My darling Darlingtonia

For a kid, animals rule. Animals fly, run, hunt, sing, dance, hiss, attack, nap, swim, learn, and even snowboard. Plants are just there for landscape and food*. However, there are certain plants children love because they break the typical mold of what they think a plant should be...

CARNIVOROUS PLANTS!

Ok, maybe not anything like what Rick Moranis encountered on the streets of New York in the 1980s but still, quite striking in their own right:

                   

                     

But let's start at the very beginning, with names. 

King              Philip         Came      Over        From         Geneva    Switzerland. 

Kingdom -> Phylum -> Class -> Order -> Family -> Genus -> species

Carnivorous plants fall into three families: Sarraceniaceae, Nepenthaceae, and Droseraceae

Droseraceae: seen worldwide, these are your venus fly traps (photo: above left)

Nepenthaceae: Old World family (South China, Indonesia, Australia, Philippines, etc), tropical pitcher plants (photo: above right)

and....

Sarraceniaceae: New World family (that's where we are!) with 3 genera; two are in North America and they are roughly split east + west coast. Plants in the Sarracenia genus live on the east coast and has about 8-11 species while Darlingtonia is the west coast representative with just one species...

Do you love my dramatic lighting? It looks as though it might move! Also called the Cobra Lilly for obvious reasons. 

Darlingtonia california, the moody only child of the genus, is a rare find in the field. It was initially stumbled up on by the a certain William Brackenridge, assistant botanist of the U.S. Exploring Expedition on Mount Shasta, California in 1841 (but let's face it, he was pretty much the botanist on the voyage...)! My former supervisor when I was interning for the Wilkes Expedition project told me that his journals revealed he had thought he found a new species of Sarracenia, not realizing he was "collecting the most iconic new species of the U.S.Ex.Ex."

It grows in northern CA and southern OR but the very tip top northernmost reaches of its range can slip past the halfway point up the coast of OR. It was this northernmost population I paid a visit to recently with my botanically inclined friend.

These plants are weird and pretty high maintenance:
- prefer serpentine soils (rich in heavy metals and lacking in nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium)
- needs cool running water (probably from a mountain)
- and likes ample sunshine

You can find them in bogs with the afore mentioned properties. The little population we found did not have that much sunlight (but enough) so their characteristic red color was not present. They still proved beautiful specimens:

This whole thing is actually a modified leaf! What you don't see is the whole plant which consists of many stalks radiating out of the center.

The mustache tips secrete a sugary concoction irresistible to insects! They travel up and into the dome of despair looking for more! Note the 'skylights'...

The 'skylights' are areas of thin plant tissue. A bug might try to leave through these false exits but will eventually tire and fall into the murky depths below... 

The skylights are really nice huh? Love how they attenuate down. 

You can't tell form this picture but the stalks grow in a way so that they don't overlap each other. They twist left or right as they extend upward and lean outward. Some stalks I saw were over a foot tall!

The fun thing about this particular species of pitcher plant is that it does not collect rain water to fill its pitcher. Other pitcher plants you see have an open container while this one takes water from its roots depending on how much dead organic stuff is inside. It also does not have its own digestive enzymes to eat the insects but instead relies on bacteria living in the pitcher to do the job.
So...kind of the opposite of what other pitcher plants do I guess? They just have to be different. Anyways I am discovering there is so much more to these plants but this post is getting a little long in the tooth as it is so I will stop. But if you want more Darlingtonia reading go here and here and here.

Til next time!

* My views on plants have changed since 1993.

Origin of Thoughts!

I took one Philosophy class in undergrad, Knowledge and Reality, and the only thing I really remember is a question our professor asked us on the first day: How do we think?

I still remember, very clearly, the answer was finally shouted out from the back-center row of that amphitheater-style room: in language! Our teacher started off the term by reminding us every thought we ever had, and ever will have, has been constructed and shaped by our language. And isn't that revelatory? That your ideas exist (and exist the way they do) because of language? What about people who speak many languages? My American Sign Language teacher told me the moment you know you have mastered a language is when you begin thinking in it, even sign language. Maybe those lucky folks have very expansive thoughts?
And what if you had no language? What if you were born in the forest Nell-style with sustenance but no society? What would you think? Could it be all instinct and sensation?...

Language is a particularly interesting facet of human history. Apparently, concerning the origin of Indo-European languages* there are two camps:

Camp Steppe - those languages arose from people inhabiting the steppe region north of the Black Sea! They spread out 6000-4000 years ago with their horse-drawn chariots and conquered left and right! Arrr!

(Most people believe this one)








Camp Anatolia - a gentler narrative; these folks are from modern-day Turkey, below the Black Sea. They spread their plowing secrets and language during the agricultural expansion initiated about 9000 years ago.







As summarized in this new NYT article, researchers used some fancy statistical program (this included scoring words known to be heavily used and thus do not change much language-to-language or through time, i.e. "mother") to determine that point to be Anatolia. Score one more for talkative farmers! What is really cool about this project is that they used an approach originally developed to track the origin of viruses!!!! It makes perfect sense right? Viruses evolve and spread all over the globe just like languages. And with each divergence, the new lineage changes a little bit whether it is a nucleotide base pair in a gene or a letter in a word! And so the lineage rolls on and on and becomes ever more removed from its parent over time. It's easy to see how with some savvy statistics you could easily build up a family history of sorts.

Mother was right, everything does back to math. Math can explain the world if you know what to do with the numbers :)

Uzungöl lake near the northern coast of Turkey lining the Black Sea. These researchers do not think the Indo-European origin is from here even though it looks like a lovely place to call home.

* Indo-European languages: English, German, French, Bengali, Russian, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Spanish, ... there are over 400! Somewhere in the 16th century when there was enough travel taking place between the two, people started noticing uncanny similarities between European and Indian languages - thus was born Indo-European linguistics! The elder language from whence all other Indo-European languages come from is called Proto-Indo-European, abbreviated PIE. When I started reading about the topic I kept seeing PIE everywhere and it was initially very confusing.

The Regulars

Because I know you are wondering this fine summer evening, here is a short introduction of some of the regular amphibious inhabitants of Oregon:

One of our outreach animals. I want to do this set over again
and really capture the color and pearly sheen they have about
them. Note the sticky toe pads for climbing!

 Pseudacris regilla (Family Hylidae-tree frogs; Pacific treefrog, Pacific chorus frog): quite numerous, these are the ones you will hear calling persistently and loudly. They are smallish (up to ~ 5 cm says Wikipedia) and are climbers, hence they sticky toe pads. I can tell you they are hard to count and transfer because they are always moving and love to trek to the highest spot. Much like goats.

This is our nice copper-tinted one! If I had a favorite...

They come in simply marvelous hues, the most flashy being a Kermit the Frog green but they can also appear in browns, golds and even, to me at least, a bit copper-ish. (They can also change colors...look that up!) A lot of the ones I have seen in the lab have a cute little Y-shaped mark on the tops of their heads between the eyes. Another feature I like about them is the dark streak that runs through the eye. Sometimes its splotchy and sometimes it is so sharp and smooth it makes me think of Cleopatra's eyeliner!
They are found in largely in the US west of the Rocky Mountains and poking into Mexico and Canada.

Rana cascadae (Family Ranidae; Cascades frog): This is a species I don't have too much familiarity with. They are a ranid species (Rana = Latin for frog) which means they are considered "true frogs," that family has a huge worldwide distribution and they are what we typically think of as frogs -  large sized, strong hind limbs for jumping, and webbed-feet for swimming. Those general characteristics make for a frog that spends much more time in and around the water.

© 1998 Harry Greene from AmphibiaWeb

The Cascades frog does not have as delicate an appearance as the treefrog. Indeed, the first time I handled Cascades frogs I was unimpressed with their bumpier skin, grayish-brown coloring, and haphazard smattering of spots. But, I have grown to admire their spots and hardy nature. Look closely at the photo, the spots are shaped much like the spots of a leopard, no?
Oh, and be careful, they are plucky individuals and quite accomplished escaped artists!
Their range overlaps with P. regilla in the Cascades Mountain range but is much more restricted. Their populations are presently in a decline for a number of usual reasons: habitat loss, non-native predators like some fish, a water mold that attaches to and kills egg masses, etc.

Rana aurora (Family Ranidae; Northern red-legged frog): Another Rana! I liked this frog even before I ever officially met one. That name. What a gloriously seductive name! Aurora, the goddess of the dawn - and here is why:

That strawberry red flush through the legs! I love it! This one might be a young one but there are photos of some with an intense red flush extending all through the legs and up the sides of the stomach creeping on to the backside! So much color!
Like other ranids they are never far from water, smooth skin, strong and long legs for jumping, webbed-feet. Their range includes the western portions of Oregon, Washington, with some populations extending into California and the west coast of Canada.
The Northern red-legged frog is not a species of concern but their close cousin, Rana draytonii, the California red-legged frog is. R. draytonii used to be a subspecies of R. aurora but has now been elevated to a separate full species status.

Wikipedia
See the circle behind its eye? That is called a
tympanum, the ear of the frog.

Lithobates catesbeianus (Family Ranidae; American bullfrog): Ah yes, the uninvited party guest. The philistine who tags along and drinks all the beer, eats all the food and picks fights with everyone! That is the reputation of the bullfrog in amphibian circles.
They occupy a variety of watery environments and can/will eat anything they can stuff into their mouths. In fact, stomach contents have been known to include birds, rodents, and snakes among crazier things! And because they are fairly large (~4-6 in) they not only compete with native frogs for food but will also eat them. 20,000 eggs per egg mass also can't hurt its persistence and spread...
Native to the midwest-to-east coast portion of North America as well as Mexico and Canada, it is now found every where else it seems: Europe, Asia, South American, Hawaii, and is spreading. Notable exceptions are Australia and Africa. They were/are carried outside their native range mainly for food purposes but also in the pet trade and by accident. You wouldn't think it, but a lot more people in the past ate frogs. Back in the late 1800s when the west was filled with hungry gold miners with a penchant for frog legs, someone had the grand idea to ship in tons of bullfrogs from back east to rear in frog farms. Well, you can kind of guess what happens next...


Anaxyrus boreas (Family Bufonidae; Western toad, Boreal toad): Bufo!!! Latin for toad, Bufo are great. After spending so much time looking at ranids and hylids, playing around with toads is a welcomed change. So what is the difference between a frog and a toad? Well, you know a bit about frogs from the species described above, especially the true frogs in the genus Rana. They tend to have:
     - smooth moist skin
     - strong hind limbs for jumping and maybe climbing
     - buggy eyes!
     - lay eggs in large clumps
     - have webbed-feet
     - remain near water

Toads meanwhile in the Bufonidae family, are a bit different for many reasons:

The second goat parallel tonight!

     - drier, thicker, wartier skin
     - stockier shaped body, not tapered at the waist like a    frog
     - short, weak limbs for walking not jumping long distances
     - can be away from water
     - poison glands (!) called parotoid glands
     - lays eggs in strings
     - really cool horizontal pupils...much like...a goat!
 

Anaxyrus boreas are found in the southeastern tip of Alaska, the western half of the US and Canada, and the Baja peninsula. Though they can be found in good numbers around Oregon, overall the species is in decline due to western populations in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, etc.
As noted above they are quite different in appearance from frogs. I remember after handling and measuring so many ranids for a project when I moved onto A. boreas it was like encountering an alien. Similar body plan...but everything about it was weird: the stocky torso and non-waist, the thin, wiry arms that walked rather than leap, and peering out at me - a tiny, short, rounded face. After working with certain taxa for some time you get habituated to the appearance of it. It is a cool feeling to realize you have memorized its form well enough you can clearly see the morphological departures when comparing it to a similar creature. I remember it happening for all sorts of snails and birds for me in the past :)

A. boreas metamorphs also have what I like to think of as "pants." The skin of their underside changes abruptly from a light speckled color to a darker color right above the waist. Like they are wearing a pair of trousers. I shall snap a picture tomorrow. Until next time!

What delicate toes you have!

Updates! It's been quite a while, last term and the first half of the summer was pretty busy. Glad to be free of teaching for the rest of the season!
I am helping carry out two large scale experiments in the lab this summer, a huge collaborative project between us and a companion lab in Pittsburgh (the Relyea group). It's turned out to be a valuable crash course in conducting (and designing) large scale lab experiments! I've done my fair share of lab work in the past but the logistics of running these two projects have been eye opening for me. There are frog shipments every week, multiple species, several treatment combinations, 2x a week feedings, individual housing units to wash and prepare, etc, etc. Our group is a well-oiled machine by now and come each Friday (measurement day for new animals!) everyone knows their posts and duties and can run through hundreds and hundreds of individuals with scarcely a break til noon! It's a mad assembly line but everything runs smoothly and somehow, we all get it done...I remember the first Friday  we started at 8 am and when I finally got home my clock read 8:30 pm!

Anyways, we are deep in summer and though this year will not see me mucking about outside too much, I will nevertheless attempt to fill this space with awesome pictures of frogs among other animals that usually fill up this space.

First off, I staged an impromptu photo shoot with my office pet, Phaeton. He is all grown up as you can see:

No, those vertical lines on the body are NOT ribs, he is well fed thank you very much! They are called costal grooves and they correspond to where the ribs are. They help absorb and transport water to the dorsal (top side) part of the salamander. The  number of groove, from between the front and hind legs, can vary depending on species and are used for identification. 

Did you know amphibians have the largest vertebrate genomes? Humans have over 3 billion base pairs, a mouse ~ 2.7 billion, the bacterium E. coli over 4 million.
But if you think we are impressive take a look at salamanders! Phaeton is a northwestern salamander, Ambystoma gracile, and has over 41 billion base pairs! Even more impressive is the Japanese plant, Paris japonica, with 149 billion base pairs! Yowza! As you may have guessed, having a large genome does not necessarily make one more complex... It does however make for bigger cells. I'll try and remember to discuss this later because it's really a fascinating aspect of amphibian biology I am just starting to learn about myself!

Sometimes you forget

 Sometimes you forget how awesome this planet is. Nothing reminds you of that quicker than a good shot from a helicopter flyby!

Turn up the volume.

*Face Palm*

Left: Ruby-crowned kinglet; right: Hutton's vireo

So everything I've been calling a Hutton's vireo on campus is probably a ruby-crowned kinglet!

I was talking to my Stats professor, who is an avid birder, and he was telling me how nice it is this time of year with all the kinglets hiding out in the patches of rhododendron. And then I said I've been seeing lots of vireos in the rhododendron...And then we did this:
But do they not look very similar?! Arrrrgh! You know this isn't the first time I called a kinglet something else. For some reason my mind never makes that connection. Next time, will note the thinner bill and single wing bar. I also never saw the ruby crest so that would have been an obvious indicator:

Look who's out of the water!

Trapped! In a glass prison!
I was changing his tank yesterday and recreated his beach but this time added a cushy bed of sphagnum moss on top of the pebbles. It holds a lot of moisture and is definitely more comfortable to move around in than the pebbles.

Phaeton completely out of the water now! He lost a lot of weight during the 'Time of Great Change'. I would like to find more varying food sources for him now, though the worms have been great and very nutritious.

Phaeton Update - Hooray for lungs!

One of my favorite pictures of Phaeton. His eyes were so sparkly!

Balancing on his decorative jars.

Learning to breathe!!

I collected this shedding. It was a nice big continuous piece too.

Mar 12 - What welcomed me as I came in this morning! He was trying so hard to get up there! I have to collect some moss and dirt now and fix him up a new tank soon!

"Of the House"

This House Sparrow is a resident of Montmartre! What a life it must lead! The best pastry leftovers to feast on!
My uncle took me here last March (wow a year already!) and these are the most fearless sparrows I have met. I could not have been standing more than 4 ft when I took this shot!

I was originally going to start this piece off by discussing the House Sparrow, Passer domesticus, perhaps the most pedestrian of winged creatures. But I think the bigger story here is how we choose to look at the world and value critters like the "lowly" P. domesticus. So here we go:

I think many of you who know me know that I can easily find most anything interesting and thus worthy of a few minutes of contemplation. But I realize that trait is not present for everyone out there. There have been some posts where I thought readers would lose interest for sure due to the seemingly dull subject matter discussed. You know I can't hold giant birds every week :) So sometimes I do think to myself: "Is anyone going to care about this slug I found on my walk?" or "Will anyone be interested in corn tiling and field drainage?"

Eh. But I start writing anyways because sometimes it's a slow week. And you know what, no matter what it is, there is always a story to be told. Dig deeper and suddenly everything has a fascinating narrative.

There are many people in science who seek out those narratives, who see something overlooked and throw it under a microscope (I can think of a few right now as I type)! Chief among them, in my mind at least, is Rob Dunn of NC State. He is a lover of all creatures, especially ones that are oft under appreciated and/or looked upon scornfully. Thanks to him, Passer domesticus is enjoying a little bit of the lime light this past week due to a great article written by him on Smithsonian.com! It really is awesome so refill your cup, sit back and enjoy :)

He is a proponent of urban ecology which simply seeks to investigate the ecology of urban spaces. Pretty straight forward right? Why hasn't anyone done this before?? Well, what's the first image you have when you think of an ECOLOGIST? Charles Darwin chasing finches on the Galapagos Islands? Jane Goodall hanging with primates? Perhaps Jacques Cousteau descending into the murky depths?

Surely it is not some dude or chick rummaging around the train tracks for bugs! Well, make room at table because there is some new blood up in here! OK, so it's not so new but the field is still very small. The predominate thought, that nature is what happens when people are not around, is simply not true. But as kids (and adults) we grow up on books and media showcasing the lands and organisms of the far-removed African savannah, boreal forests, and colorful reef systems and yet, know extremely little about the very system we are a part of.

I attended an entomology lecture at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum one afternoon long, long ago and though the memory is very blurry, I do recall that a group of scientists did a bug survey in a local marsh-type area near someone's house in Virginia and ended up finding an array of species and abundances they were not expecting. The speaker happily exclaimed that you need not always travel to exotic locales to make fun discoveries. That's not to say everyone should stop doing that research, but just that we ought to take care to not overlook our own backyards, even though the view may not make much of a postcard.

It's obvious that urban systems are their own unique ecosystem. No one planned on building a home for anything else but humans when they made the first cities/settlements. But adapt nature did! There are pigeons, rats, bedbugs, ants, mice, roaches, sparrows and a plenty more! All pests you say? Well, yes - to us. But they are just creatures making the best of it; and how can they resist when we've made it so easy? We give them food, space, shelter and to some, a warm body to snuggle up to at night! Sure, there are things like exterminators and house cats, but somehow I think the bedbug and pigeon populations are managing all right. One interesting note, many of those creatures probably stood out as disease carriers right? It makes sense that many wildlife-to-human diseases are transmitted to us via these hardy critters because those are the guys we live around and thus most commonly come into contact with. *Note to self: discuss this aspect more in detail in a later post.*

Anyways, it is almost midnight now so I leave you with some urban species, mainly of the avian form:

Another Montmartre House sparrow

Paroaria coronata, introduced to Hawaii

Spotted dove, Spilopelia chinensis, introduced all around the Pacific, it is fast replacing native doves in Australia. This one I found on Oahu.
European starling, Sturnus vulgaris. Christ, it's species name is vulgaris! Hahahaha. Ok really, the Latin word vulgaris means 'of the common people' or something to that effect. There are many near my apartment. I actually like the sound these birds make; they are known to be great mimics and are capable of a range of weird quirky noises. They usually have a very mechanical sound which I find infinitely amusing. Is that a machine or bird outside my window??

Evolution...with Crayons!

This video is amazing! I wish I had these animation skills!

This article over at Scientific American explains how it was made.