Bryophyte Research Podcasts

The American Bryological and Lichenological Society (ABLS) has started a podcast to feature current research on bryophytes and lichens directly from the experts. 



Episode 1 focuses on transcriptomics. Let me try to break this down for you. Transcripts are small messages (mRNA) that are copied from the DNA and are used as templates to make proteins. -omics refers to a field of study. So transcriptomics is the study of transcripts. When you compare the transcripts from different organs or different developmental stages it can point toward genes that are turned on and off between the two, indicating those genes that potentially make them different.  

Episode 2 is about the sex lives of bryophytes and lichens. Fortunately no explanation on the topic is needed there. 

You can listen to the full podcasts here on the ABLS website.

The Genetics of Resurrection Plants

A great article from KQED Science about resurrection mosses. Scientists are learning more about these tough plants with the goal of using their genes to improve crop plants, so that they can better survive the drought conditions in California. 

Click here for the full article. 

Professional Website Update

I finally got around to revising my professional website. It was way out of date and could use some sprucing up. I originally had some large ambitions to switch to a Wordpress site with a sharp theme, but the learning curve was just too steep for me at the moment. So instead I just made some changes to my iWeb site and posted it up. 

The only issue I keep running into with this platform is that the spacing is difficult to get right. Something about the way the formatting is automatic and my inability to see behind the scenes to tweak it. If you have any other suggestions for different website platforms that you like it would be great to hear about them!

Bryology Foray in California

Want to experience the wonders of bryophytes in California? Consider attending SO BE FREE 21 (details below). I attended last year when we explored the mosses of the San Bernardino Mountains and the year before that when we were in the hills of Santa Cruz. They were both really great trips! I especially enjoy getting to spend time with both amateur and professional bryologists from across the state and country. It is a great networking opportunity to plug into the bryology community. Hope to see you at the next foray!

This is a photo from the 2015 SO BE FREE foray. I just realized that I hadn't downloaded the photos from my camera. A post with the highlights from that awesome foray will be coming soon!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Twenty-First Annual

Spring Outing
Botanical Excursion
Foray, Retreat, and Escape to the Environment

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    SO BE FREE  21    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Brought to you by the new Bryophyte Chapter of the California Native Plant Society!

Friday to Monday, March 18-21, 2016
North Coast Range near Occidental, California
Coordinators: Stephen Rae, David Hutton, Kiamara Ludwig

Founded in 1996, SO BE FREE is a series of West Coast forays started by the Bryolab at UC Berkeley, but open to all botanists. The main focus is on bryophytes, but we also encourage experts on other groups to come along and smell the liverworts.  We welcome specialists and generalists, professionals and amateurs, master bryologists and rank beginners.  SO BE FREE is held each spring, somewhere in the Western US, associated with spring break at universities.  Evening slide shows and informal talks are presented as well as keying sessions with microscopes.  In addition to seeing interesting wild areas and learning new plants, important goals for SO BE FREE include keeping West Coast bryologists (and friends) in touch with each other and teaching beginners.  To see pictures and information from past outings, visit the SO BE FREE website at: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/bryolab/Field_Trips.html

 One important function of this year's SO BE FREE will be to serve as the first annual meeting of the brand new Bryophyte Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, which was just founded May 30th, 2015.  See: http://bryophyte.cnps.org for details, and to join!

The 2016 SO BE FREE will be held in the North Coast Range approximately 1.5 hour north of San Francisco.  Although adjacent Marin County has been the subject of a moss flora, and the Lake County Moss Flora by David Toren will soon be released, Sonoma County has not yet been treated floristically.  The county has marine sandstone deposits, volcanics, serpentine, and riparian habitats, supporting a wide range of bryophytes.  Participants will see coastal prairie, coast redwood forest, live oak woodland, serpentine chaparral, and chaparral scrub.

Beginners are very welcome to SO BE FREE, and this year we will have a special, expanded workshop session for beginners on Friday afternoon at the start of the event.  That session will include slide shows and discussions on bryophyte biology and natural history, and be augmented by mosses and liverworts on display (and under the microscope).  Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning we will have field trips to satisfy all participants from neophyte to expert! 

See: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/common/images/SBF21_announcement.pdf for more details about housing and meals, and the registration form.  Room reservations will be filled on a first come first served basis, soplease register early!  Early Registration Deadline is Dec. 15, 2015.  Regular registration Deadline is Feb. 19, 2016.

A Science Blogger Survey

Have you ever wondered why people write science blogs? In the age of Twitter and Instagram are science blogs still popular? Is science blogging dying out? Does anyone actually read them? Feedback from readers can sometimes be few and far in between. As the writer of a science blog it sometimes feels like I am shouting into an internet void. Is anyone listening?

I recently participated in a survey that went out to science bloggers about this very topic. I was excited to participate in someone's dissertation research and interested to see what came from the survey. The research is being conducted by Dr. Paige Brown Jarreau (@FromTheLabBench) at Louisiana State University. She is disseminating her data and results using open access platforms that enable us to see behind the scenes and to check out the research results prior to formal scientific publications. 

So what information does she have out there for us to explore and what can we learn from her study about science blogging?

Brown, Paige (2014): MySciBlog Survey - 
Top Read SciBlogs by SciBloggers. figshare. 
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1278974

Part of the research involved determining the connections between science blogs. Answering questions like, as a science blogger which science blogs do you read? Or who are the science bloggers that follow your science blog? Interesting questions, but how do you display this type of data once you have the information? Here Paige walks you step by step through the process of using data to map a social network.

The best part in my opinion is this interactive network available on figshare. You can zoom in on different parts of the network and see how connected each of the science blogs and bloggers are to others in the community. You can find Moss Plants in Group 8. The black cluster in the lower right corner. I follow other science bloggers, but no one else in the survey follows my blog. A bit disappointing, but potentially to be expected. Another interesting pattern that you can see from this graphic is the highly connected red blog on the left side. That is blog Not Exactly Rocket Science from National Geographic. It looks to be very popular among science bloggers and might be one that I need to check out to see what it is all about. 

The slides from Paige's dissertation presentation walk you through the big picture and major findings of her research. She also breaks the research down point by point in this blog post.

For some additional reading on this project check out Paige's blog post that argues using her data that science blogs are not dying. Thank goodness! My posting has become more monthly rather than weekly these days and I was pondering whether or not I should keep it up. For now I am still in for blogging, but I am contemplating inviting some colleagues to guest post. So if you know of anyone who is interested in practicing their science communication skills and writing posts about mosses just drop me a message. 

Bryology Logo Competition

Want to combine your artistic skills and your love of bryophytes? 

Design the new logo for the International Association of Bryologists. 

Information about the logo competition is below.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear colleagues and friends of the International Association of Bryologists (IAB),

In this digital age, we feel it is an opportunistic time to update our logo to one that keeps pace with the contemporary age but also reflects the mission and history of the association. The that both of us might not be talented enough.

Thus, the International Association of Bryologists (IAB) is therefore excited to announce an open competition for a new logo of IAB.

Please send your proposals by Dec. 1^st to the acting president of IAB (quandt@uni-bonn.de) or the treasurer (mkonrat@fieldmuseum.org). Proposals are welcome from IAB members as well as non-members. The IAB council will judge the proposals and the winner will be announced during the world conference of Bryology in Chile 2015. The winner will be awarded 300 USD. The second place winner will receive a five-year IAB membership.

The council is looking forward to your contributions!

Please help the society!

Your impact is highly desired, appreciated and important  for a vital association!

On behalf of the council

Dietmar Quandt & Matt von Konrat

Acting President         Treasurer

Microscopy for the Masses

Microscopes are amazing tools! I had a small plastic one as a kid and I loved exploring items I collected outdoors. Parts of plants, a scoop of soil, basically anything I could get my hands on I mounted up on a slide and looked at under my microscope. That is one aspect that drew me to study mosses. Microscopes are an essential tool to identify moss species and the closer you look at mosses the more amazing features you uncover!  

My family is well aware of my love of microscopes and my sister recently sent me a link to this TED talk about a microscope made almost entirely of paper that costs around 50 cents to produce. It is a really inspirational talk and I think that these scopes are going to revolutionize microscopy. 

I completely agree with the assessment that traditional microscopes are much too bulky for the field. When I head out to collect mosses I don't take my microscopes with me. I bring the mosses back to my microscopes, which stay at home or in the lab. I think that foldscopes would be a great way to take moss identification into the field and enable identification to species without bulky microscopes or having to wait until returning to the laboratory. 

I thought about submitting an application for the 10,000 Microscope Project, focusing on outreach to the public and exploring mosses in the field, but life became busy and it slipped off my priority list. I will definitely have to get a proposal put together for the next round of testing. I think that these scopes would be a great way to introduce people to mosses and enable exploration and identification without a costly setup. 

A Video on the Moss Life Cycle

Take a break from your regularly scheduled program to check out this video on the moss life cycle. I would definitely recommend this video to students learning about mosses or bryophytes in class or for anyone who wants to brush up on their plant life cycles.

Overall I think that it is a nice video with accurate information. There was only one typo that I saw. The maternal gametophyte cap covering the sporophyte apex during its development is called the calyptra. No e after the t. 

Hat tip to Dr. Juan Carlos Villarreal for sending me this video from YouTube. 

Berry Go Round #66

The latest edition of the plant carnival Berry Go Round has been posted at Notes of Nature. 

 Here in California the weather has been unseasonably warm, so I have not been going through much plant withdraw. However, this carnival might be especially good for folks in the eastern half of North America or other locations with winter in full swing. It may be quite a while before you all see any green plants peeking through the white snow. My favorite is Chris Martine's article in the Huffington Post. 3 Awesome Things We Learned About Plants in 2013. Enjoy these blog posts about plants to help you make it through this chilly season!

Thanks to Notes of Nature for including me in the lineup! 
For more about blog carnivals and my posts about the earlier editions of Berry Go Round, click here.

Addressing the Gender Issue

***Spoiler Alert***

This post may contain plot details and quotes from The Signature of All Things. 

It may seem unsurprising that a female bryologist in the early 1800's would disguise her gender on her initial publications. At the time women were not welcomed into scientific circles. Thus Alma's first publications were authored A. Whittaker. Later in the book, with age and time she publishes under her full name, Alma Whittaker. 

"No initials were appended to the name - no evidence of degrees, no membership in distinguished gentlemanly scientific organizations. Nor was she even a "Mrs.," with the dignity that such a title affords a lady. By now, quite obviously, everyone knew she was a woman. It mattered little." 

The reason she says it mattered little is that the world of bryophytes is not a competitive domain and thus she had been allowed to enter with little resistance. This is not just a casual statement. It is supported by the data (Special Report on Women as Academic Authors, 1665-2010 - Chronicle of Higher Education). From 1665-1970 only 8.4% of Ecology and Evolution articles were published by women, whereas in the field of Bryology almost twice as many female authors published (16.3%). Unfortunately disparities in publication rates between the sexes still remain (see the report's data from 1991-2010). 

Why do these disparities still exist? Could it be that our innate biases against women in the sciences negatively impacts women's publication rates? It has been shown that both male and female scientists are significantly biased against female applicants for research positions (Moss-Racusin et al. 2012). This article is behind a paywall. If you do not have access and are interested in reading the full study drop me an email. I could see this spilling over into the realm of scientific publication. It is often easy to tell whether someone is male or female by their first name, opening the door to inherent biases, which could influence both editors and reviewers. 

Inspired by the research of Moss-Racusin and others, professors in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Connecticut are carrying out a gender-blind faculty search. Both applicants and reviewers are requested to use initials or refer to the person applying as 'the candidate'. In an earlier experiment, they attempted to redact all gender-identifying information from applications, but one committee member was able to guess the applicant's gender by the difference in space he vs. she takes up in a sentence (Jones and Urban 2013). They outline and give detailed examples to guide the removal of gender-identifying content. 

Even with these detailed guidelines, there is seemingly no way to address the potential issue that recommendation letter writers typically use different words when describing men vs. women (Madera et al. 2009) [HT to M.T-T. for bringing this point up at lunch]. An example might be using action words such as "independent" and "confident" to describe a man and communal words such as "nurturing" and "helpful" to describe a woman. Hopefully letter writers that are writing for a gender-neutral application will be more aware of gender-biases and thus some of these language differences will disappear. I wonder if they could use this gender-blind search to study that? They could address the question: Do recommendation letter writers use less gender-biased language when they are writing for a gender-neutral job search, compared to a job search where gender-neutrality was not explicitly mentioned in the job advertisement? I would be really interested to know if a gender-neutral job search could also influence recommendation letter language. 

Overall I think that this gender-blind faculty search is a progressive undertaking that will help raise awareness about gender-biases that still exist in the sciences and I am really interested to hear how the process goes. I feel positive that the steps they are taking will decrease bias. What I still wonder is whether this type of job search will result in an increase in the number of female faculty hired? Unfortunately this job search only gives us a sample size of one. Similar efforts are needed nation-wide before we will see if decreasing gender-bias results in more women faculty in the sciences. 

Just the Tip of the Iceberg - Part 3 The Signature of All Things

***Spoiler Alert***

This post may contain plot details and quotes from The Signature of All Things. 

The first five pages of Part 3 focus on mosses with an intensity that covers a wide breadth of topics. 

We are regaled with the fact that mosses are "effortless to transport". They are not only small and light, but easily dried and thus avoid spoilage. Due to these qualities, mosses have been used as packing material for goods and other plants for centuries. The Whittaker botanical company also took advantage of these mossy features, using them to ship plants. Thus Alma not only traded and imported mosses herself, but she was able to mine the crates stored in her family's warehouses, which were filled with dried mosses from around the globe. 

After years of study, Alma accumulated an extensive herbarium. She collected over 8,000 species of mosses, which seems to me a pretty high number considering Alma is written to have worked about 150 years ago. Currently the number of species of mosses is close to 12,500, so that puts Alma at having collected and identified 64% of present day moss species diversity. All without leaving her home in Pennsylvania. I wonder how many species of moss were described by 1848? I am not sure where I would even go to try to locate that fact? A species count from Hedwig would be too early, whereas Brotherus would be too late. Who would have been a contemporary bryologist of Alma Whittaker, living and working during the first half of the 1800's? I will have to do some digging around to see what bryological history I can uncover. 

Alma also writes several books that as a bryologist I would most certainly have on my shelf. By 48 years of age she has written The Complete Mosses of Pennsylvania and The Complete Mosses of the Northeastern United States and has just begun work on The Complete Mosses of North America. The titles of the books could have been a little more creative or perhaps variable, but the sense of her productivity is firmly established. 

In leu of these imaginary books, I would recommend these real identification guides for exploring mosses in Pennsylvania and the Northeast: Outstanding Mosses and Liverworts of Pennsylvania and Nearby States and Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians. As for a good field guide that tackles mosses across all of North America, there are not any that I particularly like. Also a book covering mosses across the entire continent would be a pretty large tome to tote around in the field. My personal preference for identification is a regional guide with a more limited set of species to sift through. If you have a smartphone and internet access, a light field option with wide coverage could be the online Bryophyte Flora of North America. A key to the genera is posted here. Unfortunately all the links are broken and thus it is not connected to the descriptions. The full descriptions are arranged by family here, but you need to know the connections between the two to make them work together. The key is preliminary, so hopefully they will be linked in the final version.

Mosses back from the holidays

I am back from the holidays and some moss photography and blogging is on the menu for my upcoming weekend. 

In the meantime, check out this great post by Juan Carlos Villarreal on Peat, Whiskey, and Genomes. It is jam packed with fun moss facts, references, and lovely photos.

A New Moss Identification Guide

I recently reviewed this new moss field guide for the Botanical Society of America's Plant Science Bulletin. The link below will take you to the Fall 2013 volume. My review is on pages 131 and 132.

Budke JM. 2013. Book Review of Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians. Plant Science Bulletin 59(3): 131-132.

Overall I think that this is a really great text and would highly recommend it for anyone interested in identifying mosses in the northeastern United States and Canada from Wisconsin to Nova Scotia and south throughout the Appalachian Mountains. (Full disclosure: I did receive a free copy of the book when writing this review, but was in no other way compensated.) 

For another perspective, check out this review: Kimmerer, RW. 2013. Field Guide to Northeast Mosses. The Bryologist 116(3):321-322.

In the same volume of the Plant Science Bulletin (pg 137-138) there is a review of the latest book by Amy Stewart The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks. I have one of her earlier books Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities. I really enjoyed this earlier book and am looking forward to reading the new one! Exploring the plants that are deadly and atrocious is one way to get people interested in plants. Enlightening them about plants used in alcoholic beverages is sure to be another fun way to start thinking about plants. A fact of note: the review of Stewart's book is by Alexandra Boni an undergraduate student from Bucknell University. Kudos to her for writing a nice review of the book. It most certainly has me excited to check it out!

UPDATE - 22 Nov 2013 - Another positive review of this book. Hedenäs, L. 2013. Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians. 173(4): 790–791.

Have you heard of Bogology?

Have you heard of Bogology? Probably not, because I think it is a bit of a newly invented term. Bogology is the study and science of peatlands. I just heard about this new website and blog by researchers from the United Kingdom who are studying peatlands. If you are interested in peat bogs and Sphagnum mosses, the information and discussions they have will be right up your alley.

Thanks to Dr. Kaisa Kajala for making me aware of this site!

Mosses in the Garden

Thinking about integrating some mosses into your garden or landscaping? Have a shady spot that could use a bit of green? Gardening with mosses may be in your future...

Kathy Connolly has written an article on just this topic for The Day newspaper out of New London, CT. I am quoted throughout the article for some tips and moss biology info. Check out the full text for free on their website.

My favorite quote from the article. 

"If you put a philodendron through a blender," says Budke, "you have a dead philodendron. But with moss, each living cell is capable of growing a whole new plant. That's why the blender works." 

This the backyard of the house where I used to live in Connecticut.
Others might call it the 'frog pond' or 'herpetology pool'.
I always thought of it as the "moss pond".

That is just one amazing fun fact about mosses! Each live cell is totipotent. Meaning that each can regrow an entirely new plant and be any type of cell. Similar to stem cells in animals that can be used to grow many different types of organs.

Overall it was a fun interview to give and I think the article came out very well! Informative, interesting, and all about mosses!

Rare Mosses and Liverworts of England

It has been a full week with little time for me to work up my own blog post. Instead I encourage you to check out a post over on the IAB blog by a bryological colleague, Juan Carlos Villarreal. It is a book review of a new text focusing on rare mosses and liverworts of England. He gives you the highlights of the book and includes the details of one rare moss species Telaranea murphyae Paton. Enjoy!

Click here for a link to the IAB blog.

Everyone wants to be called a Moss

There are plants that we call mosses that are not really mosses. Spanish moss (in the pineapple family), clubmosses (a fern friend), and carrageen moss (a red alga that is used in foods as a thickening agent). I like to call them mossy misnomers. Their common names include the term moss, but really they are not bryophytes nor do they look much like them. However, this stick insect is worthy of his mossy moniker. It is camouflaged to look like a moss and is doing an amazing job!

Trychopeplus laciniatus - Moss mimic stick insect
Photo by dandoucette on Project Noah

Crawling along on a moss covered tree the frills blend in with the surrounding moss making it hard for predators to spot this stick insect. Check out some of the great photos posted on Project Noah for this insect and many others. Thanks to my labmate Ciera Martinez for sending me this photo!     

Trychopeplus laciniatus on a moss-covered tree
Photo by dandoucette on Project Noah

Berry Go Round - March 2013

The newest edition of the plant carnival Berry Go Round is up at the blog In the Company of Plants and Rocks.  There are some good plant posts in the line up that you should definitely check out. 

The photos from Geotripper of spring wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada foothills are getting me excited about going hiking this upcoming weekend. We had a good amount of rain this week and I am looking forward to seeing some spring bryophytes in addition to the showy wildflowers. 

I would also recommend checking out the post on bees, flowers, caffeine, and memory at SciLogs. I think it is a really interesting study and those of you who love coffee and the effects of caffeine will find this study quite interesting.

Those are just a couple of highlights from the carnival. Head to In the Company of Plants and Rocks for the full carnival experience. For more about blog carnivals and my posts about the earlier editions of Berry Go Round, click here.

March 2013 Desktop Calendar

Apologies for the delay in the March calendar. I have been busy working in the lab getting my moss cultures started! They are currently at the filamentous protonema stage and are growing nicely as you can see from the photo below.

I am not sure which species made it to the top of the pile for best photo. It is definitely a Funariaceae, but could be Entosthodon, Funaria, Physcomitrella, or Physcomitrium. It is impossible for me to tell which one at this stage of development (and I forgot to check the plate), but once they undergo reproduction their sporophyte capsules are strikingly different. They are still months away from that growth stage, so let the growing continue!

1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly from the blog post you will lose a lot of resolution.)

2 - Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the image, and chose the option that says, "Set as Desktop Background" or "Use as Desktop Picture". The wording may vary.

3 - If the image does not fit your desktop neatly, you may have to adjust the image (Mac: System Preferences - Desktop and Screen Saver - Desktop; Windows: Control Panel - Display - Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

Sequoia National Park Field Guide

These are the final two videos in the series Looking Down by Lena Coleman, a graduate student at California State University Northridge.

These two are photographic field guides that teach you to identify moss and liverwort species from the Sequoia National Park. I didn't count, but I would estimate that 60 species are covered between the two videos. They are organized first by elevation and then by the substrate on which they grow. Mostly the identifications are based on features of the leafy or thalloid gametophyte, but photos of the sporophytes are also shown. 

I think that it is a really nice guide and it definitely makes me want to get out and explore the bryophytes of California. However, I am not sure how I am going to take these guides out to the field with me. Does this mean that I have to break down and get a smartphone?

First Half

Second Half

Do you have a favorite species? Though Funaria hygrometrica is the species that I study for my laboratory research, I would have to say that my favorites of the bunch are the Fissidens species. Those opposite leaves that clasp around the leaf above are such a neat shape.

If there are any issues viewing the videos above they can also be watched here (first half) and here (second half).