The Chicago Botanic Garden's Center for Integrated Conservation Science. (Report from the Field).

Abstract

For many years, the Chicago Botanic Garden has supported a research program focusing on the restoration of native plant communities. In the mid-1990s, steps were taken to extend the impact of the Garden's science and broaden its scope, resulting in the creation of the Center for Integrated Conservation Science in 2001. The Center is unique among other conservation organizations because our research is applied, it focuses on plants, and it uses integrated, multi-disciplinary approaches. Areas of research include restoration genetics, population biology, and community and soil ecology. Much of our work focuses on endangered and threatened plant species, but we also study several invasive plants and use common native plants as models in experiments that could not be done on rare taxa.

The Chicago Botanic Garden's Center for Integrated Conservation Science is a unique research and education center focusing on the conservation of plants and their communities. The Center was a natural outgrowth of the Garden's long standing community restoration program and its endangered plant research program which began in the mid-1990s. In the last five years, six scientists and several support staff have been hired creating the multi-disciplinary research team that comprises the Center for Integrated Conservation Science. Scientists with the Center conduct applied research on plant rarity, plant ecology and restoration, and plantsoil interactions. We investigate many of the biotic and abiotic factors affecting the conservation of plants, including population genetics and demography, invasive species, habitat fragmentation, disturbance and land-use change. Our projects fall under three main programmatic areas: ex situ (off site) plant conservation, restoration research, and regional floristics.

Our Ex Situ Conservation program focuses on flora of the Midwest. As members of the Center for Plant Conservation, a network of 33 gardens and arboreta, we seed bank nine globally rare plant species. Our core collections of these species serve as an insurance policy against extinction in the wild and some of the species are used in reintroduction projects. For example, we are partnering with The Morton Arboretum to reintroduce Pitcher's thistle (Cirsiumpitcheri) to Illinois Beach State Park. The species had not been seen in Illinois since the early 1900s but is now reproducing on its own at the park. We are also partnering with the Millennium Seed Bank at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to preserve seed from native tallgrass prairie species. Research in the ex situ program focuses on minimizing genetic change during "captivity" and developing propagation protocols for species slated for reintroduction.

In the Restoration Research program, we are taking an experimental approach to answer questions about plant rarity, restoration, the effects of management on plants and their communities, and soil ecology. For instance, through a partnership with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) we are using molecular and quantitative techniques to study the restoration genetics of six Penstemon and Eriogonum species. These taxa, native to the Intermountain West, will be used in post-wildfire restoration projects. In similar studies, we are looking at inbreeding and outbreeding depression in two Illinois Lobelia species that have different pollination syndromes.

One of our conservation scientists, Pati Vitt, is interested in how management practices affect populations of rare plants. She is studying the effect of prescribed fire and invasive plant removal on the demography, population genetic structure, and breeding system of Viola conspersa, a state-listed violet that produces both chasmogamous (open) and cleistogamous (closed) flowers. She also works with the federally threatened Platanthera leucophaea (eastern prairie fringed orchid). In this orchid, hand-pollination is used to increase fruit set to provide seed for reintroduction projects. She is testing if increased fruit set affects individual longevity. Her work will allow us to recommend levels of hand-pollination that provide seed for restoration without negatively impacting population viability.

Stuart Wagenius is looking at the effects of habitat fragmentation on Echinacea angustifolia (purple coneflower). He is tracking reproductive success, population demography, and genetic structure in small and large prairie fragments. His work will enable us to evaluate how much increasing the size of a restoration area will enhance the long-term sustainability of plant populations. Stuart also investigates how quantitative seed and seedling traits in individual plants are related to their lifetime fitness. In particular, he is testing the hypothesis that asymmetry of cotyledons in seedlings is a predictor of poor health in adult plants.

Our community ecologists, Louise Egerton-Warburton and Lara Jefferson, are investigating how below-ground processes influence the structure of the above-ground plant community. They are currently evaluating how mycorrhizal (symbiotic) fungi and soil nutrients influence the boundary between oak woodlands and prairies. Louise is also working on the role of mycorrhizae in minimizing drought stress and how anthropogenic impacts, such as nitrogen deposition, affect the diversity and functioning of soil fungi. In a recently completed study in California grasslands, Louise found that the interaction of fire, smoke, length of soil burial and temperature were important determinants of seed germination. The variation in germination requirements among species indicated the ways in which seeds may be pre-treated prior to sowing to enhance restoration success, while the timing of fires provide information for site management.

In the Regional Floristics program, we primarily study the flora of the greater Chicago region and are particularly interested in the rare species. Through our Plants of Concern project, we are coordinating a group of volunteers who monitor occurrences of many federally and state listed endangered and threatened plants. The volunteers receive training on monitoring methods and are gathering census and demographic data on plant populations, as well as site management history, for analysis by Garden staff. Our results are shared with the landowners and the Illinois Natural Heritage database. Next year, we will expand the project to include invasive plant species and monitoring their response to management. Volunteers for the invasive project will include student groups from a variety of Chicago area high schools.

Offering educational opportunities for the next generation of conservation botanists is one of our most important goals. The Garden's Institute for Plant Conservation Biology offers one of the most comprehensive suites of educational programs in the United States focusing on applied plant conservation. The Institute gives students the theoretical background and the practical stewardship experience necessary to conserve plants and their communities. The Institute offers a Plant Conservation Biology Certificate, accredited by Loyola University of Chicago. Students must pass 14 credit hours of conservation courses to earn a certificate. Courses include Conservation Biology, Plant Biology, Conservation Genetics, Plant Reproductive Biology, Plant Ecology, and others. We offer a variety of public programs aimed at conservation professionals and students, including the annual Janet Meakin Poor Research Symposium, short courses, and a seminar series. For students wanting hands-on experience after graduation, we offer two types of internships. The Garden's Conservation Science interns spend 12 months working with one of our scientists. They typically assist with ongoing research, design and carry out their own project, and take Garden classes appropriate for their area of interest. We also partner with the BLM to offer the Conservation and Land Management Mentoring Program. Students come to the Garden for a 40-hour training course and then work with a mentor in one of the BLM state or field offices. These five-month internships focus on endangered species management.

Making research tools available to the larger conservation community is also one of our goals. Toward that end, we are working on two websites that will be available in January 2003. The first site will provide information, images, and bibliographies of nearly 600 of the nation's rarest plants held in the Center for Plant Conservation's National Collection. The second site, "vPlants: a Virtual Herbarium", is being developed in partnership with The Morton Arboretum and the Field Museum of Natural History. The site will contain records of all the Chicago region herbarium specimens held by the three institutions, as well as digital images of many of the sheets. It is our hope that through research, education and public outreach, the Center for Integrated Conservation Science will contribute in a significant way to the international effort to conserve plant diversity.

Kayri Havens

Center for Integrated Conservation Science, Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road; Glencoe, IL 60022 [phone]; [e-mail]; http://www.chicagobotanic.org/research/conservation

Kayri Havens

Kayri Havens holds a B.S. and an M.A. in Botany from Southern Illinois University and a Ph.D. in Biology from Indiana University where she studied reproductive success in a rare evening primrose (Oenothera organensis) from New Mexico. She spent three years as the Conservation Biologist at Missouri Botanical Garden before joining the Chicago Botanic Garden in April 1997. She is currently the Garden's Director of the Center for Integrated Conservation Science. Her research interests include restoration genetics and the biology of plant rarity and invasiveness. She also collaborates with a variety of academic institutions and stewardship organizations to help improve conservation efforts for rare plants.