Ahh chooo! Pine Pollen and Climate Change

 

The bane of many a Southerner’s existence is springtime pollen. All that yellow dust swirling on the breeze and coating your car, that’s pine tree sperm.

The male cones of a Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) look like a bunch of tiny bananas growing from twig tips. If you’re thinking, “wait, that’s not a cone,” the woody cone we use to hot glue decorative wreaths or smear with peanut butter for DIY bird feeders is the female cone. Its spirals of woody shingles (or bracts) protect the tree’s eggs and, after fertilization, the developing pine embryos inside.

Male cones are much smaller and shorter lived. They release pollen for a couple of weeks each spring. And it’s a LOT of pollen: 3-5 pounds per tree. Why so much? Pines transfer pollen from male to female cones by wind. It’s not a very efficient system. More pollen increases the chance of fertilization.

With Climate Change, pollen’s gonna get worse. Ladeau and Clark (2006) found that pines growing in an elevated CO2 environment produce more pollen cones, and more pollen, at younger ages.

p.s. If you ever wondered what a pine pollen grain looks like, it’s a microscopic Mickey Mouse logo!

Ladeau SL, Clark JS. 2006. Pollen production by Pinus taeda growing in elevated atmospheric CO2. Functional Ecology. 20(3) 541-547.

Where Art & Biology go to Shop

Thanks to everyone who’s encouraged me to set up a shop for the illustrations found on this blog and on A-wing and A-way – it’s now OPEN!

Welcome to RedNewtGallery on Etsy!

p.s. If you see any artwork on either blog you’d like posted in the Shop, just comment below and I’ll add it ASAP. For instance, the illustration from my most popular blog post (Penis Bones) is not currently on the site. Hope you can see why! Haha!

Student Illustrations on Scientific American blog!

Cicada by E. Overbaugh

As a college professor, like all teachers, I relish my students’ successes. Today, I’m a whole jar-full of relish. My students’ work is posted all over a Scientific American blog, Symbiartic. Yay!

Please visit Symbiartic to see lots more student illustrations – and don’t forget to share with all your friends!

Losing our Plants

Plants love CO2. They suck it in to build their bodies and power their lives. The millions of tons of CO2 we spew into the atmosphere each year should make a plant feel like partying. Yet 70% of plants are at risk of extinction (1).

Beautiful Diversity

The image above represents the diversity of wildflowers I saw while hiking on the Appalachian Trail this summer. I’ve researched their historical medical uses (and wartime uses), pigmentation, symbiotic relationships, chemical and physical defenses, anatomy, and impact on insects. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these plants as much as I have!

Climate Change and Habitat Alteration

Climate Change brings shifting temperatures and water patterns, introduced pathogens and competitors. Since many plants have such close relationships with insects and fungi, evolutionary change grows in complexity. Most plants can’t keep up.

One of the biggest threats to plants (and everything else) is Habitat Alteration. We change the flow of rivers, turn forests into concrete deserts, build islands and literally move mountains. Geologic shifts like these used to take place over millennia. They now happen in months.

Loss of Plants, Loss of Knowledge

We change habitats to create more space for ourselves – building homes and grocery stores, retrieving fuels for our electronics and cars, and creating a lake-side view where there was none. But as we focus more and more on ourselves, we lose our awareness of everything else.

How many of us can identify the plants in our own backyards? How much medical and agricultural knowledge have we lost because “plants are boring”? When we lived within the landscape (rather than changing the landscape to suit our needs), we were forced to understand the lifeforms around us. We learned which plants to cultivate and which to avoid. We appreciated the benefits and perils of every plant.

Appreciate a Plant Today

Plants supply almost all our food and 1/2 our oxygen (thank you, algae, for the other half). Plants secure our soils and could help us battle Climate Change. Plants make beautiful flowers and support every ecosystem.

Let’s vow to get to know them better. Pick a plant in your yard and ID it. Visit an arboretum or botanical garden. Take a local botany class. And don’t forget to take some time to smell the roses.

1. http://www.iucn.org/media/news_releases/?81/Extinction-crisis-escalates-Red-List-shows-apes-corals-vultures-dolphins-all-in-danger

Wildflower Stories: Milkweed, Monarchs and Monsanto

Monarch butterfly populations have declined an estimated 90% over the past 20 years. [1] What’s going on?! The answer involves genetic engineering, protozoans and herbicide.

Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), a member of the Dogbane family of plants, is closely associated with Monarch butterflies. Monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed and assimilate the plant’s chemical defenses, providing the Monarchs protection over the rest of their lives.

Milkweed grows in disturbed soils, like those used in agriculture. The plant is often found between rows of corn or soybeans. However, genetic modification of corn and soybean allows herbicides (such as Monsanto’s RoundUp) to be more efficient at killing other plants, like milkweed. Fewer milkweeds, fewer Monarchs.

So good-hearted people came to the rescue, planting Milkweed in their yards in an effort to help the butterflies. Unfortunately, many people planted the wrong species of Milkweed. Here in the U.S., native Milkweed dies back each year. This dieback limits the population of a Monarch parasite called OE (Ophryocystis electroscirrha). [2] However, the species of Milkweed people planted is evergreen, so the parasites keep proliferating and Monarchs get so sick they don’t survive their migration to Mexico and back.

If you’d like to find the right Milkweed for your neck of the woods, here’s a handy tool from Xerces.

1. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141010-monarch-butterfly-migration-threatened-plan/
2. http://monarchparasites.uga.edu/whatisOE/

Wildflower Stories: Ast(er)ounding!

Favorite flower? Daisy (an Aster, like these).
Not only is it humble and cute, it’s a bargain. For each daisy you buy, you get hundreds of flowers. The disk part of each “flower” is actually a composite of scores of tiny flowers. Look close – you’ll see.

And the “petals” of a daisy? Each one is actually a whole flower too! The single petal plucked for “loves me” or “loves me not” is actually 5 petals fused over evolutionary time. If you look at the tips, you can still see some divisions.

Here’s another example of an aster – purple coneflower!

Educational Activity: dissect an aster and see all the mini-flowers for yourself!

Wildflower Stories: Part 2 (Tall Bluebell)

See that Tall Bluebell (Campanulastrum americanum) flower? Is it red or is it blue?

Believe it or not, it’s kind of both!

The color pigment in plants that makes red is called anthocyanin. The pigment normally reflects red light waves. But if you raise the pH and add a couple metal atoms to anthocyanin, it changes the light waves reflected – and poof – blue!

Turns out, blue is a pretty rare color in nature. Dr. David Lee wrote a whole book about how colors in nature come to be, including the fairly complex steps to making blue in “Nature’s Palette: The Science of Plant Color”.

If you’d like to check out the color pigments in the flowers around your home, visit Scientific American for an easy, do-it-yourself pigment experiment.

Spring has SPRUNG!

Daffodils (Narcissus poeticus) bring true joy to the winter-weary world.
But after a few moments of appreciation, what does a biologist do? Dissect it!

The showy parts of the plant consist of tepals (the petal-like structures) and a corona (the trumpet-shaped form that defines a daffodil). Growing from the center of the flower are the stamen with pollen-laden anthers and the style, leading down to the ovary.

If you decide to dissect your own daffodils, wash your hands afterward. The plants contain a mildly toxic substance – mostly to fend off herbivores like deer or insects. And if you just want to admire cut daffodils on your coffee table, keep them in their own vase. That toxin can harm other flowers too.

That daffodil is no pansy!