The Plant Press

From The Plant Press, Vol. 26, No. 4, October 2023.

Summer interns in botany gain mentor-guided experience

Contributions from Gary Krupnick, Laurence Dorr, Erika Gardner, Rose Gulledge, Alice Tangerini, Jun Wen, Kenneth Wurdack, and Robert Costello 

While the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in quiet hallways and empty offices, the return to the office has led to in-person activity. The summer months are a conundrum—some staff travel to international conferences and field expeditions, but new voices fill the herbarium as a new crop of interns and volunteers make their presence known. The summer of 2023 was no exception, with a handful of eager individuals learning and contributing to science in the Department of Botany. Here we present an overview of the fresh faces that visited this summer for training and research. 

The Natural History Research Experiences (NHRE) is a 10-week summer research internship program for undergraduates at the National Museum of Natural History funded by the National Science Foundation. From May 30 to August 4, Botany hosted two NHRE interns, Jillian Cieslik and Luke Sparreo. NHRE interns work closely with scientific mentors on independent research projects. Project results were presented at a poster session for NMNH staff, as well as during a public outreach day in the exhibit halls, and the results are being prepared for publication. 

Kenneth Wurdack and Larry Dorr mentored Jillian Cieslik, a senior at Ball State University (Indiana) with interests in plant microbiology and genetics. Her project, “Establishing phylogenetic relationships and distinctions of the North American Lindera,” was to sort out a complex of native spice bushes using molecular techniques. She examined relationships among North American spicebushes (three species of Lindera and two species of Litsea; Lauraceae), with a special emphasis on species delimitation in the bog spicebush, Lindera subcoriacea, a rare southeastern USA wetland species, which has been considered questionably distinct from the widespread Lindera benzoin. Plastid genomes were assembled, and several nuclear genes were sequenced that resolved relationships of these species and confirmed that L. subcoriacea should be treated as a distinct species. Cieslik plans to continue her focus on Botany and attend graduate school next year.

Jun Wen, Greg Stull, and Alicia Talavera hosted NHRE intern Luke Sparreo from Connecticut College. Sparreo worked on the project “Discovering a new genus of the grape family Vitaceae and exploring tropical-temperate transition in plants.” This project focused on a potential new plant genus, Neoampelocissus, and its relationship with other genera in the grape plant family, Vitaceae. The phylogenomic results from the study show that the Neoampelocissus group is sister to the grape genus Vitis rather than the genus Ampelocissus, where the small group of c. six species of Neotropical Ampelocissus species have been placed. The Neoampelocissus group is found in tropical regions of Central America, while most species of its likely sister group, Vitis, occur in the north temperate regions. DNAs of Neoampelocissus species from silica gel preserved samples and herbarium specimens were sequenced using the target enrichment approach, targeting 1013 nuclear genes. The newly generated sequence data were compared with previously analyzed species of the grape family to place the new genus into a greater phylogeny. Seeds of Neoampelocissus and its close allies were imaged microscopically and measured for 14 diagnostic characteristics to add a morphological component to the project. The results support a New World origin for the Neoampelocissus – Vitis group, involving a tropical-temperate transition for the temperate radiations of the grape genus Vitis. Sparreo will apply for graduate school in Botany soon.

Smithsonian Affiliations, in collaboration with the Emerson Collective, onboarded and recruited 100 undergraduate students from all over the United States to participate in an eight-week Summer Leadership for Change internship. Of those selected, 50 were stationed in Washington, DC and of those 50, four were supervised in the Department of Botany by Erika Gardner. During their eight-week internship, the DC interns received full accommodation and a stipend. Gardner provided basic botany training and oversaw the various projects assigned to each intern. 

Jaylynn Rutledge (North Carolina A&T State University) and Kelsea Saulny (Virginia State University) worked as a pair to update the museum’s West Wing 5^th floor entryway lobby display cases. They produced content and used specimens based around Jonathan Amith’s Puebla, Mexico, project. Anita Patane (University of Northern Colorado) researched the origin of the Plantlife Survival cards developed by the Naval Training Equipment Center and wrote an article for the department. Jillian Vallance (University of Colorado, Boulder) wrote an article for the Plant Press about how to properly donate specimens to the U.S. National Herbarium. She also prepared specimens acquired from Three Mile Island using archival methods.

All four Summer Leadership for Change interns visited the Smithsonian’s Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland, where they helped process 3,578 specimens collected by Jonathan Amith. The Smithsonian Affiliations office provided additional online enrichments presented by Smithsonian staff and program partners. These enrichments provided practical career information and exposure to various professionals. 

Savannah Mapes, a fourth year PhD student at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), worked this summer on dinoflagellate and harmful algal bloom (HAB) research. Under the mentorship of Rose Gulledge, she worked on Maria Faust’s legacy material, perusing her lab notes, SEM micrographs, and publications. Much of Faust's work applies to Mapes’ research in HABs; her taxonomic reviews and guides are heavily in use in the classroom as well as in the lab. Mapes also shared research on HABs and phytoplankton at an Expert Is In session in the museum’s Ocean Hall on June 16. She talked about the important role these tiny organisms play in our everyday lives and showcased the ecological and financial impact of HABs. As a graduate student, she is examining the dynamics of HAB species in the lower Chesapeake Bay, collecting data that can be used in the development of enhanced monitoring and mitigation strategies. Some of her work is focused specifically on characterizing a local toxin-producing and bioluminescent HAB species, Alexandrium monilatum. She hopes to uncover clues in the life stages to determine why this species creates harmful blooms.

From late-September to early-October, intern Erin Ellis worked on the Botanical Art Collection inventory with Alice Tangerini. Ellis is completing a California State University at Monterey Bay graduate Certificate in Natural Science Illustration. Her expertise in Adobe Photoshop was imperative for Tangerini and they shared techniques of working with the program. Ellis scanned botanical illustrations and manipulated them in Photoshop for the best image quality to be uploaded into EMu, the museum’s collections management program. Many illustrations had not been located previously but discovered in the offices of retired curators and other recently vacated offices.Some projects included scanning all of the originals of Floyd McClure’s “The Bamboos” book, many of the illustrations from Pedro Acevedo’s Sapindaceae treatment, and a large number of Cathy Pasquale illustrations of Acanthaceae completed for Dieter Wasshausen.

Tangerini also has a volunteer illustrator, James Morrison, working on Fridays throughout October. Morrison is a volunteer illustrator in the Fossil Lab under Abby Telfer's sponsorship and had requested to work with Botany's illustration collections. Like Ellis, Morrison has a background in working with Adobe Graphic software and is also scanning illustrations for the Botanical Art Collection.

During the spring and summer months, interns Eva Hirsch and Maya Williams worked together on analyzing data for PolliNation DC, a multi-project initiative to engage students and the public in documenting pollinator-plant interactions in order to rank the importance of native plants for pollinators. The PolliNation DC initiative is headed by Robert Costello (NMNH Office of Education, Outreach, and Visitor Experience; EOVE) and Gary Krupnick (NMNH Botany). Evaluating the data of about 3,000 observations from 55 gardens, the interns identified all the flowering plants associated with pollinators in community gardens across the Washington DC region. They analyzed 1,600 observations and recorded the relative frequency of interaction for six species of bumble bees across 46 species of plants. The interns learned how to do bumble bee surveys around the National Mall to document which plants were in bloom, and of those plants, which were being used by bumble bees. Volunteer Kristen Charlery, a Master Naturalist attending the University of the District of Columbia, was also trained in conducting bumble bee surveys.

Hirsch also built a beta project on Zooniverse for another aspect within PolliNation DC, Science for Bumble Bees. The Zooniverse project is a crowd-sourcing site to process time-lapse photography of bees visiting flowers. The photos will be taken by students at schools with gardens, and the pollinating animals will be classified by the public on Zooniverse. Overall, the interns learned to identify plants and pollinators, conducted protocols for bee surveys, appreciated the importance of habitat restoration, and gained knowledge of data collection, analysis, and crowdsourcing. Hirsch intends to apply to Ph.D. programs in environmental education and is currently on contract in EOVE to develop a guide to implementing Science for Bumble Bees. Charlery intends to pursue a master’s degree in a field of environmental studies. Williams is now in a master’s program in biology at American University.

This summer was refreshing in terms of having new people working and learning among the Botany staff. The Department of Botany wishes the best of luck to these wonderful interns in their future endeavors.