Save Plants

“Working with Rare Care has given me a sense of purpose in my life,” Maya states with conviction. She had been hoping to unite various interests in her undergraduate career in the pursuit of a common goal. This goal came into focus when she saw the possibilities of working with rare plants and conducting research to inform their management and restoration.

In 2019, the Rare Care program was taking on interns as part of a project with the National Park Service to establish long-term monitoring plots for alpine plants. Maya had a science background and various outdoor experiences in Washington and in the tropics, but she lacked field ecology experience and a sense of how to apply her skills to rare plants. Viewing the internship as a golden opportunity, Maya applied and eagerly accepted a position. Before beginning her internship, Maya began gaining experience in native plants through an independent study course focused on native plant taxonomy and ecology in her last quarter. Her new ties to the UW Botanical Gardens also gave her the opportunity to take part in a restoration project with Rare Care at Turnbull Wildlife Refuge with Spalding’s catchfly (Silene spaldingii) as part of the course.

During the summer of her internship, Maya gained new skills and got to know some incredible alpine plants. She worked with fellow intern Callie Zender and under the tutelage of Wendy Gibble, Rare Care Program Manager. Wendy recalls that, “Right from the start, Maya demonstrated an incredible passion for learning about plants and how they interact with surrounding species and the environment.” Maya quickly absorbed new skills — preparing for field work, techniques for monitoring plants, and interpreting the data — as well as a familiarity with the challenges facing rare plants and rare plant restoration efforts. These skills were the missing pieces that enabled her to link her previous experiences to her desire to help native plants.

Even in a brief Zoom call, Maya’s passion for rare plants shines through. Wendy shared that “Early career interns bring fresh ideas and infectious enthusiasm to the Rare Care Program, that can lead to new discoveries and innovative ideas that expand our tool kit for plant conservation.” In Maya’s case, she carried her ideas and enthusiasm on into her next endeavors.

Following the internship, Maya continued to work with Rare Care, shifting between volunteer and staff according to availability and need. As she contemplated graduate school options, she heard an inspiring talk given by Professor Jonathan Bakker (University of Washington) to the Washington Native Plant Society. She later found him on the list of advisors for a master’s project working with Rare Care on sagebrush-steppe restoration – a perfect match for her interests. This tie-in allows Maya to continue her relationship to the UW Botanic Gardens and Rare Care, the group that helped her find her purpose.

For her master’s thesis, Maya is studying Umtanum Desert buckwheat (Eriogonum codium), a Washington state endemic found only on Hanford Reach National Monument. Rare Care is working with researchers and land management partners to simultaneously learn more about the plant’s life history and keep it from the brink of extinction through outplantings. The Umtanum Desert buckwheat, like several other buckwheat species, seems to be found only on a specific soil type. Understanding this relationship may help the survival of outplanted seedlings. Maya is examining if this rare buckwheat is indeed a soil endemic, and what soil characteristics allow it to flourish there.

Maya’s work comparing the natural site to failed outplanting sites and proposed outplanting sites ties her undergraduate background in microbiology and biogeochemical cycling to her more recently developed field skills and interests in restoration and soil science. She has found meaning in her career path because she took a chance on something new — applying to an internship to work with rare plants when she didn’t even know that jobs were available in this field.

“Providing learning and training opportunities for the next generation of botanists is really important to us here at UW Botanic Gardens,” notes Wendy Gibble. With success stories like Maya’s, it is easy to see why the Gardens’ program values them so highly.

The largest and most wide-reaching of these programs is The Fairchild Challenge (FC). This award-winning, interdisciplinary environmental science competition is designed to engage students of diverse interests, abilities, talents and backgrounds to explore the natural world. Schools may participate in any number of the annual Challenges to accrue points throughout the year. Winning entries receive awards and prizes. Now in its 20th year, the program has been recognized as a benchmark for exceptional STEM education and its ability to empower PreK – 12th-grade students to become the next generation of scientists, researchers, educated voters, policymakers, and environmentally-minded citizens.

Providing an educational pipeline for students in STEM, the FC has engaged more than 1,250,000 south Florida students to date. It has granted $350,000 in school garden funding for under-resourced schools, awarded $70,000 in scholarships to enable high school seniors to attend college, and provided 16 multi-year graduate fellowships for Masters and Ph.D. candidates attending local universities. The FC has also hosted more than 350 teachers at professional development workshops and offered countless opportunities for students to creatively address connections between plants, animals, and the environment.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools, home to the majority of FC participants, is part of an international community with more than 50 percent of the population foreign-born. Miami has one of the highest poverty rates of large U.S. cities (U.S. Census, 2020). Representation in the botanical sciences has often been limited and exclusionary, creating barriers to participation. But the FC was designed to anticipate and address barriers to inclusion, and program managers are intentional about ensuring that all students and educators in our community who want to be involved can be. Students “see themselves” in science through projects like “Global Challenge: Unsung Plant Scientists – Their Journey and Legacy,” in which they research and create trading cards of plant scientists who look like them but have been overlooked by the mainstream plant science community. In addition, the FC team works diligently to ensure that all programming and materials remain free to local participating schools. Teachers who are involved in the FC program report that their students are more excited about science and curious about plants after participating in challenges.

Leveraging our network of teachers and students, the FC is working with researchers from the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to assess student awareness of the value and importance of plants. The resulting Plant Awareness Disparity Index will provide insights into how well students recognize and appreciate the presence and important ecological role of plants in their environment (Wandersee and Schussler, 1999).

The FC continues to grow in participation and scope, adding new partnerships — including with NASA — as well as new challenges. We have expanded our national reach to more than 430 schools. Amid this flourishing growth, we are happy to report that the program continues to maintain its original intention and spirit, bridging the disconnect between students and their environment while adding a new level of creativity and rigor.

References:

Wandersee, J.H. & Schussler, E.E. (1999). Preventing plant blindness. The American Biology Teacher 61 (2), 82-86.

U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States. (2020). Retrieved September 03, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/RHI725219

When did you first fall in love with plants?

Growing up, I was always drawn to animals. In large part, this had to do with the comfort they provided – as a shy child, it was easy for me to talk to and display emotion around them. But thinking back to those younger years, even though I may not have realized it at the time, I also felt drawn to plants. I am typically not great at remembering specific events from my childhood, but I have such vivid memories of playing inside a large shrub in our front yard, the bright yellow flowers of the forsythia lining the fence, and lying under a majestic willow, admiring how the flowing branches swayed in the breeze. However, it wasn’t until college – during field trips in the woods of central Pennsylvania with my enthusiastic botany professor – that I started seeing plants as fascinating and complex organisms. And that is when the love truly blossomed.

What was your career path to Denver Botanic Gardens?

In college I majored in Biology and minored in German. These two seemingly disparate interests led me to an internship at BASF in Germany, where I worked in an agricultural seed lab. Working in a different country was a great experience, but I knew my passion didn’t lie in working for a large corporation. Returning to Pennsylvania, I explored opportunities to work with native plants and got a position as the Plant Protection intern at Morris Arboretum. The internship title more literally meant integrated pest management (an important piece of keeping living collections alive and healthy), but I took it to mean more than just that. Through an independent project on an endangered, diminutive wetland species, I learned about rare plant conservation and what it means to protect plants in other ways. I went on to receive my master’s degree in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and Chicago Botanic Garden, where I researched the seed ecology of southwestern forb species. Working and studying at two public gardens solidified my interest in research and plant conservation at botanic gardens. Perhaps by fate, a seed conservation position opened at Denver Botanic Gardens just as I was finishing my thesis. Next month marks five years since I started working at the Gardens.

In your experience, what are some of the pressing conservation needs related to Colorado’s rare and native plants?

Wildfires, drought, and warmer temperatures are becoming the norm in Colorado, and the plants already considered rare or threatened will face challenges at a graver scale. Seed banking allows us to have an insurance policy in case of population destruction or extinction. However, we can’t collect seeds and put them into storage haphazardly – we need to have a plan for viability testing, recollection, and storage longevity studies to ensure we have a viable collection for a reintroduction or restoration project. Oil and gas development is also a major threat to the rare and native plants of Colorado. In these cases, in-situ protection measures are primarily needed.

The Colorado Natural Heritage Program has been working on a cool and important project to create species distribution models for Colorado’s Plants of Greatest Conservation Need. These models identify potential occurrences for the species. Organizations and volunteers can then go out and look in these areas to ensure we have accurate population information for species of concern.

What are some of your current projects at Denver Botanic Gardens? What successes or challenges have you encountered in your work?

Last summer I set up an open top chamber warming experiment in the alpine region of Colorado to study the effects of increased temperature on two rare species, Avery peak twinpod (Physaria alpina) and Weber’s saw-wort (Saussurea weberi). Although I encountered some challenges with the setup of the chambers, I am hoping to get things more secured this summer and continue the project with just P. alpina. I’m also planning a germination experiment in the lab to understand how increased temperatures affect germination requirements and growth of a few rare alpine species. Before the pandemic, I conducted an accelerated seed longevity experiment and found that Colorado alpine species may be short-lived in ex situ seed banks. I am particularly interested in how rare alpine species will respond to climate change and conservation measures we can put in place. This research contributes to the North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Alpine Plant Conservation, which was recently published by Denver Botanic Gardens and Betty Ford Alpine Garden.

Please share more about how you are contributing to CPC’s IMLS-funded seed longevity study.

First, I identified old seed collections that we have at the Gardens that would work for the project. Once the species/accessions were finalized, I used element occurrence records from the Colorado Natural Heritage Program to locate the historical source populations of the collections. Last summer, I scouted three of the five populations and was able to make seed collections from two of them. Those seeds were sent to NLGRP to be tested against the historical collections. I will target the other three populations this field season. It’s a really cool project and I’m excited to see the results!

What advice do you have for newcomers to the field of plant conservation?

I know that I can sometimes get discouraged about plant conservation when thinking about climate change, political barriers, and public apathy. But it is important to remember that the work of plant conservation is so important, and every person working in the field has something to contribute to help protect our threatened plants. There can be challenges and disappointment, but every day can also offer new and exciting information. One of the most important things is to stay optimistic and passionate!

What has it meant to you to be a member of the CPC network? How has CPC supported your work?

My first CPC conference was in 2019 at the Chicago Botanic Garden, where I saw firsthand the closeness among members and the amazing work that folks are doing with rare plants. That was also the year that the Rare Plant Academy was introduced to the network, which I think is such a great resource to connect members of CPC. I’m excited for the annual meeting this May and to see folks in person again!

As one of the first partnering institutions with the CPC, Denver Botanic Gardens has received funding and support for seed collection and conservation for some time. All my work in seed conservation is directly supported by CPC.

What advice would you give to the public who want to learn more about how they can help save imperiled plant species?

I think the first step would be to gain knowledge on the imperiled or threatened plants in your region and spread that knowledge to others. Many institutions have various outreach or volunteer events that may contribute to that knowledge. Find your local organizations that are working with native plants, and sign up for newsletters or follow them on social media to stay up to date on opportunities. I’m perhaps a little biased, but visiting a botanic garden is also a great way to learn more. So many people don’t realize that botanic gardens have research or conservation departments that are working directly with imperiled plant species.

Celebrating World Wildlife Day 2022

World Wildlife Day 2022 will take place March 3, celebrating the theme of “Recovering key species for ecosystem restoration.” The theme was chosen to draw attention to the conservation status of some of the most critically endangered species of wild flora and fauna, and to drive discussions towards imagining and implementing solutions to conserve them. There are over 22,000 endangered and critically endangered species on the IUCN Red List. Continued species loss is a threat to people and our planet. For World Wildlife Day – and every day – let us support the conservation of our most vulnerable plants and animals. Learn more about World Wildlife Day.

2022 CPC National Meeting

May 4-6, 2022

Registration is now live for the 2022 CPC National Meeting – our first-ever hybrid meeting! The theme of this year’s meeting will be “Celebrating Conservation Milestones,” with both in-person and online presentation sessions including updates from the CPC National Office on network-wide initiatives, plus lightning talks from CPC network partners on plant conservation research, accomplishments, and challenges. In-person sessions will be held at the Denver Botanic Gardens and will be live streamed and recorded for later viewing on the Whova conference platform used by the CPC National Office for our 2020 and 2021 virtual meetings. Virtual attendees will also have access to pre-recorded presentation content and virtual break out sessions.

Early bird registration is available through April 1 – register today to get the discounted rate!