Alun Salt| “ | Still can’t work out who is cooler – the botany conference people or the quilting conference next door people. Probably us #ibc18 | |||
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Once again there’s a mix and match element to the stream as twitterers sampled a wide variety of sessions and talks.
| “ | I’ll start with a (little) barcoding this afternoon. #ibc18 Pete Hollingsworth on choosing and using the ‘code. | |||
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| “ | Hollingsworth reminded us that plants barcode agreed to be rbcL and matK, and to revisit this at end of 2011. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hollingsworth: Discriminatory power of plant biocode? 70-90% for regions, down to 50% for some taxa. But still narrows down options. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | And I’m in polyploids now. Matt Hegarty – gene expression in polyploids and hybrids – are they different #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Andrew Leitch giving Soltis – Tragopogon. Homoeolog loss in populations, same genes in several lineage, some genes resistant to loss. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Poor Andrew has to talk about Groundhog Day hypothesis, except nobody understands – what’s it got to do with rodent shadows? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Leitch again: Nicotiana silvestris as a "wild and wicked lady" promiscously became mother of many polyploid hybrids. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Leitch/Soltis Recurring aneuploidy, non-random directed evolution, in 1 direction, losses & silencing, repeated subfunctionalization. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Andrew Leitch filling in for Doug Soltis @ #ibc18: compensating aneuploids found in Tragopogon allopolyploids as in resynthesized Brassica! | |||
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| “ | And now Andrew gets more questions than I’ve heard in any other session, about a lecture he gave for someone not here! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Many of the changes in new polylploids are not random MT @JChrisPires Leitch filling in [quite well!] for the Solti #ibc18 echo of Brassica! | |||
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| “ | Andrew Leitch @ #ibc18 on Nicotiana allopolyploid #genome evolution — beautiful cytogenetic images of repeats found by #NextGenSequencing! | |||
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| “ | Yargh! Symposium on Banksian legacy moved floors altogether to 1.09. #maddash #panic #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Pat Brownsey on Banks & Solander specs held in NZ (WELT). All online. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Brownsey: B&S unable to collect in S Island, "much to Banks’s disgust". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Brownsey: Banks’s failure to publish created probs in NZ botany. (Aussies can relate.) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Brownsey: B&S specimens verifiable record of pre-European flora. Still cited in modern treatments & are the rockstars of herb. tours. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Brownsey impressing NZ PM pointing out All Blacks silver fern emblem one of B&S collns. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | True! RT @IBC11: Brownsey: Banks & Solande specimens verifiable record of pre-European flora/rockstars of herb. tours. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Doug Benson on B&S at Botany Bay. Starts with comment that he thought botanists died out at end of 1800s. Mood turns ugly. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: B&S "discovered" the Sutherland Shire. (I still think they’re cool though.) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: maps produced on voyage surprisingly accurate, given they were done from row-boat. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: Botany Bay quite good survey of local flora (132 taxa), esp. given that it was done in April/May when not much in flower. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: B&S specimens largely inaccessible until c. 10 years ago when moved to new herb. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Oops… Benson: some of the Sydney specimens may not be duplicates of London material. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: Solander doing the "serious" botany & Latin. Banks paying for it! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: Banks and Cook criticised for raving about fertile land of Botany Bay, but their actual remarks were misreported. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: Bidens pilosa labelled as collected at Botany Bay. People don’t want to believe it! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Benson: could solve Bidens issue with genetic testing. Botany Bay collns great example of systematic botany with Linnaean approach. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Peter Van Weltzen on pathways through Malesia, drawing ‘Wallace lines’ all over the place. not handy to talk about a ‘line’. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | van Weltzen: Wallace line not useful, better to use an area ,’Wallacea’. yes! screw boundaries! #areas ftw! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | van Weltzen: looking at pathways – not necessarily the shortest distance. Looking for ancestral areas. Islands as stepping stones. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Monica Carvalho: fascinating talk about remarkable similarities between Patagonian Eocene fossils and present Australian flora #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Greg Jordan also suffering from #ibc18cold but soldiering on. Crowd filling with familiar faces! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | I’ve come across the world to learn something about Sussex, from Jill Sutcliffe, the county in which Millennium Seed Bank sits. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Sutcliffe: Appointed a ‘Vegetated Shingle Officer’ to look after one particularly stressed habitat near the coast (in Sussex!). #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Sutcliffe: All new plant records checked by *expert*. (Before morning session I thought this was a good thing.) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Next up: Steve Cafferty on "The Virtual Endeavour". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cafferty: 30K pieces of plants on 10K herb. sheets at Natural History Mus. in London. Few thousand elsewhere, inc. c. 1K in Aust. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cafferty: large artistic legacy of voyage e.g. 900 drawings by Psrkinson. Languished until quite recently, but luckily kept together. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cafferty: Endeavour collns important for early records, Types, new sp. discovery and just plain iconic. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cafferty: Virtual Endeavour project aims to reunite collns, create web portal, full catalogue. Also add cultural perspectives. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cafferty recently visited Tolaga Bay NZ, by chance exact same day as Endeavour. "Little bit spooky". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | First question for Cafferty: "What is the transit of Venus?". Answer involved "doing some maths". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Greg Jordan: assembly of the Australian rainforest flora. southern and northern disjunctions. many events to be explained #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Greg Jordan: how much of the Aust. RF flora is recent? how much does the fossil record contribute? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Robert Kooyman: Australian rainforest community assembly. interactions between ecological variables and phylogenetic history. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kooyman: "pairwise phylo beta diversity" – is that legal in Victoria? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kooyman: looking at major RF spp traits. assemblages more clustered in subtropics than tropics. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | yesterday afternoon was all about ‘the list’; this afternoon is all about ‘the signal’. #ecologistsaredifferenttotaxonomists #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Patrcik Edger Metabolic network of Arabidopsis: 3 whole genome duplications. DupPipe program but domain expired http://bit.ly/nZQeN8 #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Pat Edger @ #ibc18 reports the phylogenomic location of ancient polyploid events in the Brassicales (Arabidopsis alpha and beta WGD)! | |||
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| “ | Pat Edger @ #ibc18 on #SystemsBiology of #polyploids – #Arabidopsis ancient WGD & metabolic network (Bekaert et al. Plant Cell online) | |||
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| “ | Rodrigo Singer – movies of sexual mimicry in action in orchids, complete with romantic background music. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Nina Hobbhahn – nectar production is relatively low cost, and increases reproductive efficiency. But more self-pollination. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Next: Shelley James on Floral diversity in New Guinea. How many species are there? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | James: botanical surveys mostly in Papua New Guinea. Complex geological history. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Shelly James: floral biodiversity of New Guinea: how many species are there? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Shelley James: diverse geology and geomorphology is reflected in very high biodiversity. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | James: geology and topology led to huge biodiversity in NG, various land fragments bringing their own flora. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Shelley James: presenting a collection density map for PNG. many sparse areas. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | James: New Guinea greatly undercollected, terrain and politics make things difficult. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | James: accelerating loss of forests with mining, logging and urbanisation. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | James: climate change expected to have heavy impacts in NG. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Shelley James on PNG flora… and here come the #headbucket slides: #mining, #LNG, #logging, #oilpalm, #climatechange 🙁 #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #oilpalm #facepalm RT @Jim_Croft … and here come the #headbucket slides: #mining, #LNG, #logging, #oilpalm, #climatechange 🙁 #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Shelley James. search PNG specimens at the Bishop Museum here: http://nsdb.bishopmuseum.org/ #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | James: project to augment & digitise NG collns at BISH. New collns vouchered & available for research. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Shelly James: NG plant project description can be seen at: http://pbs.bishopmuseum.org/papuanplants/ #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Next: Peter Linder will tell us what plants have that helps them travel long distances [other than human interest] #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Linder: Scaevola may have spread from Australia to Pacific Islands due to fruit fleshiness, but hard to test. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Linder: "The results were interesting. Well, results usually are or else I wouldn’t be here talking about them" #thatstrue #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Catherine Nock @ #ibc18 presents problems with plant DNA barcoding (in contrast to John Kress talk) and presents #NextGenSequencing option! | |||
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| “ | Catherine Nock @ #ibc18 says #NextGenSequencing will cost same as "traditional" plant DNA barcoding soon-Shannon Straub said yesterday also! | |||
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| “ | Now what we’ve all been waiting for: Rogier de Kok on collecting density and floristic patterns in NG. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | de Kok: another map of collections density. Very low overall & highlands relatively over-collected. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Rogier DeKok: collecting density and floristic patterns for PNG. highlands well collected, lowlands not so. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | de Kok: previous studies on several taxa have identified various putative areas of endemism in NG. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | de Kok: NG plant endemism patterns differ from those for birds and amphibians. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | De Kok showing conflicting centres of endemisn/richness from different groups by different experts . #andthereinliestheproblem #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | De Kok: equal area elevational band analyses. highlands have more species than lowlands. mtns highly endemic. lowlands undercollected #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | de Kok: lack of PNG data esp. from lowlands hampering research and conservation efforts. Attempts to address this. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Adrienne Nicotra presenting PrometheusWiki, subtitled experimentation in the digital publishing space. "We’ve produced a web page". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Prometheus=PROtocols,METHods,Explanations & Updated Standards for ecological & environmental plant physiology #strugglingforacronyms #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Nicotra: Prometheus – Search function more important than a neat hierarchy. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Nicotra (PrometheusWiki): author and reviewers all get credit – protocols remain live. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Nicotra (PrometheusWiki): When referencing you should use two dates – the version cited and the date accessed. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Nicotra (PrometheusWiki): Nice ‘watch’ icon so you can track changes to protocols, and so on… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Learning about laurels in the Australian rainforest (LARF) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Vivienne Ka Yee Lam (Sean Graham lab) @ #ibc18 on phylogenetics of mycoheterotrophic monocots and gymnosperms – Sciaphila is weird! | |||
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| “ | Now I get to do some work, chairing ‘Traditional medicine plants’ (Rm 216), with papers from Thailand, Iran and India. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Somtanuek Chotchougchatchai: Applied Thai Traditional Medicine Practitioners (ATTMP) used in hospitals, with other practitioners. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Chotchougchatchai: 116 different medicinal plants used in Kapchoeng Hospital. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Chotchougchatchai: 8,000 treated with herbal medicine for respiratorydisorders; next most common (4,000) for digestive disorders. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Chotchougchatchai: In emergency ward there is a traditional medicine powder for mushroom poisoning. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Maryam Ahvazi on local medicines in the mountainous Alamut region of Iran. Primary aim is to document ‘phytotherapy’ #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | @TimEntwisle #ibc18 damn wish I was in that one. Mushroom antidote. | |||
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| “ | How? surely the damage is done to liver/kidney long before symptoms appear http://bit.ly/oL5cgV @TimEntwisle #ibc18 Mushroom antidote. | |||
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| “ | We didn’t get detail on that one. I wonder if simply a regurgitive (is that the word?) RT @Pathh1: How? #ibc18 Mushroom antidote. | |||
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| “ | I did notice on that page: "Some mushrooms…less toxic compounds…may respond well to treatment." @Pathh1: http://bit.ly/oL5cgV #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Bhanukumar Jain on local medicinal plants in Tapkeshwari Hill Range in India. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ahvazi : Parts of plant used in Iranian medicine: leaf (23%), flower (16%), fruit (16%). #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Jain: Leaves of Cassia auriculara used to treat common cold, which is fine but apparently applied to forehead. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | @TimEntwisle like a #facepalm RT: Jain: apparently applied to forehead. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | But is it effective against the #ibc18 cold? RT @TimEntwisle: Leaves of Cassia auriculara used to treat common cold. | |||
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| “ | Suggest a week avoiding contact with any botanist (phytotherapy) RT @marklcrowe: But is it effective against the #ibc18 cold? | |||
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| “ | Jain: Again all sorts of species used for all sorts of ailments (I didn’t think there were that many medical problems!). #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Discussion: If you get liver damage from one compound you can eat carrots to cure. #solutiontoallyourdrinkingproblems #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Jain: Branches of Salvadora perica used as a toothbrush and the juice as a female contraceptive. (One has to take care.) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now plant conservation: population biology. Brain nearing capacity. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | First: Shane Turner from King’s Park on seed ecology. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Turner: very seedy, everything from orchids (dust) to coconuts. Many are recalcitrant and dormant. I can relate. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Turner: lab and field-based experiments to determine drivers of germination. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Turner: seed dormancy in declared rare flora in SW WA. Large % est. to have some form of it. May confer persistence in soil sd bank. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Turner: results on Symonanthus bancroftii & Commersonia sp. Mt Groper. Sym. germination inc by sd burial and subseq. smoke treatment. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Turner: Commersonia has some form of physical dormancy but exact nature still to be determined. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now, Symposium123 on Epigenetic Variation, or is it Sym162, Alain Rival (living up to his name!) on, hmm, Plant Epigenetics. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Finishing the week with some fern diversity in the Indopacific Realm, followed by dumplings and large volumes of wine #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | The rest of the afternoon will be ferns for me. Biodiversity, biogeography, phylogenetics. by themselves or in combination. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Barcoding soil from herbarium specimens found a range of fungi. That’s easy, but is there enough info to ask meaningful questions? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Barcoding camel diets – Cross #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Didn’t these barcoders learn how to troubleshoot PCR back in the ’90’s? Why base entire talks on it? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | ok that’s cool. A North American fern with only a gametophyte, but the sporophyte occurs in Japan. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Good fern barcoding talk by Fay-Wei Li #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Most genbank fern ITS not really ferns – Li #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Li: most fern ITS sequences on Genbank are not ferns, but angiosperms or fungi. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | ferns too, are a state of mind? RT @davidorlovich: Li: most fern ITS sequences on Genbank are not ferns, but angiosperms or fungi. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | @Jim_Croft #ibc18 no, I think algal sequences genuinely polyphyletic, so way of life, but fern sequences just plain wrong #Genbank #facepalm | |||
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| “ | Doyle Mckey @ #ibc18 multi-trophic interactions are complex, uncertain, and will have variable outcomes under climate change… | |||
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| “ | McKey: ecological intensification, not just green revolution model "intensification" of ag needed. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Fiona Coates: demographic variability in Caladenia orientalis. Isn’t that an orchid? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Coates: short range endemic orchid, pollinated by sexual deception. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Coates: orchid dormant over summer, prolonged dormancy (1-2 yrs) sometimes occurs. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Coates: two field sites in Vic, demographic census over 10 yrs. Popns of c. 80 and 90 plants. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Coates: Rainfall on decline over most of study period. No relationship between rain and flowering or plant size. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Coates: Two sites differ significantly in the orchid response to fire etc. Site 1 drier, open canopy and less competition. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Chris Cullis the amazing flax epigenetics succumbing to analysis of instability by squncng-LIS1 element changes abundance in variants #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Anne Ronse: demographic studies on the rare European umbellifer Helosciadium (syn. Apium) repens. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ronse: H. repens in Belgium grazed by donkeys, horses, cows and lawnmowers. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ronse: some of the four popns studied are in serious decline. What are the important factors? Vegetation height, grazing intensity. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ronse: designed optimal grazing regime in cons. with landowners. Lost part of meadow to conserve blacktailed godwit (a bird). #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ronse: another site conserved by temporarily excluding donkeys. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Weng-Liang Chiou: Humata repens complex includes 50 previously recognized species, huge morphological variation, polyploidy. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Harald Schneider: niche evolution during colonization of Malesia by ferns. starting with the Drynarioids. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Fujimoto imprinting/epigenetic regulation Arabidopsis thaliana & lyrata: structural diff in methylated regions around trnspsn (again! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Fujimoto: more tandem repeat differences between thal, lyr & A hallii in a SINE region correlating w different methylation/expression #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Juan Carlos Moreno (Saiz) on gypsophytes, plants that grow on gypsum outcrops. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moreno: some plants only on gypsum (gypsophiles), others on gypsum and other basic soil types (gypsovags). #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moreno: work on Vella pseudocytisus (Brassicaceae). Cool ballistic seed release and video of subseq ant dispersal. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moreno: 2006 Vella cohort c. 350 plants. Rapid decline, now only one. Experimenting w/ grazing exclusion. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | McKey @ #ibc18 Agriculture can contribute to biodiversity, not just compete with it. Need to manage the complex multi-trophic interactions. | |||
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| “ | Ros Gleadow – CO2, N, P, water and microbe levels all contribute to leaf HCN content in clover #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Next L.Broadhurst, seed sourcing and restoring of Euc. melliodora. Voice nearly gone, she promises mime and interp dance if it fails. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Broadhurst: yellow box iconic and valued tree (honey, shade, shelter etc.). Was broadly distributed, now fragmented. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Broadhurst: seeds collected from 20 stands, some genotyped, some germinated. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Broadhurst: allelic diversity variable across 20 populations, doesn’t appear to reflect popn size. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Broadhurst: allelic richness in yellow box similar to rare eucs rather than widespread but fragmented spp. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Tom Ranker: The importance of SE Asia as source of the Hawaiian fern and lycophyte flora. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Tom Ranker: 4 models for spore movement to Hawaii: jetstream, tradewinds, cyclonic storms, Hadley cells. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | From UK farmers I follow: rapeseed yield up 10%, winter barley down 10%. Cold winter & dry summer.Less rape disease/poor grain fill? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Christopher Grof foregoing microphone and lectern. Don’t forget to speak up. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Grof: characterising cell wall properties of sorghum mutants and ecotypes – important for their potential as biofuel crops. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Grof: Can accurately predict sorghum cell wall digestibility using FTIR-based model. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | BEST is an analysis method using coalescence for incongruity in gene trees…Lu-Irving lantana talk.#ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Leon Perrie: biogeography of fern and lycophyte floras of the southern pacific. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Does environment control epigenetic imprint on each gene (corolla, petiole, style, colour) or is there a single master control gene? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Grossniklaus: concludes epigenetic changes lead to reproductive isolation so effect pop. genetics, speciation & evolution. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Claude dePamphilis @ #ibc18 – all seed plants and all flowering plants are polyploid #ComparativeGenomics – see Jiao Y et al. Nature 2011 ! | |||
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And that concludes the afternoon tweets. Next is the public lecture for this evening.
