Department of Botany & the U.S. National Herbarium The Plant Press New Series - Vol. 21 - No. 1 January-March 2018 Botany Profile Wind Dispersal for the Win: New Fern Collections from the Marquesas Islands By Eric Schuettpelz ypical fern spores are less than by Warren Wagner), and the Institut de pillars. The summit of one of these one tenth of a millimeter in Recherche pour le Développement (led by pillars, Oave, at 1203 m, is among the Tdiameter and are readily carried to Jacques Florence) have been studying the highest points in the Marquesas. far off places by the wind. Having such plants inhabiting this archipelago for more We spent nine full days on Ua Pou, small propagules certainly contributes than three decades. Much of their prog- collecting pteridophytes, bryophytes, to the disproportionate diversity of these ress has been tracked on the Flora of the lichens, and even some flowering plants. plants on oceanic islands. Although ferns Marquesas website (http://botany.si.edu/ The bulk of our time was spent in the and lycophytes (collectively pterido- pacificislandbiodiversity/marquesasflora) higher parts of the island, which were phytes) only account for about 4 percent and this information is currently being generally accessible only by foot. We of the world’s vascular plant species, developed into a two volume Flora of the circled Poumaka, a prominent 500 m they can easily represent 20 percent of Marquesas Islands to be published in late tall spire, and collected on the steep the species on islands. Generally speak- 2018. At present, 329 native vascular plant ridges and in the deep valleys around ing, the more isolated the island, the species are listed. Remarkably, ferns and Poutetainui and Tekohepu. We also spent more disproportionate the contribution of lycophytes account for 99 (30 percent) of a considerable amount of time on the pteridophytes. these. There are very few islands or archi- slopes adjacent to Oave, where Jean- Located in the southern Pacific, pelagos with proportions that are more François Butaud collected what are most about 5000 km from North America skewed toward pteridophytes. likely two new species in the genera and more than 7000 km from Australia, Pilea (Urticaceae) and Kadua (Rubi- the Marquesas Islands are farther from s a first step toward understand- aceae). The pteridophytes on Ua Pou did a continental land mass than any other ing the origins of this incredible not disappoint. We encountered large archipelago. The constituent islands are Apteridophyte diversity, I recently tree ferns (e.g., Alsophila tahitensis and well separated from the rest of French traveled to the Marquesas Islands, with Sphaeropteris medullaris) with leaves Polynesia and about 1400 km from Tahiti funding from the Global Genome Initia- several meters in length, diminutive and the rest of the Society Islands. The tive (https://ggi.si.edu) and the National filmy ferns (e.g., Crepidomanes minu- 12 major Marquesas Islands are nearly all Science Foundation, to collect herbarium tum and Didymoglossum tahitense) with volcanic in origin, ranging in age from specimens and silica-dried material for leaves smaller than 1 cm, and everything about 1 to 6 million years old. In total, DNA extraction. I was joined by Ken in between. the archipelago accounts for about 1050 Wood (National Tropical Botanical Gar- On November 8th, we left Ua Pou for km2 of land area, which is roughly the den) and Jean-François Butaud (Consul- the somewhat larger island of Hiva Oa, same as the city of Los Angeles or the tant in Forestry and Polynesian Botany). where we spent seven full days. Much The three of us met on the island of island of Tahiti and less than the Hawai- th of our time on Hiva Oa was spent in the ian island of Kaua’i. Three of the islands Tahiti late on October 28 and departed cloud forests in the vicinity of Temetiu, reach an elevation exceeding 1200 m. for the Marquesas early the next morning. which, at 1276 m, is the highest point A comprehensive flora of the Marque- After a short connection on the island of in the Marquesas. At the higher eleva- sas Islands has yet to be published. How- Nuku Hiva, the largest of the Marquesas tions, we encountered an impressive ever, researchers based at the National Islands, we made our way via a small array of grammitid ferns (nine species Tropical Botanical Garden (led by David Twin Otter aircraft to Ua Pou, a somewhat in eight genera) among many other smaller island characterized by its rocky Lorence), the Smithsonian Institution (led Continued on page 16 Travel Pedro Acevedo traveled to São Paulo toral research. ica Angyalossy at the University of São and Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil (8/14 – Stuart Davies traveled to Malaysia Paulo to students from Brazil, Guatemala, 9/15) to conduct molecular research on and Singapore (11/25 – 12/7) to give a and Argentina; and to Cambridge, Massa- Sapindaceae; to Mexico City, Mexico keynote address at a conference and to chusetts (12/5 – 12/10) to discuss collab- (10/22 – 10/28) to work with Sapindaceae meet with the Asian School of the Envi- orative research on Malpighiaceae, study at the National Herbarium of Mexico ronment as part of the Smithsonian Insti- the Malpighiaceae collection, and photo- (MEXU) for the Flora of Puebla project; tution-Nanyang Technological University graph the entire wood anatomical slides to Bronx, New York (11/1 – 11/3) to attend (SI-NTU) Partnership. of Malpighiaceae and Nyctaginaceae from the Flora of the Guianas meeting at the Ashley Egan traveled throughout the Irwin Bailey Slide collection at Har- New York Botanical Garden; and to São Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mis- vard University Herbarium Paulo, Brazil (12/2 – 12/12) to conduct sissippi (9/25 – 10/16) to conduct popula- Melinda Peters traveled to Ken- research and speak at meetings at the tion level sampling of Phaseolus polysta- nett Square, Pennsylvania (12/1 – 12/2) University of São Paulo and University of chios (Fabaceae). to deliver plant mounting supplies and Campinas. Erika Gardner traveled to Lafay- pick-up plant specimens from Larry Barrett Brooks traveled to Orlando, ette, Louisiana (10/23 – 10/26) to give a Owens, a volunteer plant mounter. Florida (10/31 – 11/17) to attend the Div- presentation to 10th graders at Lafayette Eric Schuettpelz traveled to the Mar- ing Equipment and Marketing Association Parish schools for the Gaining Early quesas Islands (10/28 – 11/19) to collect Trade Show. Awareness and Readiness for Undergradu- plant specimens. Manuela Dal Forno traveled to Graz, ate Programs (GearUP), a program of the Laura Tancredi traveled to Pittsburgh, Austria (11/02 – 11/06) to present the talk, U.S. Department of Education; and to Pennsylvania (10/11 – 10/13) to present “First insights into the microbiome of Saint Louis, Missouri (11/13 – 11/16) to a talk, “Cleaning up our act: Striving for different morphologies in the Dictyonema pack and ship Walter Lewis’ pollen slides quantity and quality in a rapid capture clade,” at a lichen genomics workshop; to from Washington University to the U.S. workflow,” at the 2017 Axiell North Porto Alegre, Brazil (11/12) to participate National Herbarium. American User Conference. in a doctoral defense at the Universidade Pedro Jiménez-Mejías traveled to Alice Tangerini traveled to San Fran- Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; and to Bronx, New York (11/5 – 11/7) to study cisco, California (10/11 – 10/15) to present Minas Gerais, Brazil (11/21 – 12/01) to the collection of Neotropical Carex a portfolio and give a workshop at the collect lichen specimens for her postdoc- (Cyperaceae) at the New York Botanical annual meeting of the American Society of Garden. Botanical Artists; and to Pasadena, Cali- The Plant Press Gabriel Johnson traveled to Belts- fornia (11/1 – 11/6) to present a tour, serve ville, Maryland (12/8) to learn about the on a panel discussion, give a workshop, New Series - Vol. 21 - No. 1 extraction of rhizobia and DNA from the and present a lecture at the Huntington Chair of Botany root nodules of a diversity of legumes Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Laurence J. Dorr at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Gardens. ([email protected]) National Rhizobium Collection laboratory. Jun Wen traveled to Beijing, Hubei, W. John Kress traveled to Shenzhen, and Taiyuan, China (11/25 – 12/12) to EDITORIAL STAFF China (10/24 – 10/30) to deliver an invited conduct collaborative research on sumac- lecture at the 12th International Confer- aphid coevolution and Vitis systematics, Editor ence on Genomics at the China National and to participate in the Second System- Gary Krupnick ([email protected]) GeneBank. atic Biology Forum in Beijing, in which Marcelo Pace traveled to São Paulo, she gave a speech on developing inte- Copy Editors Brazil (11/13 – 11/24) to teach a course, grative systematics in the genomic and Robin Everly, Bernadette Gibbons, and “Wood anatomy under a taxonomic and informatic era. Rose Gulledge systematic approach,” organized by Veron- The Plant Press is a quarterly publication pro- vided free of charge. 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