Interactive Key to Wetland Monocots

What a nifty new resource!

There is a new Interactive Key to Wetland Monocots of the US (ca. 2400
taxa) available from PLANTS (plants.usda.gov). See
(http://npdc.usda.gov/technical/plantid_wetland_mono.html) for details.
It is free for use and download and requires no installation or
registration.

The data set was developed cooperatively by the Missouri Botanical
Garden and the USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center and was compiled
from numerous and varied sources by Dr. David Bogler of the Missouri
Botanical Garden (ca. 1.7 million data points). The automated plant key
runs in a new version of SLIKS (www.stingersplace.com/SLIKS) which is
free and requires no installation. It lets you identify the monocots
known to occur in U.S. wetlands. The species list in this key is
derived from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetland
Inventory National List of Vascular Plant Species That Occur in
Wetlands: 1998 National List.

866 Reports Can't be Wrong

Very depressing news just before the holiday...

WASHINGTON - Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends.
These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly.

"We are finally seeing species going extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening."

Her review of 866 scientific studies is summed up in the journal Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics.

Parmesan reports seeing trends of animal populations moving northward if they can, of species adapting slightly because of climate change, of plants blooming earlier (remember our earlier post?), and of an increase in pests and parasites.

Read the rest here.

NJ Pinelands Drawings at Rutgers

A historical collection of NJ Pinelands botanical drawings was acquired by the Alexander Library of Rutgers University (my alma mater). This collection of black-and-white illustrations was created by Dr. Albert List, Jr. (1928-2005). List was a botany professor at Drexel University with an interest in field botany and a training in art. Included in this donated collection are an estimated 1000 drawings of vascular plants (a few insects and several mosses, lichens, etc too), unpublished manuscripts, and notes. What a boon to local botanists!

More on Albert List.

Autumnal Colors Head North

global warming and fall foliage

Say it ain't so!

Some climatologists have said that even if steps are taken now to limit global warming, temperatures in New England will rise enough over the next half-century that the source of much of that rich fall color, the sugar maples (Acer saccharum), will disappear from most of the region. Healthy stands of sugar maples may be found eventually no farther south than Canada and northern Maine.

Herbaria aid climate change research

Haven't we been telling you that herbarium sheets are the foundation of all that is good and pure in the world? What is an herbarium sheet, you say? See this (then click on "store").



An old photograph shows that on Memorial Day, 1868, the deciduous trees in Lowell Cemetery in Massachusetts had yet to leaf out. On Memorial Day, 2005, they stood in full verdure. Leafing or flowering dates each year depend on temperature, and global warming has been driving those events earlier in many places. Plants take part in many ecological interactions—with their pollinators, for instance—that are precisely timed. Changes in their seasonal development may therefore bring on broader ecological disruptions. Records of past plant development are scarce, though, so analyzing trends in timing has been difficult.




Now Abraham J. Miller-Rushing and Richard B. Primack, both ecologists at Boston University et al. have compared dated historical photographs, as well as dated herbarium specimens, of plants in flower in eastern Massachusetts, with recent observations of the same species. The plants now flower about eleven days earlier than they did a hundred years ago, when the region was 4.5 Fahrenheit degrees cooler. Their findings echo independent estimates from other data, confirming that old photographs and herbarium specimens are reliable sources for climate-change research. (American Journal of Botany, in press, 2006)

Pollination Station

Lots of news about pollinators.

First, the bad news...
Long-term population trends for some North American pollinators -- bees, birds, bats, and other animals and insects that spread pollen so plant fertilization can occur -- are "demonstrably downward," says a new report from the National Research Council. However, there is little or no population data for many pollinators, which prompted the committee that wrote the report to call for stepped-up efforts to monitor these creatures and improve understanding of their basic ecology. Read more

Now, the good news...
U.S. Postal Service announced the creation of Pollination stamps which will be released next summer to coincide with National Pollinator Week (June 24-30). The stamps consist of four images arranged in two alternate and interlocking patterns. The intricate design of these beautiful stamps emphasizes the ecological relationship between pollinators and plants and suggests the biodiversity necessary to ensure the viability of that relationship.

Depicted on the Pollination stamps are four wildflowers and four pollinators. Two Morrison’s bumble bees are paired with purple or chaparral nightshade (one of the bees is actively engaged in buzz pollination). A calliope hummingbird sips from a hummingbird trumpet blossom. A lesser long-nosed bat prepares to “dive” into a saguaro flower. And a Southern dogface butterfly visits prairie or common ironweed.

And some interesting news...

Researchers Find that Flower Choice Matters

Rebecca Flanagan has probably come as close as a human can to reading the mind of a bumblebee.

Flanagan is studying the behaviors of bees as they gather pollen -- which plant species the bees forage on, which flowers they probe
and in what order, and how many blooms they visit before moving on to another plant.

But why go to such lengths to map the flight of the bumblebee? The bees are pivotal players in determining which plant populations survive through successful reproduction. If scientists could better understand nature’s decision-making process, then they could use the information to increase crop yields and to boost conservation of native plant communities.


For more information on pollinators: www.pollinator.org.