Now back from this week’s Botany 2016 meeting in Savannah, Georgia, I have some photos to share with you.  As I mentioned in the previous post, meetings like this provide us with a number of benefits — connecting with colleagues, seeing what others are doing in research, and just experiencing a new city.  I had not been to Savannah before and I enjoyed it.  The famous garden squares that the city is built around give it a unique feel.  The meeting was well-attended and had an especially large component of presentations about outreach from academic units to the broader public — something that we are trying to do with this blog.

I could not resist stopping along the highway on the way down to photograph this rock face that had been dislodged by roots growing into a crevice and ultimately causing it to fall, illustrating the power of plants!

Savannah is a port city, near the Atlantic Ocean and served by the Savannah River, meaning the the city sees a lot of large container ships; here is a view of part of the city from the convention center at which our meeting was held.

These meetings are held at large convention centers these days, as opposed to college campuses, where we used to meet. It is convenient in that all of the presentations are closer together and there are large open spaces for meeting with colleagues, as shown here.

Most of the formal exchange at a meeting like this consists of talks presented by the attendees; you can do a lot of sitting throughout the day.

 

 

 

Posters are also a popular way of presenting your research results. Here, a former student in our program, Dr. Lisa Wallace, explains the status of the Mississippi herbarium databasing effort.

Paul Blischak, one of our current EEOB students, explains some of his work during the poster session.

 

 

Savannah is famous as the setting for John Berendt’s novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Local cemeteries are not only historic and atmospheric, but also reveal plants growing wherever they can — here in a brick wall.

The fact that the Palmetto (Sabal palmetto) is frequent and native in the area reminds us that we are approaching the subtropics and tropics, home to most palm diversity.

 

Although not native to the US, the Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia) is used widely in plantings in the south as a street tree and provides a lot of color.

About the Author: Dr. John Freudenstein is a Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and Director of the OSU Herbarium.

For many university faculty who are associated with museum collections, summer is a very different time than the academic year.  Many of us do not have teaching and departmental responsibilities then and so we are able to get out to do fieldwork, focus more intensively on research projects, and attend meetings.

When I say meetings, what do I mean?  Most scientific societies hold meetings for their members periodically – many on an annual basis.  These meetings bring together researchers and educators to exchange ideas about their work.  We present talks and posters that summarize results of projects.  As a plant systematist, I usually attend the “Botany” meeting that is held this week in Savannah, GA.

The meeting is large enough (with over a thousand attendees) that there are many parallel sessions on different topics, so it is not possible for one person to attend all of the talks.  You just have to make a schedule and choose what you want to hear – and talk to your colleagues to find out about talks that you missed.

In addition to oral presentations with projected graphics, posters are a great way to communicate the results of your scientific work.  The nice thing about posters is that they are available for viewing for several days and you can take your time reading them (usually they are assembled in a large room or two).  In addition during “poster sessions” – dedicated times when there are no talks going on – individuals will be standing by their posters to speak with meeting attendees about their work.  Another nice thing about posters is that after the meeting they can be brought back to your institution and displayed there.

What about biological collections and their relevance to these meetings?  Biological collections come into play in several ways.  First, much of the work that is being presented at evolutionarily-ecologically focused meetings is based in some way on specimens, so they are important as the basis for the data.  Second, there are often sessions at these meetings that are focused on specimens and museum collections – including exchanging ideas about best practices in curation and organizing larger-scale initiatives for the community.  At this year’s Botany meeting, for example, I will attend a session for herbarium curators and for anyone who is involved with and interested in aspects of herbaria.  Perhaps not surprisingly, much of the discussion in recent years at those sessions has centered on specimen databasing initiatives and how we can better work together across the community.  Lastly, there are professional societies dedicated to the promotion, improvement and educational aspects of natural history collections, such as the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections and the Natural Science Collections Alliance.  These societies also have meetings for individuals who are curate and develop natural history collections.

Check this blog on Friday – I’ll post some photos from the Botany 2016 meeting in Savannah so that you can see some of what has gone on there.  If you can’t wait, you can follow the meeting on Twitter (#botany2016).

About the Author:  Dr. John Freudenstein is a Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and Director of the OSU Herbarium.

Bird specimens that are part of the Tetrapod collection

When you picture a vertebrate collection, you probably think of a collection of taxidermied birds and mammals or jars of pickled fish. But when you actually visit the collection, you will find the typical research study skins, and pelts and – out of necessity- preserved parts of specimens such as jars with tongues, eyes, stomach contents, brains, boxes of horns, eggs, nests, wings etc. These are organized as sub-collections within a vertebrate collection and are known under varying names such as the osteological or oological collections. These “sub-collections” can be used as educational tools, in research projects, or in art classes. But when we salvage or collect a specimen, why don’t we keep the entire specimen? One may argue that a whole specimen would have higher value to a researcher than the bits and pieces found in these sub-collections.

Indeed it is useful to preserve the entire specimen but there are many constraints that vertebrate and other museum collections face that prevent us from keeping an intact specimen.

One big issue museums face is space. For vertebrate collections, though it would be lovely to

A walrus as a whole specimen takes up a large space but when folded up it can fit in a cabinet. (S. Malinich, 2013)

have an entire whale or elephant in the collection, such a specimen would take up a large part of our collection area. If a museum has a whale in its collection it may only keep parts that researchers have requested in the past such as particular vertebrae, a manus, or a partial skull. A great example of this can be found in the AudioVision “Whale Warehouse”  video episode. Within the episode, Grant Slater and Mae Ryan, producers for Southern California public radio, explore the L. A. Natural History Museum’s over-sized specimen storage facility, a place where curators store parts of large aquatic mammal specimens. Not only are the specimen parts inside large but they take up an entire warehouse off grounds from the main facility!

Larger birds, such as these Golden Eagles, take up space where hundreds of smaller song birds could fit. (S. Malinich, 2013)

Here at the Museum of Biological Diversity, we do not face the challenge of storing whales, but smaller specimens in large numbers can soon turn into a space problem, too. Over 20 swan specimens, can take up the same cabinet that could be holding over a thousand smaller song birds. This puts constraints on how many specimens of a species we can accession per year and the maximum size of specimens that we can accept.

Another problem museum collections face is the condition of a specimen. Upon receiving specimens we conduct quality checks on varying aspects of the specimen.

Smelling a specimen before preparing it can help make decisions if it smells rotten.

First, we conduct a sniff check: if the specimen smells rotten, it is past the point of return and we do not attempt to make it into a study skin, because it would continue to decay at a rapid pace.

A student prepares a specimen skin. While she prepares it she checks it for any reasons why it could not be made into a full study skin.

Second, we do a visual look over on the outside of the specimen: We look for maggots, large wounds, as well as gangrenous flesh which would prevent us from turning the specimen into a whole study skin.

Third, we consider acceptance of certain specimens over the year. Though

Examining a large Great Horned Owl before salvaging parts of this specimen.

it would be nice to make every specimen we receive into a study skin, we simply cannot  fit them all into cabinets. So only the specimens that are clean (or cleanable) and not losing feathers or fur will be preserved as full skins.

Sub-collections may arise because of a researcher’s fascination with a particular feature of a specimen, but they have become important parts of modern collections. Some sub-collections of the Tetrapod Collection are: skeletons, wings, feet, tails or samples of feathers. This way important research material is preserved, but instead of taking up a large portion of a cabinet these specimens can be filed just like documents into filing cabinets. This also makes sure that valuable records of species are kept even though a full skin could not be made because of how they were found when salvaged. These parts collections can still be valuable for research, for example, when scientists need DNA samples of a particular species. New molecular techniques allow extracting DNA from small tissue samples. To make up for the loss of a full skin, we take multiple images and measurements during processing to accompany the specimen in the collection.

A typical set up for preparing study skins.

Though it would be ideal for museum’s to preserve an entire specimen it may not be possible in the future as museum collections continue to grow. However as science progresses we are finding that even the smallests amounts of tissue samples of specimens can reveal much about a species. Entire collections of just tissue samples are being formed all around the world focusing on specific taxons or groups of species. In the future, as collections continue to grow it will become more beneficial to create more sub-collections with tissue samples to further the research value of museum collections.

About the author: Stephanie Malinich manages the tetrapods collection at the MBD.

Here are just of few of the species that were included in the Calinger et al. study of flowering time.

Cercis canadensis (Redbud), a tree in the bean family (Fabaceae), flowers in spring.

Aesculus glabra (Ohio Buckeye; Sapindaceae), flowering in spring.

Podophyllum peltatum (Mayapple), flowering in spring.

Sabatia angularis (Rose Pink) flowers in summer. It is a member of the gentian family.

Cypripedium parviflorum (Yellow Lady’s Slipper) is an orchid that flowers in spring.

Cypripedium acaule (Pink Lady’s Slipper) also flowers in spring.

Hypopitys americana (Pinesap) is a leafless member of the blueberry family that flowers in summer.

Monotropa uniflora is also leafless and a member of the blueberry family.

Calopogon tuberosus (Grass Pink) flowers in summer and is limited to bogs and wet sand.

Chimaphila maculata (Spotted Pipsissewa) is a small, almost herbaceous member of the blueberry family (Ericaceae). It flowers in summer.

Tipularia discolor (Cranefly Orchid) has leaves that are present during the winter and flowers in late summer.

The flowers of the Cranefly Orchid are unusual in that they are asymmetric — the petal on the left side of the flower is shifted downward.

Corallorhiza maculata (Spotted Coralroot) is a leafless orchid that flowers in late summer.

Acer saccharum (Sugar Maple) flowers in spring, but is well-known for its autumn foliage colors.

About the Author:  Dr. John Freudenstein is a Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and Director of the OSU Herbarium.  All phots by the author except those of Corallorhiza and Tipularia, which were taken by Erich DeLin.

We frequently talk about the nature of our collections, the techniques that we use to preserve specimens, and sometimes about the living organisms that they represent. This time I would like to comment on what we can DO with the specimens. We are preserving them for the information that they contain, so let’s look at an example of how we can use that information.

A key point about museum collections is that, if done correctly, they preserve the organism with data about where and when it was collected. That spatial and temporal information is valuable and is why individual specimens are truly irreplaceable – you cannot go back in time to recollect something.

Climate change is a big topic in the news these days and because it is about change – something different in one time from another – museum specimens can be relevant to studying it. If in fact the climate is warming in a particular area, one expectation is that the growing season may lengthen – it might start a little earlier in spring and end a little later in autumn. If we could compare when plants begin flowering in spring, for example, we might find that for various species they flower somewhat earlier on average in the climate has warmed.

A study performed by one of the graduate students in our department was designed to investigate this. Kellen Calinger used herbarium specimens from our collection from across Ohio. She targeted plants at the peak of bloom, which meant that she needed to be careful that she was comparing plants in the same state of flowering (not just opening and not getting past), which she was easily able to do by examining each sheet. She restricted her sampling to a fairly narrow area to prevent the confounding effects of north-south variation in seasons. She analyzed 141 species collected over 115 years, including those flowering in spring, early and late summer. She also considered whether the species were herbaceous or woody, annual or perennial, wind or insect pollinated, and whether they were native or introduced.

A graph from the Calinger et al. paper showing the gradual upward trend in temperatures over the past century.

What did she find? First, she found that there was considerable variation among the species with respect to how they responded to warming temperature. Sixty-six species (46%) showed significant advancement of flowering time with increasing temperature, while only two species (1%) showed a delay in flowering time. The remainder did not show a statistically significant change. Overall, flowering advanced 3.4 days per every degree (F) of warming for those 46% of species that were most sensitive, it was 5.2 days per degree. Spring flowering species were more responsive than those that flower in early or mid-summer, suggesting that there is a “buffering effect” as you move into the growing season. Wind-pollinated species (such as oaks) were more strongly affected than insect pollinated species, and introduced species were markedly more affected than native species. Annuals were more affected than perennials.

Phacelia purshii with a visiting bee. Photo by John Andersland.

How much of an effect is this? For Phacelia purshii (common name: Miami Mist) in northeastern Ohio, where the temperature effect seems strongest, it is flowering now two weeks earlier than it did a century ago. Many species in the study showed this pattern. One of the most troubling findings was the fact that introduced species seem to be very responsive to warming, suggesting that invasives may become an increasing problem.

Enough of the bad news – my point here was to emphasize what we can learn from museum collections that we could not otherwise know. Without the documentation of the presence of species at particular places and times, we would have no way to perform this kind of analysis. It’s just one example of what we can learn from our collections.

About the Author:  Dr. John Freudenstein is a Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and Director of the OSU Herbarium.