1. Plant Diversity and Evolution
The Undergraduate Herbarium Army at Rutgers University: Promoting interaction between students and scientific collections in teaching, research, and outreach
By Jessica Ray*, Renée Artigues*, Jill Azzolini*, Rebekah Buczynski*, Victoria Cusimano*, Rachael Fastige*, Garrett Hess*, Natalie Howe, Megan King*, Tesia Lin*, Carlos Olivares*, Rachel Rodriguez*, Alexandria Sun*, and Lena Struwe
Chrysler Herbarium, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
“Without libraries what do we have?
We have no past and no future.”
-Ray Bradbury
Herbarium Army Goals:
Progress Report
Fascinating Finds
Reorganize the angiosperm collection from the Cronquist system to the APG III classification
Use databases to ensure the most current classification is recorded for each voucher
Identify undetermined specimens from the herbarium backlog
Mount and repair specimens as needed
Provide undergraduates with a valuable and marketable professional skill set
Seventeen undergraduate students devoted over 1700 hours of volunteer, experience-based research credit, or paid part-time hours of work.
Students were encouraged to share interesting and educational findings to the public on the Chrysler Herbarium Facebook Page. Throughout the semester students have posted about poisonous plants, historical findings, derivations behind specific genera names, vouchers collected by notable botanists, and much more.
The Chrysler Herbarium (CHRB) is home to over 146,000 vascular plants and algae, 7,000 mosses and liverworts, and 2,600 lichen specimens that date back as far as the mid 1800’s. Many notable botanists have contributed, some of whom have been past curators, including Nathaniel Lord Britton, Witmer Stone, Minton Asbury Chrysler, David E Fairbrothers, Barbara Palser, Gerry Moore, and Dave Snyder. The current director, Dr. Lena Struwe, has relied heavily on a group of undergraduate students (marked with * above) that attended her plant systematics course in Fall In the class, the students participated in a variety of educational botany projects such as the Flora and Fauna of Rutgers Campus (on iNaturalist), Expedition Dinner, Morphology Bingo, and Botany Buttons. This prepared them well for joining the workforce in the Chrysler Herbarium’s largest reorganization ever during the Spring of
Hours spent by
Undergraduates
90.75
257
Reorganization/Updating classification
Mounting/Repairs
Species Identification
Above is an example of a rediscovered isotype, Degeneria vitiensis I. W. Bailey & A. C. Sm. (Degeneriaceae), collected in Fiji in 1941.
Right: A student dedicates hours toward experienced based education credits, mounting and repairing specimens.
261 out of 413 (63%) plant families resorted into APG III classification with updated classification. This included some of our biggest families, such as Asteraceae which took 112 hours alone and fills 8 cabinets.
Future Projects: Digitization
Over 1,078 sheets mounted and repaired.
A dedicated student works on digitizing plants specimens.
233 specimens identified to
species level.
Plant Diversity and Evolution
“Botany Boot Camp”
Moving forward
" Working in the herbarium has led me to find a path into botany I never thought would have existed for me”
Throughout the process students have acquired the skills necessary for future jobs in government, non-profits and for-profit institutions and organizations. Students gained experience in communication, planning, leadership, and organizational skills. Furthermore, students have gained a specialized skill set in specimen handling, curation, database referencing, and mounting and repairing vouchers. Multiple undergraduates have since been hired onto jobs at the New Jersey State Museum, Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden, and the New York Botanical Garden because of their experience gained from the CHRB. Unfortunately, our undergraduate collections manager graduated, but fortunately, a new manager has been hired from the Spring 2016 Herbarium Army force to serve in the fall. Many of us (students) loved being apart of the Herbarium Army and plan on returning in the coming Fall 2016.
Left: Two students studying the morphological student. features associated with the order Arecales. Photo by Susanne Ruemmele.
Right: A voucher specimen of Solidago caesia L. created by an undergraduate
“…going through the CHRB collection I saw the gray areas of biology, where species are unresolved and botanists haven’t figured out what’s going on in a certain part of the evolutionary tree.”
Recently, the Chrysler Herbarium obtained a grant through NSF’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections program. We will be part of the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis Project, which will digitize over a million herbarium specimens from fifteen institutions. As part of this three year project even more undergraduates will get the opportunity to work in the herbarium while providing important data to future research needed in the field.
Students who attended the Plant Diversity and Evolution Lab studied the evolutionary and morphological relationships between plant orders and families. Each week was focused on a specific order(s), where synapomorphies between families were studied by representative live plants and/or voucher specimens. Students also learned the proper rules associated with taxonomic nomenclature, species identification, and the technique used to collect, press, and create valuable voucher specimens.
Acknowledgements
We thank the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (Rutgers) who provided herbarium funding, and the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources for web and student support.
“[M]y work in Chrysler Herbarium has given me a new appreciation for botany…in addition to the valuable real-world experience and transferable skills."