielmannii has been significantly de-
graded by introduced plant and animal species that
pose a constant threat to the remaining individuals.
The species is managed by Hawai‘i’s Plant Extinction
Prevention Program (PEPP), and recent collaborative
efforts to recover the species have been promising.
Figure 2. Cyanea grimesiana subsp. obatae is a mem-
ber of Hawai‘i’s largest radiation resulting from a single
species colonization event. The lobelioids in Hawai‘i
include 6 genera and ≈130 species, all of which are en-
demic to the islands. Cyanea is the most species-rich
genus in the radiation, comprised of 80 currently rec-
ognized taxa (54 of which are state and federally listed
as threatened or endangered). C. grimesiana subsp.
obatae was discovered in 1964 in the Wai‘anae Moun-
tains and is one of two subgenera of C. grimesiana.
The O‘ahu Army Natural Resource Program leads the
management for this beautiful and exceptionally rare
member of the bell-flower family.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
6
Society News
to new sources of funding for greater conser-
vation efforts.”
The work wasn’t over when the workshop
came to an end. This was only the beginning.
Going through the whole process together
gave us a clear idea of what Red Listing takes,
allowing us to establish realistic goals on how
to continue assessing the hundreds of oth-
er Hawaiian plant species in a strategic and
timely way, with a push to get as many done
before the World Conservation Congress con-
venes in September. The groups on Kaua‘i and
O‘ahu continued working throughout 2015 to
compile necessary information on additional
plant species for assessments (e.g., number of
subpopulations, area of occupancy, etc.) and
got together during scheduled meeting days
to conduct Red List assessments and reviews.
We are continuing these efforts in 2016 as well.
In light of this positive experience, the BSA
Public Policy Committee is facilitating a
workshop for Botany 2016: “IUCN Red List
Assessment Training and Bioblitz” (http://
www.botanyconference.org/workshops.ht-
ml#WS2). As botanists in the BSA and oth-
er national societies, we can participate in an
important global biodiversity initiative and
contribute to international conservation goals
by conducting Red List assessments of the spe-
cies that we know best. The workshop will be
a full day, led by Dr. Schatz, with sponsorship
from BSA.
Prior to the workshop, participants
will be required to complete online training in
Red List assessment methodology, and come
prepared with data on their species, includ-
ing occurrences, population size, and threats.
The morning session will include a review of
terms, categories, criteria, concepts, and some
examples. In the afternoon session, partic-
ipants will assess species on their own or in
small groups with assistance from the work-
shop leader. By the end of the workshop, each
participant should have a Red List assessment
ready to submit to IUCN. If you are interest-
ed in becoming an official Red List Assessor
for your specialty region or taxonomic group,
please consider attending!
Figure 3.
Silene perlmanii was discovered on O‘ahu
in 1987 by expert botanist, Steve Perlman. The species
is endemic to O‘ahu, and very narrowly endemic to a
small habitat range in the Wai‘anae Mountains.
Silene
perlmanii
apparently went extinct in the wild in 1996.
Luckily, fruit had been collected from this species be-
fore was lost forever. Several outplanting attempts have
been made, but so far none have proven to be long-
term success stories. The Plant Extinction Prevention
Program continues to try new approaches to attempt-
ing to restore this species in the wild.
Important Links
• International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN): http://www.iucn.org/
• IUCN Red List: http://www.iucnredlist.
org/
• IUCN Red List Assessment Training and
Bioblitz workshop at Botany 2016 Work-
shop: http://www.botanyconference.org/
workshops.html#WS2
PSB 62 (1) 2016
7
Society News
The
American Journal of
Botany Kicks Off 2016 with
Two Special Issues
T
he American Journal of Botany features not
one, but two, special themed issues in the
first quarter of 2016—with another on its way
by the end of the year.
In January 2016, AJB published “Evolutionary
Insights from Studies of Geographic Variation.”
The issue editors assembled a set of original
research articles and reviews with the goal of
underscoring the unique insights that can be
obtained through the complementary and dis-
tinct studies of plant populations across species’
geographic ranges. The papers in this issue use
diverse approaches, both classic and contempo-
rary, to illuminate patterns of phenotypic and
genetic variation, probe the underlying evolu-
tionary processes that have contributed to these
patterns, build predictive models, and test evo-
lutionary hypotheses.
“In 50 years, I hope that researchers will look
back with appreciation for the effort we have
made to establish a baseline of information,
push the envelope with new modeling ap-
proaches, and provide a seed resource that has
created research opportunities that otherwise
would not have been possible,” said lead Special
Issue Editor Julie Etterson.
AJB published another Special Issue in March,
“The Ecology and Evolution of Pollen Perfor-
mance.” This issue, under the direction of editors
Joseph Williams and Susan Mazer, highlights
new (and seemingly disparate) insights into the
ecology and evolution of pollen performance.
Broad areas include macro- and micro-evolu-
tionary studies, ecology, and especially mecha-
nistic studies of pollen development and growth
as they relate to performance.
“From pollination through fertilization, male
gametophytes engage in or experience almost
every ecological and evolutionary process
for which there are many examples among
their sporophytic counterparts, including al-
lelopathy, competition, facilitation, natu-
ral selection, and sudden death,” said Mazer.
“We expect that this special issue will hold
surprises for those who haven’t been close-
ly tracking research on variation in pollen
performance and its evolutionary potential
since its earlier heyday in the 1970s and ’80s.”
Be on the lookout for yet another AJB Special Is-
sue later this year, “The Evolutionary Importance
of Polyploidy,” with Special Issue Editors Mi-
chael Barker, Brian Husband, and J. Chris Pires,
as well as more to come in 2017. Be sure to check
out our “On the Nature of Things” essays and
Highlights in other issues throughout the year.
Special Issue editors work under the guidance
of Editor-in-Chief Pamela Diggle. If you have
suggestions for Special Issues, or essays that ex-
plore new ideas, new research directions, or es-
tablished areas with the potential for new ques-
tions, please contact Pamela at ajb@botany.org.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
8
New bush tomato species is
the link between botany and
an Oscar-nominated Holly-
wood movie
(Note: This press release was originally posted
online by Pensoft Publishers on February 25,
2016 at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas-
es/2016-02/pp-nbt022316.php.)
A new Australian bush tomato species, dis-
covered by a team of researchers led by biol-
ogy professor Chris Martine of Bucknell Uni-
versity, has been named after main character
Mark Watney from the book and film The
Martian. The authors, among whom is the
undergraduate student Emma Frawley, have
published the new species in the open-access
journal PhytoKeys.
Martine announced the new name, Solanum
watneyi, in The Huffington Post last year
when he described it as a tribute to the heroic
portrayal of Watney as a NASA botanist and
engineer who saves himself with plant science
expertise after being stranded on Mars.
In fact, Matt Damon’s botanist character im-
pressed both the audience and the critics so
much that it resulted in several Academy
Awards nominations to the whole production
team. The actor himself received a Golden
Globe among many other prestigious recog-
nitions including the BAFTA for Best Actor
and the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actor.
“This is a botanist portrayal that turns an un-
usually bright spotlight on authentic scientific
endeavor,” Martine explains the choice. “Sci-
entist heroes are already unusual in Holly-
wood, but a space-deserted protagonist who
studies plants as a profession is something ex-
traordinary.”
However, according to Martine, the decision
to name the species after Watney also has
some taxonomic relevance.
“The plant that Watney manages to grow on
Mars is none other than Solanum tuberosum
(the potato), a member of the same genus as
our new species,” he says.
This connection was not missed by Andy Weir,
author of the book-turned-movie and father
of the Watney character, who expressed his
approval of the name on his Facebook page.
“What higher honor could a botanist like Wat-
ney ask for than to have a plant named after
him?” writes Weir. “And to have it be a relative
of the potato as well? Perfect!”
Martine collected specimens of the new spe-
cies during a six-week expedition to the
Northern Territory of Australia with his wife,
Rachel, and their two children. Rachel drew
the illustration of the species that appears in
the PhytoKeys paper.
In order to make sure the new species is not
in fact a previously known and closely relat-
ed Solanum species, the family team collected
hundreds of seeds of both species. Thus, the
plants could be grown and compared side-by-
side in a research greenhouse.
In the summer of 2015, Bucknell undergradu-
ate student Emma Frawley, class 2017, studied
PSB 62 (1) 2016
9
the plants, ultimately gathering and analyzing enough morphometric data to confirm the dis-
tinctiveness of Solanum watneyi. This is how Frawley, a double major in environmental studies
and Spanish, became a co-author of the present paper.
The new species occurs in and around the western part of Judbarra/Gregory National Park,
where it was occasionally encountered by regional botanists who nicknamed the oddball plant
“Bullita” after the cattle station that once operated in the area.
“The nickname started being applied in the 1970s,” said Martine, who studied historical col-
lections of the plant at the Northern Territory Herbarium. “But no one had yet done statistical
comparisons between that plant and its similar relative.”
Watney is not the only one being recognized by the botanical community following the release
of The Martian. In recognition of his botanist star turn, the Botanical Society of America has
extended an honorary membership to actor Matt Damon, who portrays the space botanist in
the film.
A bush tomato specimen of the new species Solanum watneyi.
Photo by Dr. Christopher Martine
10
SPECIAL FEATURE
Citizen Science Helps
Botany Flourish
1
By Maura C. Flannery
St. John’s University, Jamaica, NY
Abstract
Citizen science involves the participation of
the public in supporting scientific research.
With the advent of online data collection and
the digitization of information about spec-
imens, citizen science has burgeoned. This
article deals with how the botanical commu-
nity is responding to this surge, what kinds of
projects are being developed, and why this is
important to the future of natural history col-
lections, environmental studies, and the cre-
ation of a public interested in plant research.
Key Words
citizen science; climate change; data collection; phenol-
ogy; specimen digitization
Footnotes
1
Manuscript received 15 October 2015; revision ac-
cepted 17 December 2015.
2
The author thanks Gordon Uno and Mackenzie Tay-
lor for encouragement of this project, and Kim Watson,
Mari Roberts, and Liz Kiernan at New York Botanical
Garden for their patience in making me into a citizen
scientist.
doi: 10.3732/psb.1500003
I
first became aware of the surge of interest
in citizen science in 2010 with an article
in BioScience by Amy Mayer on volunteer ef-
forts to document phenology. The term “cit-
izen science” probably originated at Cornell
University, where amateur birders have long
been an important part of the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology’s projects in tracking avian pop-
ulations and their behaviors (Mayer, 2010).
However, age-old involvement of nonspecial-
ists in natural history is at the very founda-
tions of citizen science. From the 16th to the
19th centuries, there were very few specialists,
but there were many people living with nature
and keeping mental if not written records of
their observations. Particularly in the 19th
century, as more people became literate and
had at least some leisure time, observing—
and collecting—organisms was a popular pas-
time (Barber, 1980). The specimens collected
and the notes taken are now a valuable record
of the natural world at that time, and many of
these records were kept by farmers and labor-
ers, businessmen, doctors, and lawyers (Kee-
ney, 1992). Often the motivation was religious
or at least moral: Studying nature was a way to
know nature’s creator and to lead an upstand-
ing life away from the lures of vice.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
11
Articles
Today, citizen science has different but related
motives: to document nature in order to assist
in efforts to preserve and protect it. This is just
one of several reasons for the current surge
in interest. The ever-more-apparent effects of
global warming have encouraged people to
do something about the problem. One way is
to learn more about nature, particularly close
to home. While for some, nature means wil-
derness, more individuals are valuing organ-
isms they encounter close to home; they real-
ize these living things can tell us much about
environmental change. Another of the major
spurs for present-day citizen science is the
ubiquity of digital devices and the resultant
ease of recording observations and participat-
ing in large-scale efforts to document nature.
In response to this availability, an increasing
number of interactive websites allow observ-
ers to input observations. The proliferation
of such sites has led to a need to coordinate
them. This is one aim of projects like iNatural-
ist (http://www.inaturalist.org/) from the Cal-
ifornia Academy of Sciences and the National
Phenology Network, a federally sponsored
program with the Nature’s Notebook project
(https://www.usanpn.org/natures_notebook).
This is an online program where amateurs and
professional naturalists record observations of
plants and animals to generate long-term data
sets.
There are also projects created by natural his-
tory museums, botanical gardens, and other
institutions to digitize the information on
specimen labels, and often including images.
Entering data from hand-written labels and
photographing herbarium sheets are both
labor-intensive processes that don’t require a
great deal of expert knowledge; they are per-
fect for citizen science. More and more such
databases exist, especially since the National
Science Foundation began the 10-year, mul-
timillion dollar program Advancing Digitiza-
tion of Biological Collections (ADBC; https://
www.idigbio.org/content/advancing-digiti-
zation-biodiversity-collections-adbc-over-
view), in an effort to make specimens avail-
able to larger and more diverse audiences. I
myself have a small part in the Tri-Trophic
Thematic Collection Network at the New
York Botanical Garden (http://tcn.amnh.org).
This funding has led to still another major
spur to public participation, the creation of
several web-based projects for hosting dig-
ital citizen science projects. One of the larg-
est is Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.
org), which administers projects in a number
of fields. As far as botany is concerned, there
are portals within Zooniverse for transcrib-
ing herbarium specimen label data as well as
ones that deal with recording natural history
field observations such as flowering times or
occurrence of invasive species. All of these
activities can also be pursued through other
sites, including DigiVol (http://volunteer.ala.
org.au), based in Australia but with instanc-
es in many other countries, and Herbaria@
home (http://herbariaunited.org/atHome/) in
Britain. There are even projects, such as one
on rare British orchids, that involve both field
observations and digitizing existing records
(http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrl-
scientist/2015/jul/21/orchid-observers).
The retirement of baby boomers now seek-
ing interesting and worthwhile ways to spend
free time makes for an increasing audience
for such sites. Citizen science projects can be
intriguing and lead to closer observation of
and greater involvement with nature. At the
other end of the age spectrum are teenagers
and college students who use such projects
to fulfill service learning requirements and
to gain online experience, providing market-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
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Articles
able skills (http://microplants.fieldmuseum.
org/#/education). If citizen science programs
both in the field and online are to become
sustainable, young people are particularly
important. Their engagement could lead to
lifetime involvement in such work and inter-
est among their children and grandchildren.
The Microplants project (http://microplants.
fieldmuseum.org/) at the Field Museum is a
particularly sophisticated example of having
students, both in high school and college, be-
come citizen investigators. They are taught to
identify and measure liverwort structures in
photographs taken under the microscope; the
aim is to obtain data from a large sample in an
effort to sort specimens into different species.
The last, but certainly not the least, important
reason for citizen science’s rise is that the free
labor it provides is attractive to researchers
who are always on tight budgets. In the cur-
rent funding environment, this becomes an
even more significant factor, especially with
the enormity of t
he job that needs to be done.
There are literally billions of natural history
specimens stored away in collections around
the world. Their labels contain information on
what was living where at a particular time—
information that becomes more significant as
the pace of environmental change quickens.
Projects
One area that has been particularly popular
in online citizen science is the transcription
of field notes and other records. The Smith-
sonian Institution has a Transcription Center
(https://transcription.si.edu/), a hub for their
projects that include many types of histor-
ical records. This center highlights the simi-
larities between citizen science projects and
those in the digital humanities. The Smithso-
nian’s multi-year Field Book Project (http://
www.mnh.si.edu/rc/fieldbooks/about.html),
administered through the National Museum
of Natural History, involves digitization of
hundreds of field books created by Smithso-
nian scientists. Having them available online
is a tremendous boon, but their value in-
creases when their content is transcribed and
made searchable. Public participation in these
efforts has become so popular that adminis-
trators have to keep posting new notebooks
since transcribers often finish the job quickly.
Lorna Hughes (2014) notes that the greatest
benefit of such endeavors might be not the
transcribed documents but rather the trans-
formation of people’s experience of interac-
tion with digital collections and of collaborat-
ing to produce new knowledge. With greater
engagement in primary sources can come a
democratization of research, something that
was very much the case in 19th-century nat-
ural history, when women in the Great Plains
were sending specimens to Asa Gray and Aus-
tralian pioneers were corresponding with Jo-
seph Hooker.
The Field Book Project now has become al-
lied with the Biodiversity Heritage Library
(BHL; http://www.mnh.si.edu/rc/fieldbooks/
about.html), a massive repository for online
biodiversity literature. Many libraries and
natural history institutions around the world
have contributed to BHL, but here again, tran-
scription and tagging can make this reposito-
ry even more useful. In this regard, BHL has
several citizen science initiatives including
Science Gossip (http://www.sciencegossip.
org/), a Zooniverse project to tag images in
19th-century popular science journals includ-
ing Science Gossip, The Intellectual Observers,
and Recreative Science. BHL also has teamed
with the gaming company, Tiltfactor, to pro-
duce two online games, Smorball and Bean-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
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Articles
stalk, that combine transcription work with
gaming to keep volunteers interested and in-
volved (Duke,
2015).
Attention to volunteers is an important as-
pect of citizen science projects. Most online
projects require a simple registration process
to screen out the truly marginal; however, if
the work is not fun or interesting, or in some
way rewarding, people will not stick with it
long enough to make a significant contribu-
tion. Most projects have “power users,” a small
percentage of participants who contribute a
significant percentage of the output. Learning
the motivation of these individuals—whether
filling idle time, learning more about the liv-
ing world, or using prior knowledge—is im-
portant in developing ways to attract more
participants. Projects often provide incentives
such as invitations to onsite events, conversa-
tions with scientists, free books or t-shirts, or
online badges or certificates.
Another important issue is ensuring the qual-
ity of the information that volunteers are pro-
viding, whether it be nature observations or
transcriptions. In some cases, observers are
trained either online or in person in the cor-
rect way to record data. For transcriptions,
many sites are set up so that the same mate-
rial is transcribed two or three times, and the
versions then reconciled. These approaches
are time-intensive and require input from ex-
perts, but they are vital to the integrity of the
data. New forms of datametrics and other da-
ta-quality tools are making evaluating this in-
formation more sophisticated (Peaker, 2015).
Many working on these projects argue that the
way to ensure integrity is to treat volunteers as
collaborators by providing training support,
recognition, and opportunities for dialogue.
Efforts in this area have become more sophis-
ticated, and participants are now seen as more
than sources of cheap labor. As portals such
as Zooniverse become more advanced, the
opportunities for collaboration increase (Jor-
dan et al., 2015). For example, there are online
discussion forums where participants can get
their questions answered and their difficulties
ironed out.
Broadening the Field
Many projects now have apps for mobile de-
vices, especially those dealing with field obser-
vations. These devices make data entry much
easier and more timely, and mapping apps
provide simple means to record the precise
location of an observation or a specimen col-
lection. There are efforts worldwide to enlist
the public in entering information about sites
of pollution problems or other environmen-
tal concerns. Some observers contend that
the success of the UN’s Sustainable Develop-
ment Goals (SDGs) will depend on masses of
environmental information that can only be
provided by large cadres of volunteers around
the world (Hsu et al., 2014). For example, the
World Water Monitoring Challenge relies on
the public to record local water quality and
share results. There are even projects that en-
courage fishermen and boaters to monitor
plankton abundance. Mobile apps make proj-
ects attractive to the young and also to those
who are seriously committed to environmen-
tal protection (Bonney et al., 2014). This ac-
cessibility does bring up an issue that worries
some in the field: Are a few participants too
interested, in the sense that they come to this
work with an axe to grind or a political agenda
to advance? When Australian scientists asked
volunteers monitoring koalas how the ani-
mals should be managed, the views of the cit-
izen sciences did not reflect those of the pop-
ulation at large (Rise of the Citizen Scientist,
PSB 62 (1) 2016
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Articles
2015). Such biases could call into question the
integrity of the data, although data analysis as
quality control should be able to guard against
this problem.
As with any data, that generated by citizen
scientists will not be perfect; however, if data
are abundant enough, anomalies become less
problematic. It’s important to keep in mind
that many citizen science initiatives, partic-
ularly those that are web based, are relatively
new, and therefore they are sure to improve in
the years ahead, both in terms of design and
administration. Citizen science components
now are being built into many grant propos-
als, not only to increase the amount of work
that can be accomplished, but also to ensure
that the public becomes more aware of the
outcomes and challenges of scientific research
(Bonney et al., 2014). Volunteer participation
may turn out to be a particularly effective
way to create a citizenry more positive about
spending money on science. They will come to
understand that science is something that not
only affects them, but also to which they can
make a significant contribution. In addition
there is evidence that collecting data about the
natural world makes the collectors more pre-
cise observers of nature (Mayer, 2010). They
see more and therefore come to appreciate the
complexity and beauty of the life around them.
Plants are particularly good objects of obser-
vation, especially for the novice, since they
do not flit or fly way before the observation
is complete. Also, not to be botanically chau-
vinistic, but there is just much more plant
than animal life to see on a walk in the woods,
whether looking up, down, or straight ahead.
For example, consider focusing on tree bark
lichens. They are easy to miss, especially in as-
peeding auto or being pulled along by a dog.
However, on closer examination, there is a
Citizen science, no mat-
ter its institutional frame-
work, can be a powerful
force for bringing natu-
ral history back into the
cultural limelight...Mak-
ing careful observations
of nature, digitizing in-
formation from natural
history collections, and
transcribing the litera-
ture in libraries are ways
to promote the public
good.
wonderful, textured world on the bark of
many trees. It can be so fascinating that taking
mental notes on observations can easily lead
to keeping more permanent records, and even
to joining a citizen science project to share
them.
Citizen science has grown sufficiently and has
become such a broad area that many now see
it as a distinct discipline (Jordan et al., 2015).
They argue that the close partnership of ex-
perts and amateurs makes this field unique:
It possesses unique capacities and faces chal-
lenges that need to be carefully explored by
practitioners as well as by those in such fields
as science studies. There is now a Citizen Sci-
ence Association (http://citizenscienceassoci-
ation.org/) that is planning a peer-reviewed
journal. I would like to argue that citizen sci-
ence, no matter its institutional framework,
can be a powerful force for bringing natural
PSB 62 (1) 2016
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Articles
history back into the cultural limelight. In the
19th century, many people studied nature as
a way to approach God. Today, theologians
like Elizabeth Johnson (2014) are presenting
arguments for preserving nature as necessary
for our spiritual as well as physical well-be-
ing. There are also biologists such as Ursula
Goodenough (1998) who are making similar
points. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America’s “Caring for Creation” is an environ-
mental movement that melds natural history
with spirituality (http://www.elca.org/Faith/
Faith-and-Society/Social-Statements/Car-
ing-for-Creation).
I am not going to take that tack, but instead ar-
gue from the emphasis today on civic engage-
ment. Making careful observations of nature,
digitizing information from natural history
collections, and transcribing the literature in
libraries are ways to promote the public good.
They are good things to do, and just as in the
19th century when what was good was also
healthy and fun, the same can be true today.
Programs such as iNaturalist and Project Bud-
Burst (http://budburst.org/) provide outdoor
exercise, entertainment, and education op-
portunities for people of all ages who in addi-
tion are making a contribution to knowledge
about the environment. The success of these
endeavors bodes well for this movement in
the future.
Literature Cited
Barber, L. 1980. The Heyday of Natural History. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday.
Bonney, R., Shirk, J. L., Phillips, T. B., Wiggins, A., Bal-
lard, H. L., Miller-Rushing, A. J., & Parrish, J. K. 2014.
Next steps for citizen science. Science 343: 1436–1437.
Duke, G. 2015. Smorball and Beanstalk: Games that ar-
en’t just fun to play but help science too. Website http://
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2015/08/smorball-and-
beanstalk-games-that-arent.html [accessed 4 October
2015].
Goodenough, U. 1998. The Sacred Depths of Nature.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Hsu, A., Malik, O., Johnson, L., & Esty, D. C. 2014.
Mobilize citizens to track sustainability. Nature, 508:
33–35.
Hughes, L. 2014. Digital Collections as Research In-
frastructure. Website http://www.educause.edu/ero/
article/digital-collections-research-infrastructure [ac-
cessed 4 October 2015].
Johnson, E. A. 2014. Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the
God of Love. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Jordan, R., Crall, A., Gray, S., Phillips, T., & Mellor, D.
2015. Citizen Science as a distinct Field of Inquiry. Bio-
Science 65: 208–211.
Keeney, E. 1992. The Botanizers: Amateur Scientists in
Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill, NC: Univer-
sity of North Carolina Press.
Mayer, A. 2010. Phenology and citizen science. BioSci-
ence 60: 172–175.
Peaker, A. 2015. Crowdsourcing and community en-
gagement. Educause Review 50 (6): 90-91.
Rise of the Citizen Scientist. Nature 524: 265.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
16
Collaboration Engages
Local Citizen Scientists
Riverside Citizen Science (RCS) is an envi-
ronmental education and stewardship pro-
gram that engages the community in scientif-
ic observation and research in order to better
connect people to the natural world. The pro-
gram was created by a partnership of agencies
that teamed up to facilitate natural resource
documentation and research through hands-
on science activities and community partic-
ipation. The partners represent national, re-
gional, and local organizations and include:
the Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation
District; the University of California at River-
side; the USDA, Forest Service, Pacific South-
west Research, Riverside; the Riverside Met-
ropolitan Museum; and the City of Riverside
Parks, Recreation, and Community Services
Department. The partners developed a strate-
gic plan and made a long-term commitment
to work together by signing a Memorandum
of Understanding.
Funding
The strategic planning process was facilitated
by the National Park Service through a Rivers,
Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program
grant that provided two years of assistance
from a project manager to lead the develop-
ment of the plan.
A major milestone was reached with the con-
struction of the city’s first nature center which
serves as a field station for the RCS program.
Funding came from the Prop 84 Nature Ed-
ucation Facilities Program. A second grant
through the California State Parks provided
initial staffing of the facility.
Currently, RCS partners share intellectual and
physical resources. For example, the museum
curator of natural history may call upon a lo-
cal partner to help identify a plant or animal
for the Nature Spotter app. But to date, one or
another partner has taken the lead on coor-
dinating and providing staff time/funding for
each new endeavor. Each agency has been able
to bring some resources to support RCS, but
the partners are currently working to:
• Develop diverse funding sources to provide
ongoing support for the citizen science pro-
gram
• Recruit and train volunteers that can help
lead programs
Articles
Botanical Society Engagement
in Citizen Science
T
here is no doubt that fostering public engagement in botany is becoming an integral part
of the job for many professional botanists. As Maura Flannery discusses in her essay (pre-
viously in this section), projects that enlist the general public in a significant and authentic way
yield numerous rewards for both the researchers and the participants involved. Many members
of the Botanical Society of America are developing such projects or are partnering with orga-
nizations that oversee them. In this issue of Plant Science Bulletin, we are proud to showcase a
selection of these projects.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
17
• Form collaborative relationships with new
stakeholders, especially researchers at local
colleges.
Because the museum has recently received
funding to facilitate local California Natural-
ist training, one of our strategies is to solicit
participation from the graduates of the pro-
gram to assist with leading RCS projects.
Projects
Some current RCS projects include: Riverside
Nature Spotter, Operation Tree Canopy (now
Focal Trees), Bluebird Nest Box Monitoring,
and local Bio-Blitzes.
The Riverside Nature Spotter smartphone
application was developed by Riverside’s In-
novation and Technology Department. With
the app (or with a camera), citizen scientists
photograph animals and plants and submit
the photos that are then identified (if needed),
mapped, and stored at www.inaturalist.org/
projects/riverside-citizen-science. The app is
available for free download for both iPhone
and Android systems.
The RCS collaborative
approach has been effec-
tive at raising awareness
about the multitude of
citizen science projects
that are available to the
public.
Operation Tree Canopy was the local initiative
to support Earthwatch Institute’s Urban For-
est Resiliency project. Operation Tree Canopy
involved citizen scientists who collected re-
search data to help scientists study the cool-
ing effect of different species of urban trees.
During the summer of 2015, an RCS partner
the Riverside-Corona Resource Conserva-
tion District hosted training and coordinated
local volunteers who collected leaf samples
and tree data including location, size, species,
and condition. The ground data were used by
UC Riverside scientists to verify photos that
were taken during high altitude fly-overs by
NASA. Thanks to the work of citizen scien-
tists, research data were collected from over
1300 trees in 45 urban spaces throughout the
greater Los Angeles region, including River-
side (Figure 1).
Focal Trees is the newest phase of the Urban
Forest Resiliency project, and it is focused on
collecting data from 10 specific tree species.
RCS is helping to promote and facilitate for the
Focal Trees Program locally (Figure 2).
Figure 1. RCS volunteers learned to measure trees
and collect leaf samples for Earthwatch Institute’s Ur-
ban Forest Resiliency project at the LandUse Learning
Center in Riverside, California.
Articles
PSB 62 (1) 2016
18
RCS partners have conducted Bio-Blitzes
(with many partners) to help document local
resources, as well as to help US Forest Service
researchers collect data about how to plan and
deliver more effective events to connect youth
with nature.
The RCS collaborative approach has been ef-
fective at raising awareness about the multi-
tude of citizen science projects that are avail-
able to the public. The partnership has also
brought together stakeholders to help with
local to international projects that educate
citizens and help researchers collect data. As
RCS is still in its infancy, the partners contin-
ue working together to achieve their mission:
“…to engage our community in observing
and documenting Riverside’s natural environ-
ment. This program fosters appreciation and
stewardship by staging and supporting nature
centered activities. Science, through commu-
nity participation and collaboration, becomes
a permanent part of our city’s culture and
identity” (Figure 3).
Figure 2. Riverside’s Envirothon team from Arling-
ton High School helped collect data and leaf samples
that were then delivered to UC Riverside scientists.
Figure 3. The Inland Urban Forest Council helped local volunteers identify tree species for the Focal Trees
data collection program.
By Diana Ruiz
Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation Dis-
trict, ruiz@rcrcd.org; www.rcrcd.org
Articles
PSB 62 (1) 2016
19
Citizen Science Projects
and Platforms
There are a variety of projects available for
people of all ages and interests who desire to
participate in crowd-sourced science. The
websites below provide information about
a sampling of those projects, both for those
interested in getting involved as a partici-
pant and for researchers who are interested
in designing a “people-powered” project..
• Citizen Science Alliance: http://www.
citizensciencealliance.org/
• eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology):
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
• FrogWatch USA: https://www.aza.org/
frogwatch/
• Herbaria@home: http://herbariaunited.
org/atHome/
• Les herbonautes: http://lesherbonautes.
mnhn.fr/
• Monarch Larva Monitoring Project:
http://www.mlmp.org/
• Notes from Nature: http://www.notes-
fromnature.org/
• Riverside Citizen Science http://www.
inaturalist.org/projects/riverside-citi-
zen-science
• Scientific American: http://www.scien-
tificamerican.com/citizen-science/
• SciStarter: http://scistarter.com/index.html
• The Smithsonian Transcription Center:
https://transcription.si.edu/
• Symbiota: http://symbiota.org/docs/
• WeDigBio: https://www.wedigbio.org/
• Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.
org/projects
Articles
Internet-Scale Citizen
Science Through the
Worldwide Engagement for
Digitizing Biocollections
(WeDigBio) Event
T
he inaugural Worldwide Engagement
for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDig-
Bio) Event engaged hundreds of volunteers
onsite and online in transcribing biodiversity
specimen labels. Over four days (October 22-
25, 2015), volunteers around the world com-
pleted more than 30,000 transcription tasks
using online transcription platforms. Many
volunteers attended onsite events at one of 25
institutions including the Smithsonian Insti-
tution’s National Museum of Natural History,
Australian Museum, Field Museum, Florida
State University, Natural History Museum
of Los Angeles County, Chicago Academy of
Sciences, Belgium Botanic Garden Meise, Yale
University, New York Botanical Garden, and
Florida Museum of Natural History (Figure
1). At these events, many volunteers played
transcription games, such as Habitat Bingo
and GeoLocator, won small prizes, and re-
ceived stickers and temporary tattoos. Addi-
tionally, individuals in more than 50 countries
participated online. All of this activity gener-
ated an exciting media buzz. Event organizers,
hosts, and volunteers shared photos, stories,
and highlights of specimens on the WeDigBio
Twitter and Facebook pages.
The transcribed specimens covered a wide va-
riety of taxa: plants, insects, crabs, and birds,
to name a few. Thanks in part to the relative
ease of imaging herbarium specimens, many
online transcription platforms offered botan-
ical projects, and WeDigBio volunteers were
PSB 62 (1) 2016
20
therefore able to transcribe labels from plants
collected local to them as well as from exotic
locales.
In the months leading up to the event, lead-
ers and programmers made enhancements
to the participating online transcription
centers—Les Herbonautes (http://lesher-
bonautes.mnhn.fr/), Herbaria@Home (http://
herbariaunited.org/atHome/), Atlas of Living
Australia’s DigiVol (http://volunteer.ala.org.
au/), Smithsonian Institution’s Transcription
Center (https://transcription.si.edu/), Notes
from Nature (www.notesfromnature.org/),
and Symbiota (http://symbiota.org/docs/)—
and established connections with the WeDig-
Bio website, wedigbio.org. During the event,
the WeDigBio website showed dynamic vi-
sualizations of where in the world volunteers
Articles
Figure 1. Citizen scientists around the world volunteered in the event. Orange dots show where
people were participating and blue circles indicate that numerous people were participating at
a given location.
were working, a total tally of activity from
each transcription platfo
rm, live updates of
social media posts, and images of recently
transcribed specimens. Information for par-
ticipants, such as locations of local onsite
events and links to taxa-specific online proj-
ects, were made available. It was also a place
for onsite event hosts to find games, planning
and logistical documents, and press materials.
We are developing new resources, educa-
tional materials, and improved technologies
to provide a richer experience for all of our
hosts and volunteers. WeDigBio is open for
everyone in the community to participate.
Information about participating in WeDigBio
2016, for collections managers, onsite hosts,
and participants, will be made available on
wedigbio.org, Twitter, and Facebook. Feel free
PSB 62 (1) 2016
21
to contact Libby Ellwood (eellwood@bio.fsu.
edu; iDigBio, Florida State University) or Paul
Kimberly (kimberlyp@si.edu; Smithsonian
Institution) directly.
WeDigBio 2016 is slated for October 20-23,
2016 and we are developing new resources,
educational materials, and improved technol-
ogies to provide a richer experience for all of
our hosts and volunteers.
Additionally, iDigBio hosts two working
groups relevant to this topic: the Interop-
erability for Public Participation in Dig-
itization Working Group (https://www.
idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/Interoperabil-
ity_for_Public_Participation_in_Digitiza-
tion_Working_Group) and the User Engage-
ment for Public Participation in Digitization
Working Group (https://www.idigbio.org/
wiki/index.php/User_Engagement_for_Pub-
lic_Participation_in_Digitization_Working_
Group). Contact Libby Ellwood or Austin
Mast (amast@bio.fsu.edu; iDigBio, Florida
State University), if you are interested in join-
ing those groups.
All are welcome.
By Libby Ellwood and Austin Mast,
Florida State University
Articles
Volunteer Trufflers
I
n 2010 and 2011, I had contracts with the
Interagency (Forest Service and Bureau of
Land Management) Special Status and Sensi-
tive Species Program to look for rare truffles
in federal lands in southern Oregon. I stood
up at a Native Plant Society meeting, de-
scribed the project, and asked for volunteers.
Three people volunteered. One had driven a
UPS truck—he knew all the roads. One had
worked for the county looking at sites for ru-
ral septic systems—she did dirt. And one was
an interested student who turned out to be
fantastic in the field. We traveled two coun-
ties over several months each year, had a great
time, and brought in 600 truffle specimens.
When I told them they were “citizen scien-
tists,” they were very pleased. No downside,
no problems. I would do this again.
By Darlene Southworth
Southern Oregon University, Ashland
PSB 62 (1) 2016
22
Fairchild’s Million Orchid
Project Aims To
Reintroduce Endangered
Native Florida Orchids
N
ative orchids used to cover Florida. To-
day, their numbers have dwindled so
dramatically that they can’t recover on their
own. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in
Coral Gables, FL, aims to solve this problem
with the launching of the Million Orchid
Project. The project aims to have the first
generation of reestablished orchids blooming
throughout public spaces in South Florida
within five years. Scientists and volunteers at
Fairchild have joined with the community in
the pursuit of generating a limitless supply of
native orchids using micropropagation tech-
niques. These orchid species include the but-
terfly orchid (Encyclia tampensis), cowhorn
orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum), cockleshell
orchid (Prosthechea cochleata), and pine pink
orchid (Bletia purpurea). More will be added
as the project progresses.
Beginning in the late 1800s, native orchids
were torn from the trees they grew on and
were shipped across the U.S. to those who
coveted their exotic-looking blooms. Now,
it is rare to see native orchids growing in the
wild. Fairchild’s Micropropagation Lab (Fig-
ure 1), which is where the project began when
it opened in December 2012 as part of the Jane
Hsiao Laboratories in the DiMare Science Vil-
lage, is where the majority of the Million Or-
chid Project is taking place to ensure the re-
population of native species. Volunteers who
have diverse backgrounds in science and hor-
ticulture are donating their time and knowl-
edge testing different growing conditions in
the lab to see which ones work best.
First, the seed pod—which can generate more
than 12,000 seeds—is sterilized to ensure no
contamination. Once it is opened, the seeds
are placed in flasks containing a mixture in-
cluding agar, charcoal, and banana powder.
It takes about three months before the seeds
begin to sprout. Once they outgrow their bot-
tles, the seedlings are carefully transferred by
hand to larger bottles. Then, they are trans-
planted to the Fairchild Nursery, where they
continue to grow in mulch-filled baskets until
they are ready to grow on trees. There are cur-
rently more than 1000 flasks in the lab at Fair-
child. The model for the project is inspired by
the one used by Singapore Botanic Gardens,
where they found that propagated orchids
grew just as well on city trees as they did in
natural areas.
Dr. Carl Lewis, Director of Fairchild, is spear-
heading the Million Orchid Project. What
makes this project different from other mi-
cropropagation initiatives is its focus on rein-
troducing native orchids into urban environ-
ments—schools, roadways, neighborhoods,
etc.—to balance the work being done in nat-
ural areas. Thus, the public will be directly
involved in the process. “The community will
play a large part in the reintroduction,” Dr.
Lewis said.
Figure 1. Native orchids seedlings in the Micro-
propagation Lab at Fairchild Garden.
Articles
PSB 62 (1) 2016
23
The educational component of the project is
one of large scale. Terra Environmental Re-
search Institute, a public high school in Mi-
ami-Dade County, was the pilot school for
integrating the Million Orchid Project into a
classroom setting. In October 2013, Fairchild
installed 10,000 orchid seedlings in the school
for students to observe and grow. They con-
tinued to thrive and were then planted in the
trees around the school in July 2014, where
they are estimated to produce flowers in three
to five years. Due to its success, the project
was replicated in October 2014 in more than
30 Miami-Dade County schools that partici-
pate in The Fairchild Challenge, the multidis-
ciplinary environmental education outreach
program that more than 130,000 students
compete in each year. To date, Fairchild has
provided lab units to more than 100 middle
and high schools (Figure 2).
For more info, please visit the Million Or-
chid Project webpage at http://www.fairchild-
garden.org/science-conservation/the-mil-
lion-orchid-project.
By Brooke LeMaire, Marketing Associate, Fair-
child Tropical Botanic Garden
Articles
Figure 2. BioTECH and Richmond Heights High
School students prepare a solution for propagating
orchids.
Fairchild Garden Launches
Partnership with NASA
F
airchild Tropical Botanic Garden is
pleased to partner with the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration (NASA).
For the 2015-2016 academic year, scientists
and educators at Fairchild and NASA are ad-
ministering plant experiments for middle and
high school students participating in The Fair-
child Challenge (Figure 1), an award-winning
environmental science competition based
in Miami, to determine which edible plants
might be suitable for growth in microgravity
aboard the International Space Station’s plant
growth facility, Veggie. As the project devel-
ops, it may help to provide a more sustainable
food supply for future long-term missions,
perhaps even those en route to Mars.
“Since ancient times, people have been mov-
ing plants and adapting them to new environ-
ments,” said Dr. Carl Lewis, Fairchild’s Direc-
tor. “It’s thrilling to think that plants grown in
South Florida classrooms may someday help
sustain human life in space, on Mars, and be-
yond.”
The purpose of the experiments designed by
The Fairchild Challenge students is to expand
food options and increase plant diversity by
testing multiple edible plants that meet NA-
SA’s criteria for size and edibility. Using equip-
ment that mimics the environmental condi-
tions aboard the International Space Station,
students test factors that may influence plant
growth, flavor, and nutrition. NASA will use
students’ data to determine which plants they
should begin growing in space on the Veggie
facility.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
24
Veggie is a compact, LED-lit plant growth fa-
cility in the International Space Station jointly
developed by NASA and Orbital Technolo-
gies Corporation. On August 10, 2015, astro-
nauts in the International Space Station lives-
treamed a video of themselves harvesting and
eating the first produce grown in microgravi-
ty: red romaine lettuce.
“The Veggie team is excited to think that The
Fairchild Challenge students will help to find
new crops that will nourish astronauts in the
future on the International Space Station and
someday when we explore Mars,” said Dr.
Gioia Massa, Project Scientist at NASA.
Dr. Massa and her colleagues Trent Smith, Dr.
Wanda Jones, and Dr. Lester Morales joined
Fairchild staff in introducing the project to in-
terested teachers on August 29 at The Fairchild
Challenge Teachers’ Information Brunch. A
dedicated NASA-led teacher workshop was
then held at Fairchild on September 26 to pro-
vide teachers from 124 South Florida schools
with the necessary training to carry out the
project in their classrooms. Each school was
given shelving units, seeds, lights, and other equip-
ment needed for students to conduct research.
Figure 1. Teacher participants of The Fairchild
Challenge identify seeds to use in their botany labs
at the NASA-Fairchild workshop.
Articles
“This is an innovative and groundbreaking
program that will give students an opportuni-
ty to participate in authentic research that has
practical importance and long-term ramifica-
tions,” said Amy Padolf, Director of Education
at Fairchild. “This is the new face of science
education.”
Offered free of charge, The Fairchild Chal-
lenge was created in 2002 as an environmen-
tal science outreach program for elementary,
middle, and high school students. Designed
as a competition that appeals to students’ in-
tellectual curiosity, The Fairchild Challenge
encourages students to appreciate the beauty
and value of nature and learn about environ-
mental issues, to research possible solutions
and evaluate them critically, to modify their
own behavior, and to become actively en-
gaged citizens. It currently involves more
than 130,000 students from more than 300
schools including global satellite partners.
For more information, please visit www.
fairchildgarden.org/Education/The-Fair-
child-Challenge.
By Brooke LeMaire, Marketing Associate, Fair-
child Tropical Botanic Garden
PSB 62 (1) 2016
25
W
e all hope, I think, that our work might
have some impact on the world we
live in. This is also the expectation of funding
agencies, such as the National Science Foun-
dation, and their expectation is formalized in
the broader impacts sections required for NSF
grant proposals. I have not always managed to
produce compelling broader impacts sections,
but I want to tell you about our current fund-
ed project where we are working to improve
high school science education, together with
some of the successful strategies and pitfalls
we have discovered along the way.
Let me start off by saying that I believe we need
scientifically literate citizens who understand
the motives, practice, and mind-set of science,
because the ability to use and understand sci-
ence is vital to successfully resolving many of
the issues that face us as individuals, as a so-
ciety, and as a planet. But clearly a scientific
mindset is not used, or even valued, by large
sections of our society. My feeling (supported
by data) is that at the root of this is a fear of
science and scientists and a real ignorance of
the nature of science (Schwartz & Lederman,
2008). Movements like citizen science seek
to dispel this ignorance by actively involving
the public in real science, but I still think that
without addressing the central issue of the at-
titudes and belief of the public about science,
even these movements will only be partially
effective. These problems are what we hope to
positively affect through our education efforts.
We have been involved in a relatively nov-
el experiment to train high school in-ser-
vice science teachers and pre-service science
teachers (science education majors) to better
understand and inhabit the scientific world
they are or will be teaching, as a result of pos-
ing the question, “What are the barriers to a
critical understanding of science and scien-
tific issues?” In part because I work with a
wonderful and deeply experienced professor
of high school science education, I have come
to see that students lack understanding about
just what science is and how it works. The ed-
ucation community has realized this and has
created the newly released Next Generation
Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States,
2013), which explicitly link content standards
to science and engineering practices and are
embedded with aspects of the nature of sci-
ence. The NGSS are awesome, connecting
ideas across disciplines and encouraging stu-
dents to do science rather than just hear about
it. Twenty-six states helped design the NGSS,
and I believe that, properly implemented
and taught, the NGSS will be instrumental
in changing students’ (and by extension, the
general public’s) views about science and sci-
entists.
The question really is, however, who will prop-
erly implement and teach them? Are today’s
in-service and pre-service science teachers
sufficiently trained and experienced to give
students the support they need to imple-
ment the pedagogy addressed in the NGSS?
We think, in some ways at least, that they are
Articles
RETurn to the Classroom: Linking Science Teaching and
Science Experience for Pre- and In-service High School
Science Teachers
By Andrew Doust
Oklahoma State University
PSB 62 (1) 2016
26
not. Studies have shown that, in general, high
school science teachers are effective at teach-
ing science content but struggle to articulate
the views of the nature of science accepted by
the education community or to model what
it feels like to actually do science (Abd-El-
Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Akerson, Abd-El-
Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Lederman, 1992).
This is a key area in which scientists and sci-
ence teacher educators can improve the un-
derstanding and acceptance of science by high
school students. These students may or may
not be on a scientific career path, but they will
all form part of the general public that needs
to be able to use scientific principles to judge
what courses of action are most appropriate
for the many problems that beset the world
today.
Understanding views on the nature of science
and appreciating what research feels like are
We need scientifically
literate citizens who un-
derstand the motives,
practice, and mind-set of
science, because the abil-
ity to use and understand
science is vital to suc-
cessfully resolving many
of the issues that face us
as individuals, as a soci-
ety, and as a planet.
attitudes that can only be cultivated through
a combination of research experiences and
reflection on those experiences. In the sci-
ences, we bring students into the lab in order
for them to experience research, and a simi-
lar motivation is behind the well-established
NSF Research Experience for Teachers (RET)
program. Such programs can definitely offer
a glimpse of authentic research, but it turns
out that a research experience alone is rarely
enough to promote understand about what
science is. In addition, it is also difficult to
translate research experiences into classroom
curricula. With this in mind, we set out to ad-
dress the question of how to instill in teachers
the sense of what it means to be a scientist, and
how teachers might best convey that sense to
their students.
Our teacher education goals are embedded in
the broader impacts section of an NSF Plant
Genome grant, whose scientific goals are fo-
cused on understanding the genetic regula-
tion of branching (tillering) in panicoid grass-
es, including maize, sorghum, and millets.
As a result of earlier collaborations between
myself and co-PI Julie Angle, director of the
secondary science education program at
Oklahoma State, we knew that we had to com-
bine multiple practices to reach our education
goals, including authentic research experienc-
es, weekly reflections on research experiences,
and explicit instruction on the nature of sci-
ence. These practices allowed us to help RET
participants develop lesson plans that incor-
porate research into the school science curric-
ulum. Such a combination of practices stems
from Julie’s earlier work in organizing STEM
research experiences for pre-service science
teachers in her science methods courses.
Apart from the RET experience, we have also
focused on encouraging teachers to develop
extra-curricular science fair programs where
teachers mentor their high school students in
science research and compete
in science fair
competitions. As our program has evolved we
Articles
PSB 62 (1) 2016
27
have encouraged collaborative links between
in-service and pre-service teachers to support
the in-service teachers to develop a science
fair program, as well as soliciting support for
teachers from their administration. Our mo-
tivation is that if we can make an impact on
teachers, then that will influence multiple stu-
dents over multiple years—a very cost-effec-
tive way to impact citizen science literacy.
Some specifics of our approach include a
competitive application process, a five-week
RET experience at OSU, four follow-up ses-
sions over the course of the following school
year to reflect on what’s working and what’s
not, realistic stipend for in-service teachers,
funds for classroom supplies, and a commit-
ment from the teachers to get five students to
a regional science fair. In terms of the benefits
to my research and the scientific aims of the
grant, the RET projects have enabled us to ex-
amine the effects of environment on branch-
ing, including light attenuation, simulation of
shading by other plants, the effect of restricted
root volumes on shoot growth, and the effects
of changing photoperiod and temperature.
These projects are outside the main focus of
the grant but will be very useful data for our
grant renewal proposal in two years’ time.
So, how have the RET experiences worked out
in terms of teacher education? Even with au-
thentic research experiences and professional
development, it turns out that obstacles still
exist to teachers truly modeling what it is to be
a scientist for their classes. The main obstacle
is time: time to plan, time to implement, and
time to understand how research experiences
might be translatable into the tightly defined
set of topics that teachers have to teach. These
pressures prevented our first set of teachers
from being able to start a science fair program
to which they had committed.
Therefore, in the summer of 2015, we exper-
imented with pairing teachers with senior
pre-service science teachers in the teacher
preparation program, with much better re-
sults. After the summer RET was over, each
pre-service teacher has continued working
with their high school teacher partner, help-
ing them set up a science fair program in their
school. Currently, we have two in-service/
pre-service teacher pairs who have successful-
ly implemented a science fair program at their
respective schools, and they are working with
middle and high school students in conduct-
ing research and preparing for the upcoming
science fair competition season. We are learn-
ing how to help teachers, and thus to really
help students in middle and high school un-
derstand not only what science is about, but
also what it feels like to be a scientist (Figure 1).
Several aspects of our program have contrib-
uted to its success. Most importantly, I think
the RET works because we really believe that
we might make a difference to science litera-
cy in Oklahoma. It was also very important to
the proposal that we could demonstrate that
we had access to the audience we wanted to
impact. Crucial to attracting teachers to our
RET program was the competitive nature of
our RET application process and proper com-
pensation for those teachers. Also import-
ant were well thought-out assessments and
follow-up plans, both for the success of the
program and to convince NSF that we were
serious about the outcomes of the program.
This included an adequately justified budget
including stipends, living costs, materials, etc.
for our RET participants.
Designing projects for the short five-week
program can be tough, but I am fortunate
that my main study organism, green foxtail
(Setaria viridis), grows very quickly! We also
Articles
PSB 62 (1) 2016
28
get around limited time constraints by germi-
nating plants up to a week before the teachers
arrive, eliminating wait time and allowing the
teachers to begin the research process during
the first few days of the RET experience. It is
difficult to conduct a longer RET with teach-
ers because they only have two months’ va-
cation over the summer, with schools having
different end and start dates.
Even with authentic re-
search experiences and
professional develop-
ment, it turns out that
obstacles still exist to
teachers truly modeling
what it is to be a scientist
for their classes.
We have been really amazed by the progress so
far. The fact that we have facilitated the initia-
tion of science fair programs in several schools
will be important for helping students do real
science. The teachers who have gone through
our RET program also report that they have
more confidence in doing science with their
students because they have a better under-
standing of its tentative and empirical na-
ture. One of my favorite comments was from
an enthusiastic middle school teacher who
marveled at the sheer tediousness of measur-
ing plant height and branching in her shad-
ing experiments, stating that the experience
changed her view of the nature of the scien-
tific enterprise from flashy results to the nitty
gritty of getting good data. Another was from
the classroom of one of our teachers who was
starting a science fair team who overheard the
following conversation between two students.
Student A said, “We need a scientist.” Student
B said, “But we have one—Mrs. X, our teach-
er!” After the RET and follow-up sessions,
teachers feel like they have experience as sci-
entists and can articulate their knowledge and
understanding of the nature of science (Figure 2).
Articles
Figure 1. One of our in-service teachers, Emily Harris (Stillwater Public Schools), with the poster she
presented on her work at our research symposium at the end of the RET experience.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
29
Literature Cited
Abd-El-Khalick, F. & Lederman, N.G. (2000). Improv-
ing science teachers’ conceptions of nature of science:
A critical review of the literature. International Journal
of Science Education 22(7), 665-701.
Akerson, V.L., Abd-El-Khalick, F., & Lederman, N.G.
(2000). Influence of a reflective explicit activity-based
approach on elementary teachers’ conception of na-
ture of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching
37(4), 295-317.
Lederman, N.G. (1992). Students’ and teachers’ con-
ceptions of the nature of science: A review of the re-
search. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 29(4),
331-359.
NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science
Standards: For States, By States. Washington DC: The
National Academies Press.
Schussler, E.E., Bautista, N.U., Link-Pérez, M.A., Sol-
omon, N.G., and Steinly, B.A. Instruction Matters for
Nature of Science Understanding in College Biology
Laboratories. 2013. BioScience 63: 380–389.
Schwartz, R., & Lederman, N. (2008). What scientists
say: Scientists’ views of nature of science and relation to
science context. International Journal of Science Educa-
tion 30(6), 727-771.
Is it possible to replicate this model? We are
attempting to do this with our other co-PIs at
two other universities this summer. We are
also extending this model to college STEM
students, as I feel that science students also
need authentic research experiences com-
bined with explicit reflection on aspects of the
nature of science to really know what science is.
Articles
The effects on their students are also starting
to show: Two of the teachers just had all four
of their students win regional science fairs
and advance to the state competition. Just as
importantly, there appears to be growing sup-
port for the teachers’ efforts on behalf of their
students from other teachers and the admin-
istration in their school.
Figure 2. Middle school students planting seed for an experiment on the effect of changing photoperiods
on flowering time in green foxtail.
30
ANNOUNCEMENTS
In Memoriam
F. Thomas Ledig
(1938–2015)
A
fter overcoming two separate assaults
of cancer over a span of 20 years, Tom
succumbed to metastatic melanoma at his
home in Vallejo, CA. He will be missed sorely
by his family, former students, and many per-
sonal friends—from home, office, and around
the world. The collegium of forest geneticists
and evolutionary biologists will miss his keen
insights into population biology that he de-
scribed in his papers with such clarity and
cogency. These intellectual contributions were
translated into practical strategies, policies,
and action for conservation of forest genetic
resources, including genes, populations, and
threatened species. Tom was a luminary in
all of his professional undertakings. A cum
laude graduate from Rutgers, he went on to
get his MS and PhD degrees from North Car-
olina State University, supported in part by
a National Science Foundation Fellowship.
His first major job was as Assistant Professor
at Yale, where he rose to Full Professor and
Member of the Board of Permanent Officers,
before leaving in 1979 to become Director
of the Institute of Forest Genetics at the U.S.
Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Experiment
Station in Berkeley, California. While there,
he was also appointed Adjunct Professor at the
University of California, Davis, where courses
he taught in plant conservation genetics were
often oversubscribed. Professional recogni-
tion was accorded him by several universities,
governments, and professional organizations;
especially notable were Fellowship in the
AAAS, and the Society of American Forest-
ers prestigious Barrington Moore Memorial
Award for “outstanding achievement in bio-
logical research leading to the advancement
of forestry.” But the tribute he cherished most
personally was a remark in a letter signed by
former colleagues at Yale: “We miss the joie de
vivre that left when you left.”
An early and leading apostle of conservation
of forest genetic resources, Tom gave abun-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
31
Announcements
dantly of his time and energy to many insti-
tutions and organizations. He served over two
decades as Secretary of FAO’s North American
Forest Commission’s Forest Genetics Working
Group. Under his leadership the Commission
was active in habitat protection and seed col-
lection of fast-growing and stress-adapted
populations of tree species important to world
forestry. His service was recognized with two
awards for “significant and long-standing
contribution” to the Commission. Because of
his familiarity with forest conditions on every
continent and broad perspective on conserva-
tion issues, he was able to contribute to many
national programs and was often invited as
a keynote speaker for symposia and Distin-
guished Professorships at several universities
at home and abroad. He wrote extensively and
poignantly of the depredations humankind
has caused to biodiversity historically, while
proposing strategies for mitigation and rem-
edy. Above all, perhaps, were his deep feelings
for the spiritual and ethical dimensions of
conservation: “Esthetic reasons are the hard-
est to pin down, but I believe that diversity
is necessary to the health of humanity. Some
sense of diversity seems necessary for sanity.”
Tom’s research spanned an unusually broad
area of forest genetics, from the physiologi-
cal genetics of photosynthesis and growth, to
practical tree improvement, population genet-
ics and taxonomy. Tree species he investigated
were equally diverse, including pines, spruce,
oak, and eucalyptus. But his main focus was
on the genetic structure of tree populations:
their diversity, origins, adaptations, mating
systems, and migration patterns, especially as
these properties might be affected by climate
change.
His research often took him to isolated and
relict populations in remote, almost inacces-
sible locations, such as the Sierra Oriental and
Sierra Occidental for the rare Mexican pines
and spruces; Brewer spruce in the Klamath
Mountains of northern California; Engel-
mann and blue spruce from the mountains
and sky islands of the Rockies; and Torrey
pine from the Channel Islands of California.
Some of Tom’s colleagues, of a more tim-
ber-beast persuasion, needled him for his
seeming preoccupation with non-commercial
“trash trees” (as they called them). But Tom’s
vision was strategic: he chose subjects most
likely to lead to insights into the evolutionary
dynamics of populations, that would in turn
inform policy guidelines for conservation. Of
course, he also loved the excitement of the
chase, and its physical challenges; one time,
during a field trip to the parched and rugged
Ventana Wilderness of California, he alarmed
staff when he failed to show up for a meeting
he had scheduled. But a day later, exhausted,
hungry, scratched and bleeding—but smiling
defiantly—he and crew stumbled out of the
tall brush, holding the bagged quarry in hand:
cones of the rare Santa Lucia fir from the high
peaks. Even Indiana Jones might have been
envious.
A main concern was about how population
fragmentation, whether through climate
change, habitat loss, or logging might affect
genetic diversity and integrity of tree popula-
tions, and their ability to continue to evolve
and adapt. The rare and endangered Mexican
spruces and pines were thus of special interest,
because they represented natural experiments
of populations under severe disruption and se-
lection pressure. Paleontological evidence had
shown spruce to be much more widespread
in Mexico during the Pleistocene, extending
down into the lowlands. Tom and co-workers
showed how climate warming in the Holo-
cene caused wholesale retreat of spruce popu-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
32
Announcements
lations northward and higher in elevation. As
they migrated, individual populations became
highly disjunct and often decimated. Some of
the genetic consequences documented were
overall loss of diversity through genetic drift;
the positive association of heterozygosity with
population census; highly increased homo-
zygosity in some populations, leading to in-
breeding depression severe enough to threaten
the continued existence of populations; and in
an extreme case, evidence that Maxipinion, a
species with only a single existing population,
also had a maximum of two alleles per locus,
most at intermediate frequencies—suggesting
its possible origin from a single seed! A major
accomplishment, coincident with these indi-
vidual investigations, was bringing taxonomic
coherence, using molecular markers, to the
complex and long-unresolved relationships
among the six species of western and south-
western spruces of North America. In both
pines and spruces, his work showed that mi-
gration patterns could be tracked with molec-
ular genetic data: populations migrating north
from different glacial refugia after the last ice
age lost diversity as a result of founder effects
and genetic drift. This of course had import-
ant consequences for identifying contem-
porary centers of diversity for conservation
purposes. He provided empirical evidence
that heterozygosity was positively related to
fitness, and the negative effects of inbreeding
on reproductive health of populations.
His research ended where it began as an Assis-
tant Professor at Yale, over 40 years earlier, on
the Pine plains and Pine Barrens of New Jer-
sey, in a common garden of range-wide prov-
enance sources of pitch pine (Pinus rigida).
One of the most variable of eastern conifers,
pitch pine had long intrigued forest ecologists
ever since Gifford Pinchot first described the
strange pygmy forest (Pine Plains) embedded
within the tall forest (Pine Barrens) of New
Jersey. For its innovative design and far-reach-
ing objectives, his study proposal was award-
ed a National Science Foundation grant for its
implementation and several other grants over
the years for its continuation and completion.
Numerous publications were forthcoming,
with some still in press. Some outstanding
insights from this study included demonstra-
tion of the positive relationship between the
degree of heterozygosity and fitness; evidence
from genetic data of the origin of pitch pine
from at least three widely spread refugia fol-
lowing the last glacial maximum, including
one on the exposed continental shelf; and,
most interestingly, a remarkable example of
natural selection: that in spite of potentially
massive gene flow from the surrounding for-
est, the dwarf form of pitch pine derived from
a suite of heritable traits associated with re-
production, culminating in the evolution of a
distinct fire ecotype.
Not a bad legacy for trash trees. Vale, Tom.
By Bohun B. Kinloch, Institute of Forest Genet-
ics, Pacific Southwest Research Stn., Berkeley, CA
PSB 62 (1) 2016
33
Announcements
#OhiaLove Campaign to Help Save Hawaii’s Forests
Hawai‘i is facing a very serious threat to its native forests. Rapid ‘Ōhi‘a Death (ROD) is a
fungal disease that has already killed 34,000 acres of endemic ‘ōhi‘a trees (Metrosideros
polymorpha). ‘Ōhi‘a is the keystone of our forests and perhaps the most important tree
in Hawai‘i. Currently there is no known treatment for ROD, and it is spreading on one
of our islands.
Lyon Arboretum’s Seed Conservation Laboratory has launched a crowdfunding cam-
paign, #OhiaLove, to raise funds to collect and store ‘ōhi‘a seeds at our seed bank during
this crisis. Our collection program will be systematic and strategic, to preserve genetic
diversity of both at-risk populations as well as those that are potentially ROD-resistant,
for use in future forest restoration.
To learn more and donate, visit www.ohialove.com!
-By Marian Chau, Seed Conservation Laboratory Manager, Lyon Arboretum
34
SCIENCE EDUCATION
By Catrina Adams,
Education Director
BSA Science Education News and Notes is a
quarterly update about the BSA’s education
efforts and the broader education scene. We
invite you to submit news items or ideas for
future features. Contact Catrina Adams, Ed-
ucation Director, at cadams@botany.org.
T
he Botanical Society of America is ex-
cited to announce the addition of Jodi
E. Creasap Gee, Ph.D. to the BSA Education
team! She will serve as the Education Tech-
nology Coordinator and report to Dr. Catrina
Adams.
Passionate about science, and biology in par-
ticular, Jodi grew up in Ohio, where she spent
many spring, summer, and fall seasons in her
grandparent’s Central Ohio vineyard. After
graduating from Hiram College in 2000 with
a B.A. in Biology, she moved to the Finger
Lakes in New York to attend Cornell Universi-
ty. Jodi’s Ph.D. dissertation project at Cornell
Welcome to
Dr. Jodi E. Creasap Gee,
BSA’s Education
Technology Coordinator
University’s Plant Pathology Department fo-
cused on the mechanism of biological control
of grape crown gall
.
In 2006, after she completed her Ph.D., Jodi
started a post-doctoral research position in
Michigan State University’s Plant Pathology
Department. There, her projects focused on
bacterial diseases in fruit trees (apples, cher-
ries). From 2007-2012, Jodi worked for Cor-
nell Cooperative Extension as an Extension
Educator for the Lake Erie Regional Grape
Program in Western New York and North-
western Pennsylvania. Covering the 30,000+
acres of grapes in the region, she provided
information, recommendations, research re-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
35
BOTANY
BOX
BOOTH IN A
Have you ever wanted to bring
your love of botany to the
public but weren’t sure what to
do?
It’s time for the BSA to help!
2016 Botany Booth In A Box Competition
Booths at STEM outreach events such as
science festivals, Fascination of Plants Day, or
other public gatherings provide excellent
opportunities for informal education about plants.
However, the activities and materials needed
for an effective booth can be difficult to develop,
organize, produce, and gather. To address this
important issue, the Botanical Society of America
Education Committee is sponsoring its first Botany
Booth In A Box Competition.
• Is it factually accurate with a clear
learning objective?
• What is its breadth of use and
applicability?
• Is it engaging and interesting for the
target audience or age group?
• Can it be completed in a short period of
time?
• Is it easy to store, ship, set up, and use?
(Ideally, all materials for the activity
should be easily obtained locally or able
to fit in a standard USPS shipping box).
All BSA members are eligible to submit an activity for the competition. Student members are
eligible for the student prize. A panel of judges will review applications.
The objective of the contest is for groups or
individuals to produce booth activities for
these types of events that could be eas-
ily stored and shipped to BSA members
who want to use them at different types of
events. The activities will be judged on the
following criteria:
All finalists will receive a t-shirt and are encouraged to submit their activities to PlantEd Digital
Library (http://planted.botany.org).
Finalists will be invited to set up and share their booth during the
opening mixer of the 2016 BSA Annual Meeting.
Prizes:
Overall Grand Prize
$300.00
Runner-up
$100.00
Student Grand Prize
$300.00
Student Runner-up
$100.00
Apply by April 22: http://goo.gl/forms/PBYX8JAXqd
Winners will be chosen by a panel of judges and the BSA membership.
Science Education
PSB 62 (1) 2016
36
Science Education
sults, and extension programming to Concord
grape growers as well as wine grape growers.
From 2013 to 2015, Jodi served as the Ohio
State Coordinator for VESTA and the Pro-
gram Director for the Viticulture and Enology
Program at Kent State University Ashtabula.
Most recently, after her family moved to the
Kansas City area, Jodi changed positions with-
in VESTA and took over the role of Instruc-
tional Designer for the nationwide program.
She managed online course content for up to
25 courses each semester, recorded and edited
lecture videos, and provided online techno-
logical assistance to instructors and students.
Jodi has volunteered as a scientist mentor for
Planting Science for 4.5 years and is thrilled
to have the opportunity to work with the
team that brings plant biology to the middle
and high school classrooms. Contact her at
jcreasapgee@botany.org.
PlantingScience continues
to expand, seeking 100 new
scientist mentors to begin
August 2016 for Fall session
This spring, seven Canadian teachers and
their students join 22 teachers from the USA
and one teacher from the Netherlands in in-
vestigations on themes ranging from seed
germination to Arabidopsis genetics. Plant-
ingScience is gaining attention in Canada, and
the Digging Deeper professional development
project will bring in 40 new teachers for the
Fall 2016 session, doubling our typical session
size.
To meet the new demand, we are hoping to
recruit 100 new scientist mentors to help
with the Fall 2016 session (mid-September to
mid-November).
Mentoring a team or two takes only about an
hour a week, can be done from anywhere with
an internet connection, and is a great way to
connect with middle- and high-school stu-
dents to share your passion for plants and sci-
ence. If you have not yet gotten involved as
a mentor, we’d love to have you. If you gave
PlantingScience a try years ago, this would
be a great time to come back to see what’s
new. And if you have been a mentor for many
years, please help us by recruiting colleagues!
New mentors can learn more and register at
http://plantingscience.org/newmentor.
Finally I’d like to thank all of our current and
past mentors who have given your time over
the years to mentor student groups through
the process of an investigation, learning more
about how real science is done and how sci-
entists think, and sharing with the students
the joy of discovery and the wonder of plant
biology with the next generation. Students tell
us every year how impactful the experience
was to them, and what a difference it makes in
their perspectives on plants and science.
“I really liked all the interesting things that
I learned about plants, but more than that, I
liked how we could ask the mentor anything
and he would be able to tell us more. In class,
we usually follow a curriculum and have set
things to learn. However, on PlantingScience
PSB 62 (1) 2016
37
Science Education
we were able to find out more about what in-
terested us and I was able to learn about things
that I didn’t even know I didn’t know about
plants.” – PlantingScience student
“I liked the end part the best, and tying to-
gether our information from this lab to previ-
ous information. Trying to figure out what the
data means, why it is important and why we
are doing this is the most interesting.” – Plant-
ingScience student
Seeking Volunteers to staff
outreach booth at USA Sci-
ence and Engineering Festival
in Washington D.C. this April
T
his year, the BSA has partnered with a
team of botanical societies that the U.S.
Botanic Garden has brought together to cre-
ate new hands-on botany activities, and to
share them at a large plant outreach booth at
this year’s USA Science and Engineering Fes-
tival, held at the Walter E. Washington Con-
vention Center in Washington D.C. The USA
Science & Engineering Festival is a national
grassroots effort to a
dvance STEM education
and inspire the next generation of scientists
and engineers.
If you are in the D.C. area, we would love to
have your help at the booth, sharing your love
of plants with the public.
The festival will run for three days:
• Friday, April 15 is a preview for local schools
• Saturday, April 16 (10 am-6 pm) and
• Sunday, April 17 (10 am-4 pm) will be open
to the public and to families.
The overall theme of the booth will be plant
movement, and we will have several interac-
tive activities and demonstrations set up for
visitors to learn more about plant adaptations
and plant movements, and to help open their
eyes to the presence and importance of plants
in their lives. We’re hoping visitors will leave
our booth with a greater appreciation for
plants as active organisms.
The BSA component of the booth will focus
on how plant leaf movements (whole leaf and
movement of small parts like stomata and
chloroplasts) help plants survive different en-
vironments. We’ll have an area set up for vis-
itors to explore plant leaf adaptations, a Ve-
nus fly trap interactive, and an origami “plant
fortune teller” game describing how different
plants fare under different environmental
conditions for visitors to make and take home.
The festival is very large, and we expect tens of
thousands of visitors to stop by our booth. I
f
you can volunteer, please use the Doodle poll
at http://doodle.com/poll/pmq67tfp2qwmi-
brx to let us know which day and time you
would like to help. We’d like to have 4-5 local
volunteers to help during each time slot. We
will provide a quick training on the activities
and demos at the beginning of each shift.
If you have any questions, please direct them
to Catrina Adams, BSA Education Director,
at cadams@botany.org.
38
STUDENT SECTION
By Angela McDonnell and Becky
Povilus, BSA Student Representatives
Grad school is full of challenges, including fig-
uring out how to finish your project and what
to do afterwards. These are intensely person-
al and complex subjects, full of questions like
“What are my options?”, “What career is right
for me?” or “How will this choice affect the
people in my life?” Even if you have a plan,
there is still “Can I get the money I need to
do that?” and “How do I actually get there?”
However, it’s important to remember you’re
not the first person to have these questions.
That’s why we are starting a series of inter-
views with graduates about what life after
grad school is like—what they are doing with
their degree, and what they’ve learned along
the way.
We’re starting with a conversation with Dr.
Laura Lagomarsino, who combines phyloge-
netic analysis, field and herbarium work, and
pollination biology to study the evolutionary
Conversations about Grad School
and What Happens Next
history of Neotropical clades of Lobelioideae.
She graduated with her Ph.D. in Organismic
and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard Uni-
versity in 2015, and is currently enjoying her
position as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fel-
low in Biology, working with her advisors in
St. Louis and Gothenburg, Sweden. We talked
about what actually finishing her dissertation
was like, how she figured out her next step,
and then a little about what’s happened since
she started it.
Becky and Angela: To set the stage, tell us
a little about what your Ph.D. dissertation
was on.
Laura Lagomarsino: I study the systematics
and evolution of the 550 species in the cen-
tropogonid clade of Neotropical Lobelioide-
ae, which grow throughout montane Latin
America. During my dissertation, I resolved
the phylogeny of the group, described four
species new to science, and applied vari-
ous diversification models and phylogenetic
comparative methods to determine that rap-
id diversification in this clade was driven by
multiple factors, including Andean uplift and
frequent shifts between bat and hummingbird
pollinators.
Thanks for summing up so much hard work
in just a few sentences. What was the hard-
est part about finishing up your disserta-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
Student Section
39
tion? If you could go back and give yourself
one piece of advice during that time, what
would you say?
Toward the end, time management became
the hardest part—there were seemingly more
things to get done than time would permit!
I wish I had dedicated myself to writing one
year earlier. Writing takes so much longer
than you expect.
What is one thing that you wish you had
done while you were still in grad school?
Outside of those few highly recommended
Boston area restaurants I never visited, I wish
I had had more interaction with my disserta-
tion committee members. Their advice always
improved my thesis, but I only actively sought
it once a year.
What is one thing that you did in grad school
that turned out to be a really good idea, and
that you would recommend everyone should
think about or try?
I am so happy that I combined field and her-
barium work, which allowed me to develop a
comprehensive understanding of the centro-
pogonid clade. If relevant to your system, I
would recommend this to all biology graduate
students, even if fieldwork and museum study
do not seem directly relevant (and especially
if your work is primarily in the lab or at the
computer). It will enrich your grasp of your
study taxa and their interactions and may in-
spire new trajectories for your dissertation
(and beyond).
The Next Step – Life after
Grad School
You had your post-doc position lined up be-
fore you finished your dissertation. Looking
back now, do you think that was a good idea?
Yes. It was such a relief to know where I was
heading after grad school in the already stress-
ful lead-up to my defense.
When it comes to looking for a post-doc po-
sition, what is one resource that you found
really helpful?
The other senior grad students in my depart-
ment were my most important resource! They
were figuring out their next career stages be-
fore me, and ultimately inspired me to do the
same. They pointed me toward relevant fel-
lowships and postdoc advertisements, and to-
PSB 62 (1) 2016
Student Section
40
gether we commiserated about the uncertain-
ty of that particular moment in our academic
careers.
Did you consider taking a non-academic
route after graduation? If so, what helped
you decide to take a post-doc position (and
set yourself on an academic trajectory)?
I briefly considered leaving academia, but
I’m such an herbarium junkie that the aca-
demic trajectory seems most appropriate for
me. However, I suggest that all graduate stu-
dents take advantage of their universities’ ca-
reer counseling services before they graduate.
Their staff will help put your six years of nar-
row academic focus into a broader context,
including by alerting you to very marketable
skills you may not realize you’ve acquired:
project management, budgeting, problem
solving, intellectual rigor, to name a few.
Your current position is an NSF-funded
post-doc fellowship that involves collab-
oration between labs at the University of
Missouri, St. Louis and the University of
Gothenburg in Sweden. Can you tell us a
little bit about how you formed this collab-
oration?
My two postdoctoral advisors, Nathan Much-
hala and Alexandre Antonelli, have both stud-
ied various aspects of the biology of the cen-
tropogonid clade, and were both collaborators
of mine during my Ph.D. The intersection of
their labs’ principal focuses—bat pollination
and drivers of Neotropical biodiversity, re-
spectively—almost perfectly match my in-
terests. Working with them was an intuitive
match. With significant help from them, I put
together an application for the NSF fellowship
about six months before I graduated.
I would recommend
thinking five years ahead
when you start planning
for your postdoc. If you
are on an academic track,
what skills are going to
be marketable when you
go on the job hunt, and
which would you like to
bring to your own lab one
day?
What are some challenges that are unique to
organizing an international collaboration
like that, and how did/do you address them?
I am still figuring out how to best organize this
collaboration. The principal challenge, unsur-
prisingly, is the physical distance between my
two labs. I am lucky to belong to two large labs
full of smart and capable scholars, but this also
means that I have to be very motivated and in-
dependent to stay on top of my project so as
not to get lost. Frequent meetings with my two
advisors keep me on track.
When thinking about a post-doc position,
you have to find a balance between work-
ing on something you know you’ll enjoy,
and learning new skills. What advice do you
have about finding that balance?
I would recommend thinking five years ahead
when you start planning for your postdoc. If
you are on an academic track, what skills are
going to be marketable when you go on the
job hunt, and which would you like to bring
to your own lab one day? For me, these were
field pollination biology and next-generation
PSB 62 (1) 2016
Student Section
41
sequencing techniques and bioinformatics.
Of course, aim to develop these new skills in
a system that excites you and with a PI with
whom you can see developing a positive re-
lationship. Also, talk to your Ph.D. advisor
about how to plan for your postdoc. They have
been in your shoes and are likely to have great
insight into labs, projects, or fellowships that
are up your alley.
If you don’t mind us getting personal, we
would like to ask about how you juggled the
post-graduation transition and your per-
sonal relationships. You and your husband
(who is also a botanist!) both moved from
Boston to St. Louis when you started your
postdoc. How did you address the challenge
of negotiating the pull between both of your
careers and goals?
Fortunately, my husband and I are both her-
barium-based botanists, so moving between
two of the best collections in the world, from
the Harvard University Herbaria to the Mis-
souri Botanical Garden, was not at all a com-
promise for us! It may not always be such an
easy transition, but we are ultimately going to
go wherever my career takes us. For better or
worse, you and your partner need to be very
flexible in the early stages of an academic
career. Open and honest communication is
probably the easiest way to manage the tran-
sition periods: between grad school and post-
doc, postdoc to junior faculty position, etc.
What is one thing that has helped you to get
settled in your new job?
My new delightful colleagues at the three (yes,
three!) institutions I am now affiliated with
made me feel welcome almost immediately,
and it is quite fun to begin to understand the
dynamics in a new lab. That being said, I think
the continuity between my dissertation and
my postdoc project has made my transition
particularly easy: I’m finally digging into the
questions that my PhD research generated! It
may have been bumpier if I had changed my
focal group.
What are you most excited about with your
new project?
I can’t wait to get to Bolivia and start observ-
ing who is pollinating Centropogon incanus,
whose polymorphic flowers suggest some in-
dividuals are bat pollinated while others are
hummingbird pollinated! Though I’ve been
intrigued by vertebrate pollination ever since
working on the hummingbird-pollinated ge-
nus Heliconia as an undergraduate, I have nev-
er performed proper field-based pollination
biology, and now I get to do it with a leader in
the field. I’m stoked.
Any last words for those of us grad school
right now?
Above everything, enjoy graduate school; it
is a rewarding and fun period. But I would
recommend that all grad students be aware of
their timelines as they head towards gradua-
tion and to have an open line of communica-
tion with your advisor during the last stretch
of the dissertation. If you are interested in a ca-
reer in academia, also keep in mind that most
postdoctoral fellowship applications have only
one call a year, and that it is common for the
funding agencies to six months (or more!) to
get back to you. This means that, if at all feasi-
ble in your situation, you should be thinking
about post-graduation plans a year out from
defense. And good luck!
PSB 62 (1) 2016
Student Section
42
You can find out more about Laura’s research
(and see gorgeous pictures of her field sites
and the species that she works on) at www.
lauralago.net.
Want to learn more about NSF’s Post-Doc-
toral Fellowships in Biology? They current-
ly have special focus on projects relevant to
(1) Broadening Participation of Groups Un-
der-represented in Biology, (2) Research Us-
ing Biological Collections, and the (3) Nation-
al Plant Genome Initiative (NPGI), so check
them out at www.nsf.gov!
Reminder: BSA Student
Travel Awards Deadline is
April 10
You might be almost done applying for
grants this season, but don’t forget about
the BSA Student Travel Awards. These
are still seven different awards available
to students from the Botanical Society of
America, including some awards given by
sections. The awards include the Pteri-
dological Section & American Fern Soci-
ety Student Travel Awards, the TRIARCH
“Botanical Images” Student Travel Award,
the Vernon I. Cheadle Student Travel
Awards, the Developmental & Structural
Section Student Travel Awards, the Eco-
logical Section Student Travel Awards, the
Economic Botany Section Student Travel
Award, and the Genetics Section Student
Travel Awards.
These awards are meant to help defray the
costs to students of attendance at Botany
2016 in Savannah, Georgia from July 30 to
August 3. Each award offered has differ-
ent guidelines for applying. Visit BSA at
http://botany.org/home/awards.html
for links to each award and details on how
to apply.
Student events
At BOTANY 2016:
Monday, August 1, Noon -1:00 pm
Careers In Botany: Interactive Career
Panel & Luncheon
Monday, August 1 9:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Student Social and Networking Event
sponsored by the International Journal of
Plant Sciences at Moon River Brewery
Both events are only $5 (and include
food/drink!) so be sure to register for
these events when you register for the con-
ference.
43
BOOK REVIEWS
Ecological
Forest Plans of North America ..............................................................................................................43
Genetics
Plant Genes, Genomes and Genetics ...............................................................................................44
Historical
A Natural History of English Gardening: 1650–1800 ...............................................................46
Physiology
Mineral Nutrition of Rice ............................................................................................................................48
Systematics
Flora of Colorado ..........................................................................................................................................50
Carnivorous Plants of Australia: Magnum Opus ..........................................................................52
Plant Life of Southwestern Australia: Adaptations for Survival ..........................................53
Plant Guide: Maritime Succulent Scrub Region, Northwest
Baja California, Mexico ........................................................................................................................55
the purpose of the volume and the logic of the
book design. The central content of the volume
is divided into 49 chapters, of which 48 are
dedicated to specific forest plans in different
forest zones across the study area. The last
chapter is an excellent synopsis of forest plans
of North America and a must read for those
interested. The majority of the contributors, as
expected, are from the United States, Canada,
and Mexico, and include foresters, rangers,
biologists, academics, researchers, managers,
and dedicated individuals who are credited
in developing the individual comprehensive
forest plans. The volume is engaging but is
also technical where necessary.
The detailed color maps, figures, graphs, and
summary tables used in each chapter will help
the readers not only to understand individual
ECOLOGICAL
Forest Plans of North
America
J. P. Siry, P. Bettinger, K. Merry,
D. L. Grebner, K. Boston, and C.
Cieszewski, editors
2015. ISBN-13: 978-0-12-
799936-4
Hardcover, US$109.00. 482 pp.
Academic Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, USA
Forest Plans of North America is an excellent
volume that captures the successes,
opportunities, and challenges of efficiently
executing forest management plans across
the North American continent. The volume
has a detailed preface that nicely illustrates
PSB 62 (1) 2016
44
case studies, but also to vividly visualize
the forest zones discussed. Helpful features
include a list of general abbreviations provided
at the beginning of the volume, along with
specific abbreviations pertaining to individual
chapters; a selected bibliography following
each chapter, which will be extremely handy
for readers who wish to dig deeper into the
case studies and related studies; additional
references for some of the individual chapters;
and a nicely organized index at the end of
the volume. It is important to mention that
English (or U.S.) customary units are used
in chapters related to the U.S. studies, while
the metric system has been followed in the
Mexican and the Canadian studies.
Although there is some obvious overlap as
expected in a multi-author edited volume,
the reading never felt monotonous due to
the precise and uniform presentation style
of the volume. Each chapter is divided into
four major parts: (i) Management Settings
and Backgrounds, (ii) Planning Environment
and Methodology, (iii) Outcomes of the Plan,
and (iv) Discussions and Conclusions. The
language of the volume is simple, concise, and
to the point. The authors have represented
individual case studies with precision, and have
objectively highlighted both the successes and
challenges explored under individual plans.
Although the volume covers the forest plans
of the North American continent, the greatest
emphasis is given to the U.S. examples,
representing 75% of the case studies, followed
by Canada (11%) and Mexico (5%). Forest
plans on the primeval boreal forest zone of
Canada would have been greatly appreciated.
It would have been easier for the readers
if the arrangement of various case studies
(chapters) would have been subdivided by
country, and a glossary of technical terms
would have also been helpful. The volume
Book Reviews
will be useful for undergraduate and graduate
students of general and applied forestry, forest
management, environment management,
botany, and plant sciences, as well as to
professional foresters, rangers, biologists,
academics, and researchers working in
forest or ecosystem management, forest
conservation, forest planning, and for those
working in developing forest policies. This
will be also suitable for enthusiastic readers,
journalists, and lawyers interested in learning
about forest management plans related to
their specific professions.
–Saikat Kumar Basu, University of Lethbridge,
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Plant Genes, Genomes
and Genetics
Erich Grotewold, Joseph Chap-
pell, and Elizabeth A. Kellogg
2015. ISBN-13: 978-1-119-
99888-4
Paperback, US$75.00. 264 pp.
John Wiley & Sons, Chichester,
United Kingdom
As an undergraduate majoring in botany, I was
often frustrated that biology courses tended to
generalize concepts to animal models—even
then I knew that much research has been
performed in plants. I was sometimes left
wondering, “How does that work in plants?”
As I moved into upper-level courses that were
plant-focused, many of those questions were
indeed answered. However, there was no
course that focused on plant genetics. If there
had been, Plant Genes, Genomes and Genetics
would have been an excellent text for the
course.
The book is divided into three parts, “Plant
Genomes and Genes,” “Transcribing Plant
GENETICS
PSB 62 (1) 2016
45
generally to contrast plant examples, but I
would have preferred fewer animal examples
in some cases to present more of the diversity
within plants. This characteristic of the book
might necessitate the use of primary research
articles as a supplement to dive deeper into
the concepts and bring in more examples.
Nearly every page contains at least one color
illustration or table presenting data. Each are
placed close to where they are referenced for
easy browsing. All tables and figures from
the text are available from the companion
website in PowerPoint format, which would
greatly facilitate an instructor’s course design.
Also on the website are answers to problems
posed to the reader after the summary at the
end of each chapter. Figure 3.7 is a picture of
snapdragon flowers, and the text refers to it
twice—once when naming a hAT element that
was found in the species and again a few pages
later when describing disruption of genes. I
think this second reference may be a typo and
should instead refer to Figure 3.9, a diagram
of maize pigmentation variations due to the
insertion of Ac elements at various positions
in the gene.
There are some other typos, too. On page 18
the word “and” is used in place of “an” before
the word adenosine; on page 35 an “o” is
left out of “homoeologous1”; fungi is spelled
“funig” in a reference on page 96; Arabidopsis
is not italicized on several pages; and a few
punctuation errors caught my eye. I also found
one content error. Bisulfite sequencing is the
process in which non-methylated cytosines
are deaminated to form uracil, whereas
methylated cytosines remain unchanged. By
comparing the sequences before and after
treatment, it is possible to determine which
cytosines are methylated or not (Hayatsu,
2008). Page 8 states, “The non-methylated
cytosines are not affected by the bisulfite
Genes,” and “From RNA to Proteins,” and
contains 17 chapters, each of which is
further broken down into several subsections
and ends with a paragraph-long chapter
summary. As the volume totals 264 pages,
the chapters are short, averaging 11.5 pages,
including references at the end of each. This
makes it simple to cover a chapter or so per
week. The book is designed for upper-level
undergraduates and graduate students; it
is not a beginner’s book. There is a short
introduction that reviews basic plant anatomy
and morphology. The first chapter, “Plant
Genetic Material,” could be considered a
review of general genetics, e.g., describing
nucleotides and the structures of the double
helix and chromosomes, but the rest is written
as if the reader should understand basic
concepts of transcription, translation, and
protein expression. It even covers topics that
my undergraduate genetics course did not,
such as transposons (Chapter 3), organellar
genomes (Chapter 5), small RNAs (Chapter
11), and protein targeting (Chapter 16).
The language of the book is not as formal as one
would expect from the primary literature, so it
reads fairly easily, even in the heavier chapters
of transcription factors and RNA processing.
This may make it more understandable to the
undergraduate. Likewise, the use of metaphors
helps to convey concepts. For instance, the
space shuttle and launch pad are used to
illustrate the RNP-II pre-initiation complex
(sec. 8.4) and the structure of the university
is used to explain the hierarchical nature of
transcription factor regulatory networks (sec.
9.9). To cover all of these topics, the authors
do not delve too deeply into them. Many
times a concept or example is explained but
not necessarily the evolutionary sequences
that may have led to it nor how it fits into the
larger picture. Although the book is plant-
specific, animal examples are used freely,
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
46
treatment, and thus remain the same (Figure
1.5b).” The caption for Figure 1.5 does indeed
word this correctly, as does the discussion
on bisulfite sequencing on page 178, “In
this technique DNA is treated with sodium
bisulfite, which converts all unmethylated C,
but not m
5
C, residues to U.” In addition, the
text states the size range of the mitochondrial
genomes of plants is 200–2740 kb, and there
are no mentions of chromosomes in organellar
genomes. Recently, the upper range limit has
been extended to 10 mb, and some are now
calling parts of the mitochondrial genome
chromosomes (Wu et al., 2015).
Taken for content, though, this is a nice book.
It is a bit condensed in some areas, but looking
to the primary literature for extra material
would easily supplement the text. This would
also help to bring in the latest findings that
were not known at the time of publication.
Anyone considering designing a course on
plant genomes should consider this text. It
briefly, but thoroughly, covers many diverse
topics, and the tripartite design offers a natural
three-unit course. I, for one, will keep it in
mind when I have the opportunity.
–Adam J. Ramsey, Department of Biological
Sciences, University of Memphis, Memphis,
Tennessee, USA; adam.ramsey@memphis.edu
Literature Cited
Hayatsu, H., M. Shiraishi, and K. Negishi. 2008. Bisul-
fite modification for analysis of DNA methylation.
Unit 6.10, Chapter 6 in
Current Protocols in Nucleic
Acid Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New
Jersey, USA.
Wu, Z., J. M. Cuthbert, D. R. Taylor, and D. B. Sloan.
2015. The massive mitochondrial genome of the
angiosperm
Silene noctiflora is evolving by gain
or loss of entire chromosomes.
Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 112(33): 10185–
10191.
HISTORICAL
A Natural History of
English Gardening: 1650–
1800
Mark Laird
2015.
ISBN-13: 978-0-300-19636-8
Cloth, US$75.00. 440 + xxi pp.
Yale University Press, London,
United Kingdom
“The garden,” Mark Laird writes in A Natural
History of English Gardening: 1650-1800,
exists “at the intersection of the wild and
domesticated” (p. 349). In this book, Laird
presents a thorough, thoughtful account of
the relationships—between plants, people,
animals, and ideas—that characterized
gardening and linked it with natural history
in late 17th- and 18th-century England. As
with his previous work on English gardening
(e.g., Laird, 1999), the author approaches
his subject as a story of people, exploring
150 years of gardening by weaving together
the stories of the individuals whose gardens,
books, art, and letters reveal the horticultural
trends of their age.
The book progresses in a generally
chronological manner, although Laird takes
care that strict adherence to chronology
does not interfere with the natural flow of his
storytelling. Accordingly, and as the author
fully admits, this book at times “inclines to the
fragmentary” (p. 329); this is, however, one of
its strengths, as it allows individual fragments
of history to gradually gain significance in
relation to each other. Laird uses as his primary
sources paintings, drawings, other botanical
and natural history illustrations, historical
maps and garden diagrams, personal journals,
and a plethora of letters. These letters, sent
between garden owners, garden designers,
botanists, and others, are extensively quoted
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
47
animals, and weather (White, 1789) began as
a record of his garden. The role of the garden
as a “laboratory of empirical science” (p. 349),
on the other hand, is perhaps exemplified by
the constant, creative efforts of horticulturists
to see what exotic plants would grow in the
English climate.
The majority of the book’s 341 figures are
botanical illustrations by artists including
Mark Catesby, Georg Dionysius Ehret,
Jacobus van Huysum, Thomas Robbins the
Elder, Alexander Marshal, Everhard Kick, and
James Sowerby. Other illustrations include
maps, portraits, and depictions of animals. I
was particularly struck by the gorgeous cut-
paper collage botanical illustrations of Mary
Delany. And I would be remiss if I did not also
mention the author’s beautiful reconstructions
of historical gardens, drawn from written
descriptions and garden plans, which begin
each chapter.
Laird’s use of botanical nomenclature is, for
the most part, accurate and current. I only
noticed a few nomenclatural errors, viz.:
Myrica cerifera rather than Morella cerifera
(p. 240), Eugenia suborbiculare [sic] rather
than Syzygium suborbiculare (p. 274), and
Aster cordifolius and A. dumosus rather than
Symphyotrichum cordifolium and S. dumosum,
respectively (p. 306). The book concludes with
38 pages of endnotes, including full citations
of all works mentioned in the text, followed
by an index. The 15-page index, prepared
by Meg Davies, is comprehensive. My only,
albeit minor, complaint is that many plants
are indexed under common names only, with
parenthetical references to scientific names.
A Natural History of English Gardening:
1650–1800 is likely not of direct professional
relevance to most botanists; as a scholarly
work, it will primarily be of importance
throughout the book and provide a window
not only on the human interactions on which
gardening depends but also on a detailed
record of meteorological and phenological
events.
Over the course of the book’s seven chapters,
Laird elegantly lays out the connections
between horticulture and natural history in
England in the years 1650–1800. Each chapter
focuses primarily on a set of distinct (but not
discrete) ideas: Chapter 3, for example, centers
on the importation of exotic plants for British
horticulture and the art depicting those plants,
topics which remain important throughout
the entire book. Other threads that tie the
book together include the conscious rejection
of a history of gardening defined by famous
garden designers (Walpole, 1780) in favor
of one that emphasizes the people, plants,
and creatures that inhabit garden spaces,
and constant attention to the role of (mainly
aristocratic) women as leaders in gardening
and natural history, as the financial patrons
of botanical gardens and excursions but also
as instigators and investigators who decided
what plants to feature in their landscapes or
became accomplished botanical illustrators
and taxonomists.
The connections between gardening and
natural history explored in this volume
are wide-ranging. They include such
straightforward matters as the origins of
the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the
private gardens of the Prince and Princess
of Wales and the impact of the importation
of exotic plants from Britain’s colonies in the
Americas, Asia, and elsewhere—initially for
horticultural purposes—on the burgeoning
science of Linnaean plant taxonomy. Some
of the links, though, are less obvious. For
example, Gilbert White’s celebrated collection
of natural history data concerning plants,
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
48
to historians of English horticulture.
Nevertheless, I think that many botanists will
find this to be an enjoyable read, particularly if
they are intrigued by the role of the garden as a
place to study both the wild and the cultivated,
where curious mixtures of native and exotic
plants mediate connections between humans,
other animals, and the vegetative world. This
is, in multiple ways, a book “about the nature
of gardening” (p. 5), and I recommend it to
anyone interested in the history or practice of
horticulture.
—Ian D. Medeiros, College of the Atlantic, Bar
Harbor, Maine, USA
Literature Cited
Laird, M. 1999. The Flowering of the Landscape Gar-
den: English Pleasure Grounds 1720–1800. University
of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
USA.
Walpole, H. 1780. The History of the Modern Taste in
Gardening. Strawberry Hill Press [published by the
author], London, United Kingdom.
White, G. 1789. The Natural History and Antiquities
of Selborne. Printed by T. Bensley for B. White and
Son, at Horace’s Head, Fleet Street, London, United
Kingdom.
PHYSIOLOGY
Mineral Nutrition of Rice
Nand Kumar Fageria
2014.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4665-5806-9
Hardcover, US$157.95. 586 pp.
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group,
Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Plant growth and development require the
supply, uptake, and utilization of essential
nutrients. Efficient utilization of mineral
nutrition is critical for crop production
practices, including yield increase, cost
reduction, quality improvement, and control
of environmental pollution. An excellent
textbook (Epstein and Bloom, 2005) and
a general reference (Marschner, 2012) are
available on the subject of plant mineral
nutrition; however, no monograph has been
specifically devoted to rice (Oryza sativa L.),
one of the most important crops in the world.
Mineral Nutrition of Rice, an interesting
volume written by Dr. Nand Fageria, aims to
fill this gap. Unlike other major food crops
such as wheat and corn, the majority of rice
varieties are grown in lowland regions or
under flooded soil conditions. Dr. Fageria’s
book effectively examines the unique features
of mineral nutrient requirements in rice
plants.
The volume is logically arranged into 15
chapters. An introductory chapter provides
essential background knowledge of rice
ecophysiology, including plant growth stages,
external cultivation conditions, yield analysis,
and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.
The first set of chapters (Chapters 2–4) cover
the three most yield-limiting macronutrients:
nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium
(K). The next set of chapters (Chapters 5 and
6) focus on the other three macronutrients:
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
49
calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulfur
(S). The eight chapters (Chapters 7–14) that
follow examine the essential micronutrients
one by one: zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), manganese
(Mn), iron (Fe), boron (B), molybdenum
(Mo), chlorine (Cl), and nickel (Ni). The last
chapter (Chapter 15) is devoted to silicon (Si),
which is the most important beneficial (but
not essential) element for rice growth.
The 14 nutrient chapters (Chapters 2–15)
have similar organizational structures. Every
chapter includes an introduction, followed by
sections addressing nutrient cycling in soil-
plant system functions, deficiency symptoms,
uptake in plant tissue, management practices,
and a conclusion. Additionally, sections on
use efficiency and harvest index are included
in most chapters. Iron toxicity in lowland rice
is particularly discussed in Chapter 10. The
management practice section covers effective
nutrient sources, appropriate application
methods and timing, adequate rates, the use
of efficient genotypes, and more element-
specific information. The conclusion section
summarizes take-home messages distilled
from each chapter. Most of the knowledge and
data presented are specific to rice. Research
examples from various rice cultivation
ecosystems are integrated in the volume. The
differences of mineral nutrient requirements
in multiple lowland and upland rice cultivars
are compared and discussed in detail. As an
internationally recognized expert in mineral
nutrition for crop plants, Dr. Fageria proposes
valuable recommendations for the judicious
use of fertilizers throughout the book.
This volume contains plenty of useful
information for rice researchers and breeders.
It includes 247 illustrations, 200 tables, and
numerous research examples. Most of them
are adapted from important research papers
and review articles in the field. In order to
clearly display the phenotypes caused by
diagnosed nutrient deficiencies and toxicities,
31 illustrations are presented as high-quality
color figures. The index has been carefully
designed to contain both primary terms and
sub-terms, which facilitates the efficient search
of any given topic. Every chapter contains
detailed citations and a complete reference list.
Readers can easily find additional information
on their topics of interest by looking up the
relevant literature in the reference list.
The writing style of this book is rather practical.
Theoretical explanations of general principles
in plant mineral nutrition research have been
kept to a minimum. Data presented in the
book are largely descriptive, with very little
discussion of the molecular mechanisms of
nutrient transport and function. On the other
hand, research topics relevant to agricultural
practices have been emphasized throughout
the book. For example, in the discussion of
the role of nitrogen in rice growth, multiple
research examples are presented to explain the
influence of nitrogen supply on key agronomic
traits, such as plant height, tiller number,
panicle length and density, spikelet sterility,
root length, and dry weight. In addition to
summarizing our current knowledge on rice
mineral nutrition, this volume focuses on its
practical applications in grain production.
The book successfully connects research
investigations in the lab with real-world
agricultural practices.
Overall, this book is a valuable and
comprehensive guide on the management
practices of rice mineral nutrition. Rice
researchers and breeders should have this
volume on their bookshelves as a reference.
The book is not suitable for classroom use
as a primary textbook as it would be difficult
for beginners in the field to fully digest its
content. Instead, the volume may serve well as
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
50
a complementary reference text for students.
Depending on the aims of a given course,
selected chapters or sections could be assigned
as materials for further reading.
There is room for improvement when the
author prepares the next edition. Individual
mineral nutrition elements have been
adequately discussed, but a new chapter could
be added to further describe the relationships
and interactions among those elements.
The physiological and biochemical effects
of multiple mineral nutrients on rice plant
growth and grain yield should be investigated
in an integrative way.
–Hao Peng, Department of Crop and Soil Sci-
ences, Washington State University, Pullman,
Washington, USA. hao_peng@wsu.edu
Literature Cited
Epstein, E., and A. J. Bloom. 2005.
Mineral Nutrition
of Plants: Principles and Perspectives, 2nd ed.
Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA.
Marschner, H. 2012.
Marschner’s Mineral Nutri-
tion of Higher Plants, 3rd ed. Academic Press, San
Diego, California, USA.
Book Reviews
SYSTEMATICS
Flora of Colorado
Jennifer Ackerfield
2015.
ISBN-13: 978-1-889878-45-4
Paperback, US$78.00. 818 pp.
Botanical Research Institute of
Texas Press, Fort Worth, Texas,
USA
There were two substantial manuals or
floras of Colorado published during the last
century (Rydberg, 1906; Harrington, 1954,
1964). Moreover, in 1987, William A. Weber
started to publish two partial floras/guides:
Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope and Colorado
Flora: Western Slope (4th edition, Weber and
Wittmann, 2012a, b). Obviously, a flora of the
whole state has been overdue for some time.
Last year, a new flora of the whole state was
published by a curator of the Colorado State
University herbarium, Jennifer Ackerfield.
The total numbers of native and alien vascular
plant species recognized in these treatments
can be summarized in the following table.
After clarifying the numbers with the author,
the total number of native species in her flora is
2481 (2670 unique taxa), and the total number
of introduced species is 525 (526 unique taxa).
Included introduced taxa (called “invasive”
on p. 13) are mostly naturalized species (many
of them spreading and, therefore, “invasive”
[sensu Pyšek et al., 2004]), but some are just
Flora/manual
No. of species
Rydberg,
1906
2912
Harrington, 1954, 1964
2794 (3135 taxa)
Weber & Wittman, 2012a
ca. 2300
Weber & Wittman, 2012b
ca. 2100
Ackerfield, 2015
3006 (3324 taxa)
PSB 62 (1) 2016
51
Book Reviews
cultivated (Salix matsudana) or escaping only
temporarily (Zea mays). The largest native
genera are Carex (113 species), Astragalus
(96), and Penstemon (56). The treatment
mostly follows the contemporary taxonomy,
but Amaranthaceae and Chenopodiaceae are
still separated, Lotus includes both introduced
and native (Acmispon) species, and Rhamnus
includes both Frangula and Rhamnus. A larger
number of recently used synonyms should
probably be used.
Plants are illustrated by 912 color photographs,
mostly by the author. Many detail photos of
grass spikelets, Carex perigynia and pistillate
scales, Boraginaceae nutlets, and fern sori
will be very helpful. Some pictures of whole
plants, however, are not sharp enough to be
useful for identification. Distributions of
almost all species are illustrated by county
presence maps. The book includes a short
review of Colorado botanical history, a short
description of the major plant communities,
a glossary, and an extensive list of references.
Keys look user-friendly (dissection of ovaries
is almost completely avoided), and I can’t
wait to use the Flora the next time I am in
the Colorado Rockies. It would be helpful to
include an extra key (I would like to see this
in all recent manuals) to segregate families
in the traditional Liliaceae (e.g., Tennessee
Flora Committee, 2014, p. 123). Inevitably,
for a work of this kind, many mistakes will be
recognized. Corrections and suggestions for
improvements are being collected at http://
floraofcolorado.weebly.com/#/news/ and will
be used in the next edition.
The Flora of Colorado is a monumental
achievement. The volume fulfills the needs
of professional botanists, students, and
amateurs in Colorado. Furthermore, this is
the first whole state flora written exclusively
by a woman, not only in the United States,
but in the Western Hemisphere! I know of
only about three other state floras written
completely, or almost completely, by women
botanists (Curtis, 1956–1994; Ramenskaya,
1960; Tackholm, 1974). This Flora is a must
have for anyone interested in Colorado plants.
–Marcel Rejmánek, Department of Evolution
and Ecology, University of California, Davis,
California, USA
Literature Cited
Curtis, W. 1956–1994. The Student’s Flora of Tasmania.
Government Printer, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
[Vol. 4b in collaboration with D. I. Morris]
Harrington, H. D. 1954. Manual of the Plants of Colo-
rado. The Swallow Press, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Harrington, H. D. 1964. Manual of the Plants of Colo-
rado, 2nd ed. Sage Books, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Pyšek, P., D. M. Richardson, M. Rejmánek, G. Webster,
M. Williamson, and J. Kirschner. 2004. Alien plants
in checklists and floras: Towards better communica-
tion between taxonomists and ecologists. Taxon 53:
131–143.
Ramenskaya, M. L. 1960. Opredelitel vysshich ras-
teniij Karelii [Key to the Higher Plants of Karelia, 485
pp.]. Ghosudarstvennoe Izdatelstvo Karelskoj ASSR,
Petrozavodsk, Russia.
Rydberg, P. A. 1906. Flora of Colorado. The Agricultur-
al Experiment Station, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Tackholm, V. 1974. Student’s Flora of Egypt, 2nd ed.
Cairo University Press, Cairo, Egypt.
Tennessee Flora Committee. 2014. Guide to the
Vascular Plants of Tennessee. University of Tennessee
Press, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.
Weber, W. A. 2012a. Colorado Flora–Eastern Slope, 4th
ed. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Weber, W. A. 2012b. Colorado Flora–Western Slope,
4th ed. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, Colo-
rado, USA.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
52
Book Reviews
Carnivorous Plants of
Australia: Magnum Opus
Allen Lowrie
2013. ISBN-13: Vol. 1: 978-1-
908787-11-8; Vol. 2: 978-1-
908787-12-5; Vol. 3: 978-
1908787-13-2
Cloth, £34.99/volume (3 vol-
umes). 1355 pp.
Redfern Natural History
Productions, Poole, Dorset,
England
The publication of a self-styled “magnum opus”
is unusual, but so are Australia’s carnivorous
plants. Approximately one third of the world’s
more than 750 species of carnivorous plants
are native to Australia, including a large
number of narrow endemics. Allen Lowrie
has devoted his career to studying Australia’s
carnivorous plants, and this informative,
lavishly illustrated, beautifully produced,
and surprisingly affordable three-volume set
is a welcome addition to the rapidly growing
literature on these botanical marvels.
The predecessor to the Magnum Opus was
Lowrie’s three-volume Carnivorous Plants of
Australia, published between 1987 and 1998
by the University of Western Australia. Despite
its importance as the first complete survey of
Australia’s carnivorous flora, this shorter (690
pages in total vs. 1355 for the Magnum Opus)
and smaller (octavo vs. quarto) work had a
small print run and rapidly went out of print.
In the intervening quarter-century, Lowrie
and his colleagues have found and described
many more carnivorous plant species from
Australia and dramatically expanded our
knowledge of these plants in their native
ranges.
The Magnum Opus itself introduces readers to
the different types of carnivorous plants and
the varieties of traps. Although this material
covers no new ground, it is important to note
that all trap types, except for the “lobster-
pot” trap of Genlisea, can be found within
Australia’s carnivorous flora, and most within
the southwestern region of Western Australia.
Lowrie continues the Magnum Opus with a
photographic journey through the various
habitats and localities where carnivorous
plants are found in Australia. These include
alpine meadows, coastal heathlands
(“wallum”), billabongs, lagoons, ephemeral
pools, deserts, gorges, swamps, lakes, and
some forests. The unifying characteristic of
these habitats is that they all tend to be very
low in nutrients and (at least seasonally) very
bright, and many Drosera species grow only
on silica-sand soils.
The meat of the Magnum Opus (>1000
pages), however, consists of keys, drawings,
photographs, and descriptions of all of the
Australian carnivorous plants known as of
ca. 2010 (several more have been discovered
and described since this book was published).
These include Aldrovanda (1 species), Byblis
(8), Cephalotus (1), Drosera (163), Nepenthes
(3), and Utricularia (66). Each species gets a
four-page spread on heavy, glossy paper, and
includes a standard species description with
historical, etymological, and ecological notes;
a detailed set of line drawings showing salient
characteristics; a GIS-derived range map; and
a set of field photographs. Eighteen of these
species are described for the first time in the
Magnum Opus (additional information on
each of these, as required by the International
Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and
Plants, is provided in an Appendix). Four
natural hybrids are also described. Lowrie
also clarifies some nomenclatural issue
(11 species are revised from varieties to
full species status and 12 are recalled from
synonymy), erects three new sections for
Drosera, and clarifies the application of names
for species in Drosera section Arachnopus.
PSB 62 (1) 2016
53
As the Magnum Opus seems written and
produced not only for professional botanists,
but also for field naturalists, carnivorous-plant
aficionados, and individuals who enjoy large,
lavishly illustrated coffee table books, the use
of the Appendix to describe new species and
resolve nomenclatural issues seems out of
place. Although these would have been better
published in the peer-reviewed literature,
their inclusion here may provide non-
specialists with a window on how taxonomy
and systematics evolves as new knowledge
accretes.
In that vein, a very nice addition to the book
is a compilation of biographies of the 54
botanists who have described one or more of
Australia’s carnivorous plants. These include
not only very well-known taxonomists (e.g.,
Bentham, de Candolle, Hooker [both father
and son], Linneaus, and Planchon), but also a
host of others—54 in total. All but one of the
biographies are accompanied by a painting,
etching, or photograph (the one exception is
Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, who described
Drosera lunata in 1824), and a list of the
Australian carnivorous species that they
described. Reading through these biographies
provided a wonderful historical overview
of more than three centuries of botanical
exploration in Australia.
Finally, although the keys, drawings,
and photographs will ensure accurate
identification of Australia’s carnivorous plants
in the greenhouse, lab, or herbarium, the
Magnum Opus—weighing in at more than 10
kg—is not likely to be carried in my field pack.
For that, I await an app. But on my desk, the
Magnum Opus will be the standard starting
point for studies of Australia’s carnivorous
plant flora.
—Aaron M. Ellison, Harvard University, Har-
vard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, USA
Plant Life of Southwest-
ern Australia: Adapta-
tions for Survival
Philip Groom and Byron Lamont
2015.
ISBN-13: 978-3-11-037016-4
eBook, open access. 268 pp.
De Gruyter Open, Warsaw,
Poland
Plant Life of Southwestern Australia:
Adaptations for Survival is an equally valuable
resource for enthusiasts in exotic and endemic
flora—especially botanists, ecologists,
taxonomists, phyto- and phylogeographers,
and those involved in the bioprospecting-
based biotechnology industry. Written for
an audience expected to be well-versed in
botanical, biological, and environmental
terminologies, scholars from graduate
students onward will find it immensely useful.
Moreover, a long list of –omics researchers
will appreciate the potential for generating
new data for the described species using the
information regarding adaptive strategies,
mechanisms, advantages against calamities,
soil types, and interactions with environment
and fauna.
The prologue reveals that the inspiration
behind this volume is Dr. Friedrich Ludwig
Diels. A quick browse hints that the book
promises to be an interesting read, offering
informative insights on the region’s flora
evolution and diversity, anatomical pictures,
landscape images, plant-animal interactions,
ecology, socio-economic challenges, plant
stress biology, and so on.
The first chapter gives an overview of plant
evolution in the context of the southwestern
Australian flora, providing a summary of
much of the current literature. The topics
covered include plants with fire-adaptations,
unsurprisingly for the Australian flora.
Chapter 2 will be of immense interest to
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
54
Book Reviews
researchers worldwide and especially in places
where fire is a socio-economic challenge,
ranging from Californian deserts to the
Indonesian archipelago. With global climate
change running havoc, the catalog of drought
avoiders and resisters offered in Chapter 3 will
form a phytoresource for future researchers
to exploit the genetic mechanisms for stress-
tolerance in plants.
Chapter 4 focuses on carnivorous plants,
which, with eye-catching images, their
unique anatomy, biology, ecology, and related
descriptions, are of interest to both beginners
and experienced enthusiasts. Chapter 5
moves on to parasitic plants. The region is
home to a unique set of these, including
the commercially important sandalwood,
Cuscuta, and mistletoes. Chapter 6 looks at
specialized nutrient uptake mechanisms, and
the discussed symbionts and mycorrhizae
will form a unique library for microbiologists
investigating these domains. An interesting
sub-section is Chapter 6.5 on “The Bizarre
Root System of Kingia australis.”
Chapters on pollination strategies and
syndromes (Chapter 7 and 8), on seed release
and dispersal (Chapter 10), and on seed
storage, germination, and establishment
(Chapter 11) are excellent reads for
undergraduates studying entomology or
carpology/pomology and will likewise be of
interest to specialist researchers. Taxonomists
and ecologists will find the chapter on leaves
(Chapter 9) immensely useful, especially for
sections on sclerophylly, heterophylly, and
mimicry. An interesting section looks at the
demonstration of mimicry in leaves of Hakea
trifurcata in response to a mummified avian
granivore such as Carnaby’s black cockatoo
(Figure 9.11).
The book is nicely prepared, illustrated, and
clearly written. What is even more appealing
is the fact that the book is open access on De
Gruyter Online. In addition, I must note that
interested readers may bump into another
useful resource addressing similar themes in
a book entitled Plant Life on the Sandplains
in Southwest Australia: A Global Biodiversity
Hotspot, edited by Hans Lambers, published
by University of Western Australia Press
(ISBN-13: 978-1-74258-564-2).
Some tables are exhaustive and wordy, but are
immensely informative for generating interest
in young researchers. Likewise, some schemes
could have been updated but, understandably
from a taxonomy and phytogeography
perspective, they are simple and informative.
Many sections such as those on stomatal
distribution, seed size, and mycorrhizae are
very pertinent to present-day researchers and,
although brief, are thought-provoking. With
citations updated to 2013 and spread over 37
pages, the original works are well cited. In
short, for Australia enthusiasts, this book has
all the kangaroos and platypuses of the flora
side of life!
The book boasts countless breathtaking
pictures—including Cephalotus pitchers,
Macrozamia seeds, Caladenia flowers,
and Banksia inflorescences fed upon by
the honey possum. Many of the landscape
images are stunning and of excellent quality,
demonstrating the immense diversity of the
southwestern Australian landscape. Two
improvements that can be noted: the scales
are missing for the pictures, which would have
been useful to show the dimensions of flora
ranging from gigantic trees to small flowering
herbs, and a glossary of terms may have been
helpful for non-professional readers. Overall,
the volume will be a valuable addition to any
herbarium, library, or departmental book
shelf, as well as to one’s personal collection.
—Biswapriya B. Misra, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida, USA
PSB 62 (1) 2016
55
Plant Guide: Maritime
Succulent Scrub Region,
Northwest Baja Califor-
nia, Mexico
Jim Riley, Jon Rebman, and Sula
Vanderplank
2015. ISBN-13: 978-1889878-
44-7
Flexbound, US$35.00. 218 pp.
The Botanical Research Institute of Texas Press, Fort
Worth, Texas, USA
Published by the Botanical Research Institute
of Texas Press, this is No. 42 of their Botanical
Miscellany series. The book is a photographic
guide to over 210 plants that occur in the
botanically rich Maritime Succulent Scrub
Region of Baja California, Mexico. The guide
is bilingual, with both English and Spanish
text.
The Maritime Succulent Scrub Region (MSSR)
of northwest Baja California is known for
its interesting mix of succulent plants and
Coastal Sage Scrub plants. According to this
guide, this unusual ecotone has allowed for the
development of over 100 endemic plants. This
guide mainly includes plants of this region but
also covers some from riparian, salt marsh,
and dune habitats. It is lavishly illustrated with
primarily high-quality photographs showing
many aspects of the listed plants (e.g., leaves,
flowers, fruits).
As I read through the guide I got the
impression that it was almost trying to include
too many features and could have used some
more editing. The book starts by stating its
purpose and scope: to give the reader an
appreciation for this region, which I feel it
does. After a brief description of the region,
there are two reserves listed that one may visit
to see these plants. This is followed by brief
descriptions of other habitats in the region. I
would have liked for the habitat descriptions,
especially of the MSSR, to have been more
thorough—providing more background on
geology, ecology, etc. Then follows one of the
oddest things I have ever seen in a field guide:
a brief timeline of plant evolution and when
complex life forms evolved. I did not quite
understand why this was included. There is
then a diagram of the parts of a flower and
a short introduction to modern angiosperm
classification. Here there are quibbles with
terms (e.g., quillworts and lycopods are
called Lycophytes on one page and “fern
allies” on the next) and a misunderstanding
of evolution, i.e., “angiosperms evolved first
with the Magnoliids & other Basal Eudicots,
followed by Monocots… Later the Eudicots
evolved with two seed leaves.” These kinds of
errors should have been caught by an editor.
The bulk of the guide focuses on what I assume
are the most common or interesting plants of
the region (it is not explained why these taxa
were chosen). There is a “Quick Guide to
Plant Families” with brief descriptions of the
most diverse, and therefore most likely to be
encountered, families in the region such as the
Asteraceae, Fabaceae, and Cactaceae. Here,
the bilingual nature of the book is confusing
in that it is not consistent. Opening to the
Boraginaceae and Cactaceae in the Quick
Guide, one can read their descriptions in
English on page 20 and in Spanish on page 21.
The descriptions are identical (I assume, since
I can’t read Spanish) but the photos used to
depict the families are different. On the next
two pages, covering the Chenopodiaceae and
Polygonaceae, the photos are identical on the
two language pages. On this second set of
pages there are English photo captions for the
Spanish page, whereas on the previous page
there were Spanish captions for the Spanish
page.
Book Reviews
PSB 62 (1) 2016
56
Next are the species descriptions with
angiosperm families arranged alphabetically.
Monocots are very sparingly covered and then
come the eudicots. In the upper-right corner
of each page is a header with the family and
the informal Angiosperm Phylogeny Group
(APG) grouping it occupies. Rosids and
Asterids are listed the most (although for
many pages Fabaceae are erroneously listed
as Asterids), but then families like Cactaceae
and Chenopodiaceae are listed as Core
Eudicots rather than Caryophyllids. Again, a
quibble, but these errors and inconsistencies
are common. The photos are great and I
enjoyed looking at them and reading the brief
descriptions of the plants. Here, consistency is
a problem once more. Sometimes the photos
show multiple parts of the plant and other
times just multiple photos of the flowers.
Sometimes there are photo captions telling
the reader what is depicted, but not always.
There are also no scale bars to allow the user
to know the size of the parts. Sometimes a
penny or dime is used for scale but not for
every plant.
If one is looking to take an “armchair trip” to
this region then this is a good book for that.
The photos are copious and nicely done and
would instill a sense of appreciation for the
region, as the book intends. For a scientific
guide for field identification or taxonomic
information, a user should look elsewhere.
–John G. Zaborsky, Botany Department,
University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison,
Wisconsin, USA; jzaborsky@wisc.edu
Book Reviews
Plant Science Bulletin
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Plant Science Bulletin
Spring 2016 Volume 62 Number1
Hot Air Balloon flower
Gentianella is a genus of flowering plants that comprises 275
species distributed over the Americas, Eurasia, Australia, and
New Zealand. A group of 51 species of the genus have evolved
on the high altitudes of the Andes reaching up to 4,700 m
above sea level (15,400 f). The miniature flowers portrayed in
the photo are about to open, their bright colors and the glob-
ular shape makes them seem like miniature hot air balloons.
Photo by: Oscar Vargas, The University of Texas at Austin
Submitted for the 2015 Triarch Student Travel Award
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