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Biodiversity of the Potomac River Valley (Work-In-Progress, Draft of 11 April 2013)

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Biodiversity of the Potomac River Valley (Work-In-Progress, Draft of 11 April 2013) Biodiversity of the Potomac River Valley (work-in-progress, draft of 11 April 2013) Edward M. Barrows Laboratory of Biodiversity and Entomology, Georgetown Univerisity, Washington, D.C. _______________________________ _______________________________ Table of Contents Introduction (Goals, Background, Disclaimers, Organism Names) Table 1. Some Large Divisions of Life on Earth. Table 2. Life A. Domain Archaea B. Domain Bacteria C. Domain Eukarya 1. Kingdom Animalia 2. Kingdom Fungi 3. Kingdom Plantae Nonflowering Plants 4. Kingdom Protista Appendix 1. Abbreviations and Definitions Appendix 2. Glossary (taxa and other terms) Appendix 3. Map key. Literature Cited _________________________________ _________________________________ Goals Increase our nature and scientific literacy in view of Earth Stewardship. Learn about local biodiversity. Learn about local plant communities. Pool our knowledge and update this list as a group. _________________________________ This document I started this document in 2009 for my Forest Ecology class, and hope to update it over the years. This is primarily an annotated list of local biota. I include more detailed information for selected taxon in Table 5. For full information you should consult reference books and scientific papers, some of which I list in the References. Please give me corrections, additions, suggestions, etc. A wonderful introduction to the biota of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region is Alden, P., B. Cassie, J. D. W. Kahl, E. A. Oches, H. Zirlin, and W. B. Zomlefer. 2007. National Audubon Society. Field Guide to the Mid-Atlantic States. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY. 448 pp. _________________________________ Background How do many biologists now classify life from large through small taxonomic groups (= taxa)? (domain, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, subspecies (variety and forma in plants) and categories between the larger categories) Table 1. Some Large Divisions of Life on Earth. Taxon English name Approximate Examples number of species Domain Archaeans hundreds Methanogens Archaea Domain Bacteria millions Human Gut Bacteria, Bacteria Staphlococci, Streptococci Domain Eucaryans millions Eukarya Kingdom Animals milllions Metazoans, Sponges, Animalia Flatworms, Roundworms, Arthropods, Echinoderms, Urochordates, Hemichordates, Cephalochordates, Chordates Kingdom Fungi Fungi thousands Asocomycetes, Basidiomycetes Kingdom Plants thousands Mosses, Horsetails, Plantae Clubmosses, Ferns, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms Kingdom Protozoans thousands Algae, Euglenoids, Plasmodia, Protozoa, Trypanosomes sensu lato Note: There are likely over 20,000 species in the the Washington, D.C., Area. Due to time and space limitations, I include only some of these fascinating taxa below, emphasizing the Potomac Valley Area. Species counts are from Brown and Brown 1972, 1984, and other sources. _________________________________ Disclaimers, Etc. The list in Table 2 is a conglomeration from bioblitz lists, Michigan banana, poor man’s banana, and West Virginia lists from my forest ecology course, and other lists. The list banana, respectively. Why the capitalized names? Some is far from complete. I have not included all known biologists including myself consider the so called common nonscientific names and scientific names of listed names of plants, in truth, to be proper English nonscientific organisms. Further, this list is obviously very incomplete. names (that is, proper nouns). Each of the above English I include full names of some of the taxon authors for fun. I names stands for a total species — the Pawpaw. Why the have not yet had a chance to italicize all genus, species, hyphens? Well, I’m an admitted hyphenist and a commaist and variety names. for enhanced-communcation reasons. Regarding the _________________________________ hyphens, I follow the lead of some prominent botanists (e.g., Stanwyn G. Shetler) who evidently think we should Organism Consumption. I am not responsible for anyone use nonscientific names that indicate true botanical who consumes anything on field trips organized by me. taxonomy of plants ( Shetler and Orli 2001, 2002; Barrows _________________________________ 2011). Pawpaw is in the Custard-apple Family _________________________________ (Annonaceae), not the Rose Family (which includes apple species) or the Banana Family (which includes the Antianthropocentrism and Demystifying Organism Names Bananas, and Birds-of-Paradise, and Traveler’s-palms). — Plants Therefore, we should indicate that Pawpaw is not an apple or a banana through hyphenation or joining words. For People have given organisms many names, both proper example, we could write “Custard-apple” or “Custardapple.” names (nonscientific names) in Chinese, English, French, Further, I use a proper noun such as “Bananas,” as a German, Indian, Japanese, Russian, and so forth as well synonym for the genus Musa which includes all Banana as scientific names. These thousands of names and rules species of the world. If all of these names and rules are of English and binomial nomenclature confuse many of us. driving you bananas and bandanas, you are likely not At Georgetown University, students learn some classical alone! biology in my ecology courses when I present a learning Finally, I respectfully consider the use of proper nouns for module called “Demystifying Organism Names.” Some organism names to be a means of paying homage to students are surprised that there are rules of binomial biodiversity and a conceptual move away from too much nomenclature and the rules differ among taxonomic groups rampant, and even destructive, anthropocentrism that we as well as some other facts about organism names. I’ll say constantly perceive around us. Why should we make the just a little about plant names here. name of just one individual of one of the millions of species on Earth such as Roger Tory Peterson a proper noun, yet For example, a plant that I usually call Pawpaw or Asimina not capitalize the name of entire species? triloba is also called the Common Pawpaw, Custard-apple __________________________________________ (in Central USA), Hoosier-banana (Ohio), Michigan-banana __________________________________________ (Michigan), Poor Man's-banana (by underpaid professors), and West-Virginia-banana (West Virginia). It likely has Table 1. Selected organisms of TRP. If it is sunny, you some Native American names as well. The Pawpaw’s full might see some of the insects listed below in flight (bees, scientific name is Asimina triloba (Linnaeus) Dunal, 1817. butterflies, and wasps). Many of the plants listed below “Asimina” is its generic name, and “triloba” is its specific flower in late winter and early spring. epithet. Why are human names attached to this plant’s __________________________________________ scientific name? Carolus Linnaeus, the father of binomial Domain Archaea, Archaeans (WDCA, possibly 100 spp.) nomenclature, originally named this plant. In 1817, Felix Michel Dunal (French biologist, 1789–1856) published his Clade Euryarhaeota (Greek eurys, broad in reference to work that reclassified Pawpaw into is current genus the broad habitat range of this clade. All methanogen (Asimina). By botanical taxonomic convention, the first species are in this clade.) author to name this plant (Linnaeus) went into __________________________________________ parentheses. extreme thermophiles (some species) You might have noticed that I wrote Common Pawpaw, ☐ methanogen species Custard-apple, Hoosier-banana, Michigan-banana, Poor ☐ animal-gut methanogen species Man's-banana, and West-Virginia-banana instead of ☐ marsh methanogen species common pawpaw, custard apple, and Hoosier banana, ☐ sewage-treatment-plant methanogen species Group Spirochetes ☐ swamp methanogen species _________________________________ __________________________________________ Group Proteobacteria (All are gram-negative.) ☐ non-extremophiles (many spp.) _________________________________ __________________________________________ Subgroup Alpha Proteobactia Clade Crenarchoaeota (Greek? Cren, spring of water) ☐ Agrobacterium spp. (Plant-tumor-producing bacteria) ☐ extreme thermophiles (many spp.) ☐ Rhizobium spp. (Legume symbionts, nitrogen-fixing ☐ non-extremophiles (many spp.) bacteria) __________________________________________ _________________________________ Clade Korarachaeota (tiny archaens with only 500,000 Subgroup Beta Proteobacteria base pairs in their genomes, in Icelandic hydrothermal vents) ☐ Nitrosomonas spp. (Soil bacteria that oxidize __________________________________________ ammonium and produce nitrite as a waste product.) Clade Nanoarchaeota (Greek nanos, dwarf, at least 4 _________________________________ species based on DNA analysis) Subgroup Gamma Proteobacteria __________________________________________ __________________________________________ ☐ Chromatium spp. (Sulfur Bacteria which obtain energy by oxidizing Hydrogen Sulfide and produce Sulfur as a Domain Bacteria, Bacteria (WDCA, about 10,000 spp.) waste product.) ☐ Escherichia coli (Migula 1895) Castellani and Chalmers As a group, Bacteria are commensals, decomposers, food 1919, Mammal-gut Bacterium, “E. coli” material of other organisms, mutualists, parasites, ☐ ☹ Escherichia coli O104:H4 (human pathological, even pathogens, predators, prey, and scavengers. deadly form) ☐ Legionella pneumophila Brenner, Steigerwalt, & Humans each carry about 4000 bacterial species, and McDade, 1979; Legionnaires’ Disease Bacterium there is bacterial succession throughout a person’s life. (causative
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