Naming Species After Scientists?

My former labmate Dr. Juan Carlos Villarreal recently described a new species of hornworts from Columbia.

Villarreal A., Juan Carlos; Campos S., Laura Victoria; Uribe-M., Jaime; Goffinet, Bernard. 2012. Parallel Evolution of Endospory within Hornworts: Nothoceros renzagliensis (Dendrocerotaceae), sp. nov. Systematic Botany 37: 31-37.

Hornworts are a separate lineage of bryophytes that are named for the morphology of the sporophytes. They open by two vertical slits splitting the sporangium into two halves starting at the apex. To the right is an image of several elongated sporophytes sticking out of the frilly gametophyte thallus below. The tallest sporophyte is splitting at the top. However, this is not the new species, but a plant that grew in one of the other cultures that I was growing in the laboratory. 

The new species, Nothoceros renzagliensis is named after Dr. Karen S. Renzaglia, who is a professor at Southern Illinois University. Her research focuses on early land plant anatomy, morphology, and systematics. Juan Carlos completed his master's thesis studying hornworts in her laboratory.

I think that it is fabulous that Juan Carlos named this plant after his former advisor. She is a great scientist who has contributed significantly to the field of bryology. I am completely in favor of naming species in dedication to scientists who have contributed significantly to the study of a particular group of organisms. 

The only time I have been involved in naming a species was for the fern ally Isoetes tennesseensis. This species is endemic to Tennessee, hence the name.

What do you think? Should the specific epithets of scientific names contain information about the region where the organism is found or some other salient morphological feature? Or do you like the idea of naming plants or animals in tribute to great scientists?

March 2012 Desktop Calendar

This is the moss Anacamptodon splachnoides. I just love the sound of that name! You can read more about this species in two earlier posts (Post #1 here & Post #2 here). 

With snow on the ground here in Connecticut hopefully this image will help me last until the green has arrived this spring.
 

If you are interested in downloading this desktop calendar follow the instructions below. 

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 loose 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 > Screen Saver > Desktop; Windows: Control Panel > Display > Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

Any issues or suggestions please let me know. These calendars are an experiment in-progress.

Did Mosses Ruin the Planet?

The mosses crept out of the ocean, covering the bare rocks on our desolate planet over 400 million years ago. They sped up the chemical weathering of the rocks and decreased atmospheric carbon dioxide. These nefarious changes triggered glaciation events and a mass marine extinction! Muahahaha...... (yes mosses have an evil laugh) and that is how mosses conquered the land.

A couple of weeks ago, research was published examining the above scenario. The researchers carried out an experiment where they examined the ability of the moss Physcomitrella patens to weather rocks. One of the thoughts was that since mosses do not have true roots they might not alter substrates, such as rocks, in a similar manner. However, they found that the mosses secreted several different organic acids, just like vascular plants. Thus they have the ability to break down and weather rocks. This secretion of organic acids by mosses was not something I had heard about before. Their experiment only examined weathering with and without mosses. But when colonizing land the mosses were not alone. They would have been accompanied by fungi too. The researchers anticipate that the mosses in conjunction with fungal symbionts may even have greater weathering abilities!

Overall I think that it is a really interesting study connecting the colonization of land by mosses to historic patterns of climate change. It shows just how powerful and important plants are for life on our planet! 

Timothy M. Lenton, Michael Crouch, Martin Johnson, Nuno Pires, and Liam Dolan. 2012. First plants cooled the Ordovician. Nature Geoscience 5:86–89.

This post was inspired by a friend who sent me a link to this sarcastic and funny article about this research. I take mild offense to the author calling the mosses names, but otherwise I enjoyed the piece. Thanks Emily!

A Desktop Calendar Experiment

I change the background image on my computer once a month and I really like having a calendar on my computer desktop, since I don't have a wall calendar in the office. For the past several years I have been using the desktop calendars from Chocolate and Zucchini, a food blog that I follow. Unfortunately, she is no longer making the images with calendars. Thus I was left with a dilemma. I need to find a new place to get my desktop calendars. I didn't find any that I really wanted to look at for a month, so I decided to make my own. I have a lot of bryophyte images that I wouldn't mind looking at for a month and here is the result. 

If you are interested in downloading this desktop calendar follow the instructions below. 

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 loose 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 & Screen Saver > Desktop; Windows: Control Panel > Display > Desktop) and choose "Fill screen" as the display mode of your background image.

I hope that the image comes through with enough resolution and that I positioned the calendar well so that it doesn't get cut off. Any issues or suggestions please let me know. This is totally an experiment and we shall see how it goes.

And I almost forgot the bryological information. These are leafy gametophytes of the moss Funaria hygrometrica (cord moss) that I grew in the laboratory. It is a population from Connecticut that I used for my PhD research. 

Berry Go Round #48

Welcome to the January 2012 edition of Berry Go Round!  Here are some interesting botanical posts that I found from the past month. Enjoy!

- Have you heard about the plants that eat nematodes? If not, head over to Cunabulum to read all about the genus Philcoxia and the research into these carnivorous plants.

- For those that love botanical history, here is the tale of Aven Nelson and the Laramie columbine at In the Company of Plants and Rocks. The photos of the Wyoming landscape have me thinking about traveling out west. The discussion of naming different granite types is a vignette that all taxonomists can enjoy.

- This month the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a new Plant Hardiness Zone Map for 2012. The release of this new map was mentioned on quite a number of gardening blogs. I found the discussion at Greg Laden's Blog to be the most interesting. The comments center on how this revised map may influence thinking surrounding climate change.

- There is a super cool story about solar-powered sea slugs at Postdoc Exploring. These slugs are feeding on the chloroplasts from algae, incorporating them into their cells, and then using them to photosynthesize. There are several videos to watch. In one, you can see the slug slurping the chloroplasts from inside the algae, like drinking through a straw.

- This is a blog that is totally new to me. It is called Phytography. A botanical word of the day is explained through amazing photos of plants from New Zealand. I am especially partial to furrow on Jan 1st and spiral on Jan 26th. Which one is your favorite?   

- I am still longing for a real vacation, since finishing up my PhD in December and have been imaging an escape to points south over spring break. Maybe I will head to South Carolina. Anybody Seen My Focus? has two posts (evening and morning) highlighting a winter trip to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. Some of the grasses are a little brown this time of the year, but overall there is way more green than we have here in Connecticut and it looks like a nice place to visit. I am imagining water, hiking, plants, and being far away from my computer. Any other suggestions?

- Thinking of painting your house in 2012? How about covering it in plants instead? Seeds Aside has some lovely photos of a museum in Paris that is covered in an abundance of plant life. 

- The Phytophactor discusses the invention of dichotomous keys and a recent article that highlights an image-based key that predates text-based dichotomous keys by 100 years. You can check out scans of the original drawings used in this image-based key here at the Royal Society.

Stay tuned for February's Berry Go Round hosted at A Blog Around The Clock.

Growing on Trees in Acadia National Park

My first volume of the journal Bryologist for 2012 has arrived. Thus, I am trying to finish up my reading of articles from 2011. The last one I had to read looked at the interaction between the rain/fog chemistry, the type of tree, and the lichens and bryophytes living on the trees.

Natalie L. Cleavitt, Holly A. Ewing, Kathleen C. Weathers, and Amanda M. Lindsey. 2011. Acidic atmospheric deposition interacts with tree type and impacts the cryptogamic epiphytes in Acadia National Park, Maine, USA. The Bryologist 114 (3): 570-582.

I have been asked several times about whether there are different types of bryophytes that grow on different types of trees. This study really got me thinking about the importance of substrates for bryophytes and lichens. 

Some of their findings...

- Sites with less acidic fog have higher epiphyte biomass.
- Spruce bark is generally more acidic (lower pH) than maple bark. 

(This is not something new but definitely something I want to keep in mind when talking to people about the pH of the bark of different species of trees.) 

- Fog sulfate content and bark pH were good predictors of macro-lichen composition.

vary along the length of a single trunk.

Overall it was a really cool study and I would highly recommend it if you are interested in thinking about the influence of polluted rain/fog on both lichens and bryophytes.

Is the plural Calyptrae or Calyptras?

The moss calyptra is a small cap of gametophyte tissue that covers the apex of the moss sporophyte during its development. This little structure was the focus of my dissertation. Below is part of a figure that I used in my defense showing calyptra from several different moss species. The calyptrae are indicated by the orange arrows

 

This discussion may seem (ok) is pretty esoteric, but a reviewer on my last manuscript brought up this question. They proposed using calyptras as the plural of calyptra, rather than calyptrae. (Yes, these are the things that I think about for my job.)

This is part of the reviewer response that I sent to the editors regarding this question.

We agree that there are challenges when adopting terms into other languages especially concerning the plural form of the word. The term calyptra is derived from the Greek word kalyptra, meaning veil or hood. The plural for the Greek word kalyptra is kalyptrai. However, with the change in spelling and its use in other languages the term has been latinized. Often Greek plurals ending in –ai are transformed into –ae (e.g., mycorrhizae, cypselae, thecae). Perhaps this was originally a spelling error, but at least in terms of the moss calyptra the –ae ending has persisted. In the two most widely used bryological glossaries (see references below) the plural form is cited as calyptrae and many papers and books use this plural form. I do not think that retaining this traditionally used plural form makes the study any less accessible to non-bryologists as there are other botanical terms that have similar plural forms. Thus, we would prefer to continue to use calyptrae as the plural form in our manuscript. Additionally, switching to an –s ending would require additional explanation, which is outside of the manuscript’s focus.

- Magill, RE. 1990. Glossarium polyglottum bryologiae: A multilingual glossary for bryology. Missouri Botanical Garden.

- Malcolm, B and N Malcolm. 2000. Mosses and other bryophytes an illustrated glossary. Micro-Optics Press.

Thanks to my colleague Nic Tippery who contributed to this explanation and I consult on all words Greek and Latin.

The Tree Moss Climacium

This is a really cool moss that often grows in seepy, shady areas next to standing pools of water or streams. It's common name, tree moss, comes from the growth form of its leafy gametophyte, which resembling a tiny tree. Due to its tree-like appearance these plants have been used as the trees in model train displays. I have also heard that they were used as decorations in ladies hats.
 

Shown here is the species Climacium dendroides. I took some photos and wanted to share them because this is the first time that I have seen this species with sporophytes, and thus the first time that I have seen their calyptrae.

The calyptra (shown on the left) is pale yellow, smooth, and cucullate (splitting up a single side upon capsule expansion). I wanted to section some of them to look at their cuticle, but I lost this one. Then when I went back to the population that was collected for DNA extraction in the lab I found that all the calyptrae and sporophytes had already been used for a massive DNA extraction. Too bad. It would have been cool to get a look at their calyptrae using the electron microscope. 

A really spectacular feature of the sporophytes are their peristome teeth! The exostome (outer ring of teeth) are deep brown-red in color. They contrast well with the endostome (inner ring of segments) that are golden brown. The inner teeth are longer and when dry the outer teeth curve inward, as shown in the image below.

The genus name Climacium, comes from the Greek word klimax, which means ladder. The researchers who named this genus thought that the endostome had the appearance of a ladder. I think that it is a pretty accurate description. However, one would have to be tardigrade-sized to use them as a ladder!

Keep an eye peeled for this species if you are in deciduous forests that have some wet areas. I see the gametophytes regularly in Connecticut and seeing some sporophytes is definitely a treat!

 

Mosses without Sex for 50,000 years

Karlin, E. F., Hotchkiss, S. C., Boles, S. B., Stenøien, H. K., Hassel, K., Flatberg, K. I. and Shaw, A. J. (2011), High genetic diversity in a remote island population system: sans sex. New Phytologist

This is a super cool article! The research was reported on both at National Geographic Daily News and Science Daily. I decided not to write my own summary of the research, since these two articles do such a good job. Check out these two sites for highlights of the research, which also includes an interview with the lead author. Scientific communication in action!  

A Great Start to the New Year!

2012 has started out super well for me professionally. The second chapter of my dissertation was just published!

Budke, Jessica M., Bernard Goffinet, and Cynthia S. Jones. 2012. The cuticle on the gametophyte calyptra matures before the sporophyte cuticle in the moss Funaria hygrometrica (Funariaceae). American Journal of Botany 99(1): 14-22.

The short summary is that the calyptra is a little cap of female gametophyte tissue that covers the moss sporophyte apex during development. If it is removed from the apex early during development the sporophyte apex dries out and the sporophyte may die. I confirmed a long-proposed idea that the calyptra is covered by a waxy cuticle. I found that the calyptra cuticle is significantly thicker than the cuticle on either the leafy gametophyte or sporophyte. These anatomical differences may point to a functional role of the calyptra cuticle in desiccation protection of the underlying sporophyte.

This paper is the next part of that story. The calyptra cuticle develops when the calyptra is quite small and completely surrounds the sporophyte embryo. Even at this early stage of development, the calyptra cuticle is multilayered and thick. At this stage the moss sporophyte cuticle consists of a single thin cuticle layer. The sporophyte cuticle develops as a wave from the bottom up, adding layers and thickening across the nine developmental stages I examined. 

I think that this figure ended up being a good summary of the development of the cuticle layers.

Figure 7. (From the AJB paper)

Diagram illustrating cuticle layers on the calyptra and sporophyte for stages 1 to 9 (Table 1), with numbers of the developmental stages identified beneath each diagram. The calyptra is covered by a multilayered cuticle at all nine developmental stages. Numbers inside the sporophytes indicate the different number of cuticle layers present at each region of each developmental stage. Abbreviations: C, calyptra; CL, cuticular layer; CWP, cell wall projections of the cuticular layer; eDCP, electron-dense cuticle proper; eLCP, electron-lucent cuticle proper; S, sporophyte.

The idea is that the calyptra has a complex cuticle even at early developmental stages. This early cuticle development may enable the calyptra to protect the young sporophyte from drying out. During early development the sporophyte cuticle is less complex and thus the sporophyte may require protection. Later in development, the moss sporophyte develops its own cuticle and the protection of the calyptra may no longer be necessary.

Overall, I think that my studies are adding to the scientific evidence that points to the importance of the calyptra for the development of the moss sporophyte. Stay tuned for the final chapter where I experimentally removed the calyptra cuticle to get at its importance for sporophyte development and fitness. Happy New Year!

The formal abstract for the paper is below.

Abstract

• Premise of the study: In vascular plants, leaf primordia prevent desiccation of the shoot apical meristem. Lacking leaves, the undifferentiated moss sporophyte apex is covered by the calyptra, a cap of maternal gametophyte tissue that is hypothesized to function in desiccation protection. Herein, we compare cuticle development on the calyptra and sporophyte to assess the calyptra’s potential to protect the sporophyte from desiccation. As the first comprehensive study of moss sporophyte cuticle development, this research broadens our perspectives on cuticle development and evolution across embryophytes.

• Methods: Calyptrae and sporophytes at nine developmental stages were collected from a laboratory-grown population of the moss Funaria hygrometrica. Tissues were embedded, sectioned, then examined using transmission electron microscopy. Epidermal cells were measured for thickness of the cuticle layers, cell wall thickness, and lumen size.

• Key results: The calyptra cuticle develops precociously and reaches maturity before the sporophyte cuticle. Calyptrae are covered by a four-layered cuticle at all stages, whereas sporophyte cuticle maturation is delayed until sporangium formation. The development and thickening of the sporophyte cuticle occurs in an acropetal wave.

• Conclusions: A multilayered calyptra cuticle at the earliest developmental stages is consistent with its ability to protect the immature sporophyte from desiccation. Young sporophytes lack a complex cuticle and thus may require protection, whereas in older sporophytes a mature cuticle develops. The moss calyptra is not a vestigial structure, but rather the calyptra’s role in preventing desiccation offers a functional explanation for calyptra retention during the 450 Myr of moss evolution.

Power Posing for a Successful Defense

   I had my dissertation defense last Friday! In my department we present an hour long seminar about our research that is open to the public and then have a closed-door discussion with professors only to talk about the research and final write-up in more depth. Afterwords a decision is made about whether or not you will be awarded a PhD. I passed and now only have some revisions and paperwork to fill our before my PhD will be finalized. Super exciting times!

A postdoc-pal of mine sent me a link to this video a couple of weeks ago. This presentation discusses studies looking at how standing/sitting in "power poses" can influence empowerment and confidence. It is a really great presentation and something to think about for anyone who is going on an interview or who has to give a big presentation. I have to admit that when I was setting up the half hour before my presentation I was doing some power posing to get ready. My favorite, the Super Woman pose.

Amy Cuddy: Power Poses

Amy Cuddy revealed that we can actually change feelings we have about our own status through the physical positions we take with our bodies. Her research participants had higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol after only two minutes in a “power pose”. Cuddy asked if such findings can have wider implications for empowerment training.

Is the Title of your Scientific Publication Important?

I just had a manuscript accepted for publication with the caveat that I needed to change my title. The comment was that papers with 'witty' or 'cute' titles are cited less often than papers with more serious titles. The editor mentioned that this had been shown in a study and I was interested to read about their findings.

The two studies I came across relating to this topic were:

1) Hamid R. Jamali and Mahsa Nikzad. 2011. Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations. Scientometrics 88: 653-661.

2) Itay Sagi and Eldad Yechiam. 2008. Amusing titles in scientific journals and article citation. Journal of Information Science 34: 680-687.

In the first study (the title says it all topic-wise), they looked at a bunch of articles published in PLoS. Then they categorized the titles into three types: Declarative titles that include the main conclusions, Descriptive titles that only include the subject of the article, and Interrogative titles that indicate the subject in the form of a question. They also looked at the number of substantive words and whether or not there was a colon.

There main findings were that there was a difference between the types of titles in terms of the numbers of downloads from most downloaded to least Interrogative, Descriptive, Declarative. Whereas both the Descriptive and Declarative were cited equally and those with Interrogative titles were cited less often. Articles with longer titles tended to be downloaded less often but the title length was not correlated with citations. And finally titles with a colon get fewer downloads and citations.

Based on that, I think that the title of the first paper out from my dissertation will probably never be cited.  

Budke, Jessica M., Bernard Goffinet, and Cynthia S. Jones. 2011. A hundred-year-old question: is the moss calyptra covered by a cuticle? A case study of Funaria hygrometrica. Annals of Botany 107(8): 1259-1277. 

A question, a colon, and probably way too long. I wonder if I also loose points for the multi-hyphenated word? Maybe the cool science will overcome the flaws in the title.

They also talked about the fact that anyone can download an article, including students or members of the general public who are interested in a topic. However, citations are only from other scientific researchers. Hence titles that are more easily accessible or are more interesting may get more notice online but may not be cited by other members of your field.

As for the other paper, that gets to the title of the second chapter of my dissertation.

Beneath the Veil: The calyptra cuticle matures before the sporophyte cuticle in the moss Funaria hygrometrica.

So my logic behind this title is that the term calyptra comes from the Greek word kalyptra, which means veil or hood. It is a little cap of gametophyte tissue that covers the sporophyte apex throughout development and protects the underlying apex from dehydrating. And the study focuses what happens in terms of the cuticle development on the sporophyte beneath this cap. I thought that it was catchy.

I used a similar version of this title at the 2010 Botanical Society of America meeting. My talk was really well attended and I even had several people mention to me that my fun title had caught their eye in the program and influenced their attendance.

In the second paper, listed above, articles with an amusing title were found to have fewer citations. It was ok to have a pleasant title, but amusing titles may make people think that your science is not rigorous or thorough. 

I am still a firm believer that a fun talk title helps to pull people in to your presentation, but I will be changing this title for my Ch 2 manuscript as the editors suggested. Definitely some ideas to keep in mind when coming up with a title for your manuscript. Not that citations are everything, but having other researchers read your study and then connect it to their own is important for integrating your research into the larger scientific discourse.