DEPARTMENT OF BOTANYOHIO UNIVERSITY

NEWSLETTER1986

REPORT FROMT[IECI-IAIRMAN: I wish to thank all of you whoresponded to our last Newsletter. It is gratifying to thefaculty and your peers to learn of your current activities. Iwould liketo report to you that theDepartmentofBotanyhas hadan extremely productive year since our 1985 Newsletter. Researchgrants obtained by a number of our faculty and graduate studentsnow total more than $300,000. With this funding, we have beenable to obtain much needed state of the art equipment f or bothteaching and research in our laboratories. In recent years Drs.L. A. Larson, 3. 1-1. Graffius and W. A. Wistendahl have wonteaching awards, indicating the importance placed on maintaininga strong teaching program within the Department. As in the past,we are attempting to maintain excellence in our training ofstudents at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. I hopethat the information contained in this Newsletter provides youwith some insight concerning the exciting activities taking placein our Department.

Irwin A. UngarProfessor and Chairman

NEW FAçIJLTY: Dr. Gayle E. Muenchow has joined the staff of theDepartment of Botany this year. Dr. Muenchow received her Ph.D.from the Department of Environmental, Populational and OrganismalBiology at the University of Colorado. Her research has beendirected toward an understanding of the evolution of breedingsystems in plants. She is contributing strongly through herteaching and research in the areas of population ecology andgenetics. She has authored several research papers published in2L2x L!iY’ and The American Naturalist, and has recentlyreceived two awards related to her doctoral research, the JasperLoftus Hills Award from the American Society of Naturalists andan Ecological Society of America award for best paper inpresentation of her work at their annual meetings. The JasperLoftus Hills Award is given to a young scientist whose doctoralwork indicates special promise for outstanding contributions inevolutionary biology.

GRANTS AND AWARDS: The department has received several newgrants from the National Science Foundation this year. Dr. JamesBraselton has received a $70,000 research grant to continue hisresearch on parasitic slime molds. The main emphasis of hisresearch is to use characteristics of the nucleus and nucleardivisions to determine relationships within the group. His studywill karyotype members of the Plasmodiophorales by countingsynaptonemal complexes (structures that occur between paired

homologous chromosomes during pachynema of the first meioticprophase, which can be visualized through transmission electronmicroscopy). The number of synaptonemal complexes is equal tothe haploid chromosome number. He will use this informationalongwith morphological features in numerical methods forsystematic analysis. This study is of a pioneer nature ascurrent classifications are based on morphology and numericalmethods of analysis have rarely been used.

Dr. Philip Cantino has received a grant of $90,000 to studyphylogenetic relationships in the mint family, Labiatae. Dr.Cantino is oneof the fewbotanists toapplycladisticanalysisto a large and diverse plant family. As you know, the mintfamily is largeandeconomically important. Cladisticanalysisis a relatively recent innovation in plant systematics to inferphylogeny. Dr. Cantino will base his cladistic analysis onacomprehensive survey of morphological features of various taxa.

Dr. Ivan Smith has been awarded a grant of $120,000 tosupport his research on the regulation of glutathione metabolismin mutant barley. This three year grant continues his fundingfor research on the regulation of sulfur metabolism in plants.One of the goals of his research is to increase the rate of aminoacid synthesis by genetic modification of existing regulatorymechanisms, by initially identifying the major sites ofregulation. Amino acid synthesis is particularly important asmost seeds which are consumed are nutritionally deficient in thesulfur containing amino acids, which contributes to decreasednutrition of those human populations which depend primarily onmarginal seed protein diets.

Drs. Braselton, Cantino and Lloyd along with several membersof the Department of Zoological and Biomedical Sciences (Drs. Moody,Svendsen, and Scholl) were awarded $28,000 from the OhioUniversity 1804 Fund to establish a laboratory for DNA/DNAhybridization, to be used for systematic studies. DNA/DNAhybridization is an elegantly simple technique that combines allsingle copy DNA of two species by linking their complementarystrands. The more tightly the two strands bind, the higher theirsimilarity in total genetic composition. Thus, relative degreesof geneological relationships can be established. This techniquewill be applied to current systematic problems in fungi, ferns,and flowering plants. The research will be undoubtedly supportedby the recent acquistion of Dr. Jon Ahiquist from YaleUniversity, who is joining the Department of Zoology and thesystematics and evolutionary biology program this fall. Dr.Ahiquist has co-authored more than 20 papers on the subject withDr. Charles Sibley, including.a recent contribution to ScientificAmerican, (February, 1986, “Reconstructing bird phylogeny. bycompar ing DNA’ s”).

AWARDS: Young Botanist Awards for 1985 from the BotanicalSociety of America went to the following seniors who were judgedto be outstanding and each has been awarded a Certificate ofMerit from the Society: Patricia L. Bartol, Carolee T. Bull,

Janet E. Foucart, Marcos D. I—Iartitz, Philip L. Keating, and DavidC. Slifkin. Awards were announced in the August, 1985, issue ofthe Plant Science Bulletin, and of those given, 33% went to OhioUniversity graduates.

FACULTY NEWS

nes P. Braselton: Dr. Braselton received a NSF grant for threeyears to study Plasmodiophorales, a group of obligately parasiticprotists which are sometimes classified as either fungi orprotozoans. Some members cause serious diseases, e.g., clubrootof cabbage, powdery scab of potatos, and may serve in some casesas vectors for viral infections (mop-top of potatos andrhizomania of sugarbeets). The nuclei of the group are verysmall, 2-4 urn in diameter, thus accurate estimates of chromosomenumbers and structure are impossible with light microscopy. TEMis being used to count the number of chromosomes byreconstructing models of nuclei and this data will be used todetermine systematic relationships. He also plans to travel toNorway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and England this coming summerto collect materials in support of this work.

p__ç: Dr. Cant mo’s research on the phylogeny andclassification of the Labiatae continues to progress, withcurrent efforts concentrating on a survey of leaf anatomy in thefamily. Leaf anatomy has received little study in the Labiatae,and a pilot study by his graduate student Mones Abu-Asad (inpress in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum) has shown thatcomparative leaf anatomy can contribute significantly to ourunderstanding of phylogenetic relationships among the mints.Mones’ survey is now being extended to a wider sample of taxa inthe mint family as well as in the related family, Verbenaceae.Dr. Cantino has also been actively building up a greenhousecollection of many genera of mints for study of flower and fruitmorphology.

Graduate students in Dr. Cantino’s lab are conducting avariety of research in plant systematics and rare speciesmanagement. Mones Abu-Asab’s doctoral research centers oncomparative pollen morphology and phylogenetic relationships inone subfamily of Labiatae. Jon Hamer, who recently completed hismaster’s thesis in paleobotany with Dr. Rothwell, is pursuing hisdoctoral research on the systematics of Pcnanthernurn (MountainMints). His first summer of field work yielded not only muchuseful data but also a large collection of pleasantly aromaticresearch plants which spice up the air in the greenhouse.

Two of Dr. Cantino’s students are pursuing master’s degreesin the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Program. StevenHarriott is carrying out a study of the vegetation and land usehistory of the Nature Conservancy’s Straight Creek Prairie BluffsPreserve in Pike County, Ohio. The conclusions drawn from thisstudy will help the Conservancy manage the area to protect therare prairie species which occur there. Gregory Rhinehalt is

working toward a dual master’s degree in botany and environmentalstudies with Dr. Cantino and Dr. Muenchow. His research concernsthe rare eastern variety of the spreading globeflower, Trolliuslaxus, in the buttercup family. Although the species is commonin the Rocky Mountains, the eastern variety is known from onlytwo locations in Ohio (where it is designated as endangered) anda handful of sites in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, andConnecticut. He is examining the systematics of the genus usinga computer analysis applied to morphological and chromosomaldata, as well as studying aspects of the species’ ecology in thetwo Ohio populations. Greg was recently awarded a grant insupport of this research from the Division of Natural Areas andPreserves of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Dr. Cohn is currently chairman of the graduateprograms. He recently presented papers at the InternationalBotanical Microscopy Congress in York, England and at theInternational Congress of Plant Molecular Biology in Savannah,Georgia. Both of these papers dealt with immunochemicalidentification of developmental proteins inPisum, usingmonoclonal antibodies. He currently has a paper in press in1-listochernistry on a similar subject and has been invited tosubmit a paper on the immunolocalization methods to the American

5

MLx: Dr. Lloyd is presently writing a volume on theevolutionary biologybf ferns for Columbia University Press, atime consuming but rewarding project. He is also working ongametophyte development of the climbing fern, Lygodium 2!!i’which is infrequently found in southern Ohio. This study ispreparatory to work on population genetics and biology of thisnotorious clonal plant. Tom Warne completed his doctoraldissertation this past spring under his direction, on geneticvariation inceratoRteris, with data from electrophoreticstudies. Donald Buckley has recently completed a dissertation onvariations in mating systems in early clonal to maturepopulations of Onoclea sensibilis, also using isozyme andallozyme frequencies from electrophoresis. Leslie Dybiec, asenior undergraduate, is currently studying spore germination andgametophyte growth dynamics under various temperature regimes ofOhio vs. Florida plants of Woodwardia (Lorinseria) areolata, aspecies which is rare in Ohio but common in the south and east ofthe Appalachians.

Ge! Mapes: Dr. Mapes completed her NSF VisitingProfessorship year with C. B. Beck and the Museum of Paleontologyat the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. During this year sheexamined the potential evolutionary relationships amongArcheopteris and the earliest conifers. At Michigan StateUniversity, she presented a seminar on the earliest conifers andis currently working with two palynologists on the Hamilton,Kansas, palynoflora. In October, she travelled to Europe and

worked with colleagues in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.At (ltrecht, she initiated work comparing the age and depositional(flV i ronrTlent s of loss i I conifers in Europe with those ofFrlidcontinental United States. In Frankfurt and East Berlin shelearned improved techniques for cuticle maceration andfluorescence microscopy and examined type collections of waichianconifers. In Strasbourg, she focused her research on Mesozoicvoltzialean conifers and early Triassic paleoeco.logy, whilediscovering some new unusual conifers in river and lake deposits.

John P. Mitchell: Last summer, Dr. Mitchell attended the ThirdInternational Botanical Microscopy meeting in York, England, andin the fall, the plant molecular biology congress in Georgia. Inbetween, he continued to negotiate with Zeiss (N.Y.) about hiscytophotometer...”but anything I say about that might belibelous”. Next year at this time he plans to be in the “Athensof the North”, Edinburgh.

GayleE.Muenchow: Dr. Muenchow writes...”1985-86 is my firstyear on the OU Botany faculty. I received my A.B. from RadcliffeCollege, M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. fromthe University of Colorado, Boulder. I suppose I fit mostcomfortably under the heading ‘population biologist’. I’mparticularly interested in the evolution of plant breedingsystems. My thesis work focused on dioecy. I reviewed andextended the study of characters associated with dioecy, noticinghow very strongly dioecy is associated with pollination--abioticpollination and pollination by small insects servicing shallow,colorless flowers. I developed some ideas about how thesesituations might cause the evolution of dioecy. The ideascentered on the rate at which pollen is moved within and betweenplants, an aspect of pollination that has been very littlestudied. With this motivation, I measured rates of pollenmovement in dioecious and non-dioecious ciernatis, finding as Ipredicted, that pollen movement between plants is much slower forthe dioecious than the non-dioecious species. I have justreceived a grant from the OU Research Council to continue thiswork, on Sagittaria this time, in the Athens area.Chasmogamy7cleistogamy is another breeding system’ that fascinatesme. Brian Gara (graduate student) and I have put together aproject to study the success of the chasmogamous flowers ofTriodanus perfoliatus (Campanulaceae) as a function of when theybloom. Brian will also compare the average success ofchasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers and will compare the seedsof each as regards their germination and vigor. We are hopingthat this rather weedy annual will lend itself to experimentaluse once Brian has learned more about its natural history. Myarrival has altered the Botany Dept.’s course listing a little.I’m teaching basic plant genetics and expect to add a populationgenetics course as well. I’m also starting to serve as a localstatistical consultant, which I especially enjoy for the glimpsesit gives’me of the many research projects in this department.”

L_!hcii: There now are four graduate students and aPostdoctoral Research Associate working with Dr. Rothwell onseveral aspects of Paleozoic plant evolution, and Dr. Arthur H.Buckle continues to exercise his emeritus status to inspire andadvise. Dr. David C. Wight joined the laboratory in July toreconstruct some of the oldest seed plants from southernScotland, and has been providing instruction in newly-developedtechniques for the preparation of plant fossils. Dr. Ruth A.Stockey of the University of Alberta, a former O.U. graduatestudent, spent two months of sabbatical leave in the laboratory,where she worked on Eocene age flowers, fruits and seeds fromBritish Columbia - part of the collections currently housed inthe Paleobotanical Herbarium. In early May, Richard Bateman, aPh.D. student at the University of London, visited the laboratoryfor two weeks to coordinate joint research with Dr. Rothwell onPaleoecology of early seed plants.

Mary Louise (Cookie) Trivett has made significant progresstoward her Ph.D. dissertation by developing techniques formodeling the growth architecture of fossil plants. The resultsof her master’s research on primitive conifer—like plants appearedin the April, 1985 issue of Systematic Botany. Trivett andRothwell also presented the results of a developmental biologystudy on a primitive fern at an international conference(L’Arber) in Montpellier, France in September, 1985.

All three masters students are scheduled to complete theirdegree work this spring or summer. Melissa McComas has madeexciting discoveries about Pennsylvanian vegetation from northernOhio, and is currently completing the first ever whole-plantreconstruction of one of the earliest conifers. Janelle Pryorhas developed and refined techniques for the quantitativesampling of fossil vegetation, and has made preliminaryobservations about micro-habitat differences within a Paleozoiccoal swamp. Janelle plans to continue on to pursue a Ph.D. atOhio University, and to conduct a comprehensive study of coal-forming vegetation from the Duquesne Coal near Steubenville,Ohio. Diane Erwin has characterized the morphology and anatomyof a new type of Devonian plant f rom Eastern West Virginia, andis scheduled to begin Ph.D. work at the University of Alberta inSeptember, 1986. Results of an earlier study by Erwin andRothwell appeared in the January, 1985 issue of the AmericanJournal of Botany. All of the graduate students will bepresenting results of their current studies at the annualmeetings of the Botanical Society of America, at Amherst, Mass.in August.

Particularly exciting discoveries of stems, leaves andpollen-producing organs in association with the world’s oldestseeds recently have been made by Erwin and Rothwell, and they nowhave the material needed to characterize the entire seed plant.A report of these discoveries will be made at the 1986 Meetingsof the Botanical Society of America. Work on the origin andearlyevolutionof seed plants alsohas beenaugmentedbyanew5110,000.00, two-year grant to Rothwell and Wight from the

National Science Foundation (Evolutionary Relationships of

Primitive Gymnosperms). This work consists of making whole-plant

reconstructions of early seed plants from volcanic beds of

southern Scotland, and using these as data for interpreting the

evolution of gymnosperm seeds, stems and leaves. Seeds from the

assemblage were used to demonstrate the use of computer graphics

to reconstruct fossil organisms at the MidcontinentalPaleobotanical Colloquium, Museum of Paleontology, University of

Michigan in early May. Paleoecological characterization of the

assemblage currently is being completed in collaboration with Dr.

A. C. Scott and Richard Bateman, University of London.Dr. Rothwell’s interests increasingly are focusing on the

use of developmental features to interpret evolutionary

mechanisms and to reconstruct the evolution of vascular plants.

Several invited symposia and lectures have provided anopportunity to communicate the work. The first of these was an

international symposium on “Systematic and Taxonornic Approaches

in Palaeobotany” sponsored by the Linnean Society of London, and

held at Goldsmith’s College of the University of London in April,

1985. In August, Rothwell spoke on “The Role of Heterochrony in

Vascular Plant Evolution” ma symposiumentitled “Paleobotanical

Perspectives on Vascular Plant Evolution” sponsored by the

Botanical Society of America at the annual meetings at theUniversity of Florida. He also is scheduled to speak in a

symposium on “The Evolution of Gymnosperms” to be held byFoundation Louis Emberger-Charles Sauvage, Montpellier, France in

September, and in a “Heterochrony” symposium at the annual

meetings of theGeological Society of America at San Antonio in

November.Looking forward to the coming year, several activities are

anticipated. Field trips are planned to collect the earliest

seed plants in West Virginia, to recover more Lower Carboniferous

plants in southern Scotland and to augment our collections of

coal-ball plants from near Steubenville, Ohio. The first graduate

student in Palaeobotany from the People’s Republic of China will

be joining the Plant Paleontology group in September. Mr. Li Bai

of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Academia

Sinica will be working toward his Ph.D. They are looking forward

to completing the computerization of the paleobotanicalcollections and reference library. Additional equipment to

provide this capability is currently on order, and are all

eagerly assisting in the effort to move plant paleontology Fast-

Forward into the 21st Century.

Ivan K. Smith: Dr. Smith writes that “he has acquired a Beckman

Spectophotometer, 02-electrode and will soon obtain a new Beckman

Liquid Scintillation Counter, thanks to the generosity of NSF and

the State of Ohio. He continues his slide into obscurity by

using whole plants and not working on DNA/RNA. He is studyiflg in

vivo oxidation and reduction of glutathione. The only semblance

of modernity in his research program is the measurement of

oxidized and reduced glutathione in isolated chioroplasts.

Glutathione is thought to play a vital role in allowing certainplants to resist a variety of environmental stresses.”

!Unar: During the past year, Dr. Ungar and his graduatestudents have published a number of papers related to thegermination ecology of dimorphic seeds. Field and laboratoryinvestigations have provided a clearer understanding of thetiming of seed germination and its effect on the growth andsurvival of natural populations. He is currently looking at theinfluence of parental environments on seed germinationrequirements. His graduate students continue to study theef fects of the high stress habitats on the growth anddistribution of plants. The students currently pursuing graduatedegrees in his lab are Virginia Moran, EngridChorba, JamesNellessen, Kern Badger, Marlis Rahman and Don Drake.

Warren A. Wistendahi: Dr. Wistendahl, who took early retirementbeginning July 1, 1985, was awarded the Dean’s OutstandingTeaching Award for 1985 for the College of Arts and Sciences.•His two remaining graduate students, Ray Strom and TomVierheller, will have completed their Master’s Degreerequirements by June, 1986. As part of his retirement agreement,he taught the Vegetation of North America course and Botany 101in the winter, 1986, quarter.

ODDS AND ENDS

The Department was given an Academic Excellence Award for anew faculty position to support the cellular and molecularbiology program. Applicants are currently being screened forthis position and interviews took place during the month of May.

Our Newsletter has made it into the permanent stacks of theNew York Botanical Garden’s Library. Thus, hundreds of yearsfrom now, people will be able to read about what really goes onhere in southeastern Ohio.

Undergraduate course enrollments this year are upsignificantly over years past. Our graduate applications werealso good and left us with more fundable applicants than we couldpossibly fund. New students this fall will study in the areas ofpaleobotany, ecology, pteridology, and cell biology.

NEWS OF ALL1vt’lI

David Barnes, BS/BSED, 1979: Dave is currently a seniorengineering representative for Aetna Casualty and Surety. Hisjob involves assisting commercial accounts in identification,analysis, measurement of exposures that could cause propertydamage, bodily injury, etc., and proposing solutions to alleviateor reduce the exposure to acceptable levels. He writes that “Upuntil this year I began to wonder if the closest I would get tousing my degree (except for getting the job--they wanted someonewith a technical background) was my address; however

environmental pollution concerns are increasingly becoming amajor concern of the insurance industry. In particular,underground storage of toxic materials and petroleum derivativespresent possibly catastrophic exposures especially when locatednear streams. Pre-professional program of environmental biologywas therefore beneficial.” On the personal side, he has gottenmarried to a native Coloradon who is a medical technologist atDenver General Hospital...”We have a wonderful time exploringColorado’s flora and fauna. There may be fewer species out herebut who cares with scenery like this! Backpacking, camping, xcountry skiing, poetry, music, and being a homeowner make theweeks spin by. I have also been active in ECKANKAR and happywith life in general.” He is currently living at 3601 W.Greenwood Place, Denver, CO., 80236.

Hazel Beeler, MS, 1982: Hazel writes that she is working inpaleoecology onUpper Mississippian coals, learning how to dogeology, while still a doctoral student at Virginia PolytechnicInstitute, Blacksburg. She gave an presentation of her work atthe Botanical Society of America meetings in Gainesville,Florida, in August of this past year. She has also received aSigma-Xi Grant-In-Aid to help cover costs of summer field work.

caroieMoanB-orn, BSEd., 1957: Carole is living in Galior,Ohio, and is an instructor at O.S.U.-Mansfield and an adulteducation instructor in Galior. She sends her thanks for thenewsletter and news of the “old” department.

Ph.D., 1986: Don was recently in Costa Ricaworking on breeding systems in flowering plants under apostdoctoral appointment with Dr. K. Bawa of the University ofMassachusetts, Boston. He returned to Athens recently to defendhis dissertation and will leave shortly for Sri Lanka for moreextensive field work in the tropics.

Dean Della Penna, BS, 1985: Dean went to the University ofCalifornia, Davis, for graduate work and is expected tofinishhis Ph.D. work by next year. He is already the senior author ofa paper in Analytical Biochemistry, with a second submitted toProc. National Academy Science, U.S.A.

Dennis Harclin, Ph.D., 1982: Dennis is currently in Floridaworking for the Nature Conservancy in the area of iloristics andendangered species. Prior to moving he worked as a seasonalemployee of the Ohio TNC and located two stations for Bicknell’scrane’s-bill, Geranium bicknelli in Lucas County, a speciesthought to be extirpated from the Ohio flora. Bravo to Dennisand all good wishes.

S. 1-larnid Karirni, Ph.D., 1984: Hamid is currently employed by theGovernment of the District of Columbia in the EnvironmentalRegulation Administration. He is involved with the environmentalmoni tor ing program.

AjrnalKhan, Ph.D., 1985: Ajmal has been promoted to assistantprofessor in the Department of Botany, University of Karachi,Pakistan. He will be teaching plant ecology and hopes tointegrate courses in population biology and physiological ecologyin the department’s curriculum.

David S. Loveland, MS, 1981: David is now Director of NaturalResources for the League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C.

Brian McCarthy, MS, 1984: Brian is now pursuing his doctorate atRutgers University. He recently received an award for the beststudent presentation at the annual meeting of the New JerseyAcademy of Science (April 5, 1986). His presentation, “CommunityStructure and Composition of an Old-growth Appalachian Forest,”was based on research carr ied out while he was at OhioUniversi ty.

VirginiaMoran, BS, 1984: Ginny has been appointed to theposition of field ecologist with the Ohio Department of NaturalResources. She is currently completing her master’s thesis onthe demography and ecology of Synandra his2idula, a speciesconsidered to be rare and endangered in Ohio. Her research wassupported by a research grant from the Division of Natural Areasand Preserves of the Ohio Division of Natural Resources.

O.T.Okusanya, Visiting Professor in this department during1982, has been promoted to Professor of Botany, University ofLagos, Lagos, Nigeria.

Gerald B. Straley, MS, 1974: Gerald moved to Vancouver, B.C. in1976, and received his Ph.D. from the University of BritishColumbia in 1980. He worked as education co-ordinator atVanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver until 1983 when he wentback to UBC as a research scientist for the botanical garden. Inaddition to teachinghe isworkingonthefloraof BritishColumbia and various aspects of horticultural taxonomy related tothe botanical garden. He has just had his first book published,“The Rare Vascular Plants of British Columbia”.

Thomas R. Warne, Ph.D., 1985: Tom is working as a researchassociate in the laboratory of Leslie Hickok (MS-OU, 1971) at theUniversity of Tennessee, looking for genes in ceratopteris whichwill be useful in genetic engineering.