January Fieldwork in S California

In mid-January, two researchers from the Rothfels Lab, Keir Wefferling, focusing on Pentagramma (the goldback and silverback ferns in Pteridaceae) and Forrest Freund, with a focus on the lycophyte genus Isoëtes, (quillworts, in Isoëtaceae) visited three SDSU and UCNRS Ecological Reserves and a number of National Wildlife Refuge sites in San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. Their fieldwork took place amidst some magnificent rains, wind, and sun!

The collection trip was focused on the pteridaceous fern genus Pentagramma, and they managed to find 3.5 species: the goldback fern P. triangularis and the more or less silverback ferns P. maxonii, P. glanduloviscida, and a likely cross (allopolyploid?) between P. glanduloviscida and P. viscosa. Pentagramma currently has six recognized diploid species and an unknown number of polyploids (mostly triploids and tetraploids) formed through natural hybridization among the diploids. In order to get a better grasp of the morphological, genetic, and chromosome number variation among different populations of Pentagramma, Keir has been sampling from across the range of the genus, incorporating material from herbarium specimens and from the field. Fresh and living material collected on this trip will be particularly useful as it provides high quality DNA and RNA for sequencing work, is ideal for genome size analysis using flow cytometry, and may yield meiotically active cells suitable for chromosome counting work!

We were all good this year, apparently.

And how better to celebrate Santa’s largess, than with BUFFET.

Resurrecting microbiomes past

Rothfels Lab graduate student Mick Song has caught the microbiome bug! After finishing a project studying the variation in the microbiota of Daphnia magna across genotypes, populations, and temperatures with longtime collaborator Dr. Sarah Schaack at Reed College, he gave a guest lecture and tutorial on microbiomes in Dr. Jeremy Coate‘s Bioinformatics course last November.

Now he is teaming up with Dr. Jordan Metzgar curator of the Massey Herbarium at Virginia Tech (who taught Carl how to do PCR many years ago!) and undergraduate student Amber Reaney to explore the possibility of capturing microbial diversity in herbarium specimens of Azolla, building off of the recent work of Daru and colleagues [1]. While they break new ground in the herbarium, Mick will be in the lab with live Azolla trying out some exciting protocols for extracting and characterizing the microbial diversity in the leaf pockets of Azolla across the genus. Although the Azolla-Nostoc symbiosis has been well-described [2], the community composition of the bactobionts as a whole remains poorly understood. Who knows what they will find!

[1] Daru et al. (2018), “A novel proof of concept for capturing the diversity of endophytic fungi preserved in herbarium specimens.”

[2] Li et al. (2018), “Fern genomes elucidate land plant evolution and cyanobacterial symbioses.”

Ode to a Fern Foray

While botanists sit at home and reckon,
Far-flung Fijian forests beckon.
From far-afield a Fern man came,
Despite some age he still was Game.

With Sarah’s help rare ferns he sought,
About their Latin names he taught.
Up muddy paths, down streams they walked,
Of family and genus talked.

On highest peak, by every creek,
New species did they ever seek.
Ferns, lycophytes, more did abound,
With rarest ones still yet unfound.

Bright dragonflies did also gleam
in forest glades, by every stream.
Good natured Milen these did chase,
He cast his net with every pace.

Deep focus on the task at hand,
And bonding with the happy band,
Pushed cares away and made for play
On every happy ferny day.

If distant age brings feelings sad,
Fern memories may yet be glad,
And now far islands call us back,
To seek those ferns that yet we lack.

When long from now our time has been,
Ferns shall remain forever green –
And if one day the world should warm,
Bright ferns will weather every storm.

  —John Game, December 2018.

The hits just keep on coming!

Look who is featured in the latest edition of IB Insight!

Rocking the BSA

As we roamed last week’s Botanical Society of America’s newsletter, we quickly noticed that TWO Rothfels Lab rockstars were featured! Here’s PhD Candidate, Carrie Tribble and PostDoctoral Fellow, Dori Contreras, scholaring it up at the 2018 Botany Conference in Rochester, MI.  

Flapjacks and tattoos in the November sun

Many of us Rothfels labfolk gathered today for a brunch in the hot November sun to celebrate brunch and autumn and plants. We shared delicious food, coffee, wine, and many (all?) of us are now rocking biologically-accurate tattoos (supervised by tattoo artist Griffin Rain). It was great to get together outside of the lab and learn a little bit more about each other; e.g., that Carl, Griffin, and Carrie all look really good wearing cat ears! The spread included an amazing veggie-coconut cream-egg bake with optional Parmesan, buckwheat pancakes, gingerbread, fruit (Vitaceae, Anacardiaceae, Rosaceae, Ericaceae, Rhamnaceae…), baked butternut squash, and gummi marine animals.

Thanks to all who made it! [not pictured: Forrest, Keir, Larkin]

Look’n Good in 2018

Time for the annual Rothfels lab photo! Rothfels lab-photo? Rothfels-lab photo? Rothfels lab lab photo?

Goldback fern chromosomes!

Under Alan Smith‘s tutelage, over the last few weeks I (Keir) have been learning the science and art of meiotic chromosome counting; from selecting and harvesting material at the right stage (it is so easy to catch sporangia just a little too late) to getting the right combination of blotting, tapping, and pressing, I have learned so much AND had some excellent luck! I also feel super lucky to have access to irrigated material at this time of year from Regional Parks Botanic Garden (up at Tilden)!

Today Alan and I counted our first Pentagramma tetraploid (2n = 60II)! It was identified as P. viscosa, but it looks more like a P. triangularis to me…

…we’ll see upon closer inspection what the subgenomes have to say for themselves.