Wolves and cougars and bears, oh my!

For most of my career I have studied prairie plants, mainly because prairies are among the rarest ecosystems in Canada owing to the fact that they’ve been almost completely converted into cropland. As a result, I have never had to worry about encountering grizzlies or wolves or cougars while doing my field work. This year in contrast, I will have to be much more vigilant than I am used to. During a reconnaissance trip in May to set up my field plots I was informed that I should be on the lookout for wolves AND cougars AND bears! Not to mention ornery moose and elk! Oh yeah, and ticks and mosquitoes too! Oh my!

Why am I anticipating these wildlife encounters? This year I decided to study pollination in the fescue prairie and my research plots are located just south of Riding Mountain National Park, on land owned by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Province of Manitoba. As you may know national parks are wildlife hot spots and Riding Mountain is no exception. After tall-grass prairie, the fescue prairies are among the rarest ecosystems in North America and we don’t know much about the pollinators that live in them.

Shortly after arriving, one of the park staff told me that he thinks wolves are denning nearby. To be honest though, I think the wolves are the least of my worries as I’ve never heard of wolves attacking a human in Canada. Bears on the other hand are common, and have been known to attack people. I decided to make myself as conspicuous as possible by using a bear bell, blowing a whistle once in a while and loudly singing walking songs from “The Lord of the Rings” in a manner resembling a cat being strangled (I have a terrible singing voice so never ask me to do karaoke).

However, while I am actually surveying my plots, I don’t like to make too much noise as that disturbs the pollinators. I figured that if I was ever going to see a wild animal it would happen while I was doing my surveying. And that is exactly what happened. While quietly surveying one of my plots I saw a bear about 30 m away from me. Later on that week, I saw a deer in the valley above one of my plots. My funniest encounter happened in the evening at the research station. I was sitting on the couch playing solitaire when I saw that the neighbours had let their big black dog run loose. Then I shook my head-I had forgotten that I wasn’t in Winnipeg anymore. It was a bear wandering through the yard and I managed to get quite a few photos before it ran off.

Bogs are fascinating habitats that contain many bizarre species of plants. In the Manitoba Museum’s Boreal Forest Gallery, we have a lovely diorama that depicts what a typical bog looks like. Recently an intern at the Museum, Jon Makar, prepared a report on some of the unusual plants depicted in this diorama. Here’s what he found out!

First off, what exactly is a bog? Bogs are formed when sedges, rushes, and Sphagnum mosses completely cover wetlands, eventually forming a floating mat of vegetation. Bogs are fed only by rainwater and are thus poor in nutrients. Bogs are also very acidic because Sphagnum produces acids as waste products; this makes the bog less suitable for other plants. The acidity of the water in bogs decreases the rate of decomposition, which results in a build up of “peat moss” over time.

A common woody species found in bogs is black spruce (Picea mariana). One reason black spruce can survive in bogs is due its symbioses with special mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi wrap around the tree roots and provide it with nutrients in exchange for carbohydrates. Minerals like magnesium, potassium, and calcium as well as phosphates and nitrates are some of the important nutrients that fungi obtain and share with the tree.

Orchids are another group of plants that can be found in the bog diorama; round-leaved orchid (Amerorchis rotundifolia), showy lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium reginae), yellow lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum), and grass pink (Calopogon tuberosus) models were created by the Museum’s diorama artist. All orchids depend on insects for pollination. Lady’s-slipper orchids trap pollinators inside the “slipper” as the walls are-you guessed it-slippery, meaning the pollinator can’t climb out the way it came. A hairy strip at the back of the slipper gives the pollinator footing and allows it to escape through a back entrance, but only once it has brushed past the stigma, pollinating the flower if it had any pollen sacs attached to it. As the insect moves past the stigma it brushes past the anthers, causing new pollen sacs to stick to it and be taken to the next lady’s slipper.

This small round-leaved orchid (Amerorchis rotundifolia) model was made by the Museum’s diorama artist.

The dioramas at the Museum contain hundreds of fascinating plant species that are usually over shadowed by the large mammals. The bog diorama is an exception to this, focusing instead on the plants and tiny animals that are part of our boreal forests.

OK I’m exaggerating, plants don’t really want to kill us-they just don’t want us (or any other animal) to eat them. So plants have evolved ways to protect themselves-thorns, spines and prickles come to mind. But instead of physical armaments, many plants use chemical warfare to keep us pesky mammals away.

The native stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) plant possesses nasty little hairs on its leaves with a bulb of poison at the base. When an animal brushes up against the leaves, the hairs inject the poison, causing an itchy rash and discouraging the animal from eating it. Some people still eat stinging nettle though (I’ve eaten it myself in fact), because it is very nutritious: high in protein, iron, and vitamins A and C. But humans have weapons that other animals don’t: rubber gloves and fire! Stinging nettle MUST be cooked to neutralize the toxin (I’d hate to think of what would happen if you tried to eat it raw). Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), another native plant, also produces a rash-inducing poison but it is on the surface of the leaf.

Many plant chemicals will not affect an animal unless they are ingested. Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) contain cardiac glycosides that make them toxic to most animals. But one ingenious creature has found a way around that: Monarch (Danaus plexippus) caterpillars. Monarchs evolved a method to store those toxins in their bodies, making them poisonous to predators.

Even some of our common grocery store foods are poisonous. Take tapioca for instance. Many people find tapioca bland and boring. In reality the cassava plant that tapioca is made from, is actually pretty exciting. Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is the botanical equivalent of Japanese fugu, a poisonous fish that has to be prepared by expert sushi chefs to render it non-lethal. Cassava roots contain large quantities of cyanide-enough to make a human seriously ill or even kill you if you try to eat it raw (raw foodist-you have been warned). Cassava needs to be soaked, fermented, dried and/or cooked to get rid of the cyanide and make it edible.

Now pass the wasabi peas, please. Ouch, ahhhhh, that’s the stuff!

During frigid winter days I find myself marveling at how wild plants and animals manage to survive the cold temperatures. As my current area of study involves flowering plants and their insect pollinators, these are the organisms that I will focus on in this blog.

Although geothermal energy has recently become a popular way to help heat our homes, plants and insects have been using geothermal heat to stay warm for millions of years. While air temperatures fluctuate quite dramatically over the year (by almost 80 degrees C here in Manitoba), the temperature under the ground remains much more constant. Even in winter, the soil temperature typically remains above freezing; the deeper you go, the warmer it gets, at least until you get way up north where the deep permafrost occurs.

Many plants and insect pollinators exploit the warmer temperatures underground by spending the winter there. Perennial forbs simply allow their above-ground parts to die after transferring as much of their sugar and nutrients as they can into the roots, tubers, and underground stems for storage. Once spring arrives and it warms up, the plants use their stored food to grow brand new leaves.

Likewise, many insects will burrow into holes in the earth where they remain inert, living off of stored fat until spring. This is the strategy of many of our wild bees and some flies. However, not all individuals survive the winter. The only bumblebees (Bombus spp.) that survive winter are the queens; all of the drones and workers die. The queens go into hibernation with some of their eggs already fertilized so that they can begin laying them once nectar and pollen from the first spring flowers can be obtained.

Other plants and pollinating insects deal with winter by entering a much more cold-tolerant stage. Annual plants store all of the energy they produce in the summer in their seeds; the parent plant dies in autumn. Biennials produce a cluster of leaves the first year and then copious seeds in the second year. Most seeds contain concentrated sources of nutrients, protein, and sugar; everything that a baby plant needs to grow into a little seedling is there. Seeds generally have a very low water content which means that they are less susceptible to freezing damage than actual plant tissues would be. Thus annual plants escape the cold by remaining dormant as seeds underneath a layer of insulating leaf litter and snow. This layer, called the subnivian zone, is also much warmer than the air temperature, typically around 0 degrees C.

Many pollinating insects such as flower flies, butterflies, and moths survive the winter as eggs, larva, or pupa. Regardless of which life stage is overwintering, a sheltered spot near the ground is essential. Female insects typically lay their eggs inside plants stems or rotting logs, or under thick leaf litter, grass hummocks, rock piles, or moss. Eggs are also often coated with foam that contains a natural antifreeze (e.g. glycerol and/or sorbitol) to protect them. Insects that overwinter as larvae or pupa also typically produce natural antifreeze to lower the freezing point of their tissues so that they can withstand cold temperatures; this strategy is called freeze avoidance. For this strategy to be successful a dry hibernation site is needed; thus a water-repellent coating is required to help keep the insect dry. Alternatively, some insects are able to control where ice crystals form in their bodies so that their cells are not damaged; this strategy is called freeze tolerance.

There is only one pollinating Manitoba insect that escapes the cold by running (well flying actually) away from it: monarchs. Monarchs evolved from a group of tropical butterflies. Lacking the mechanisms to tolerate cold weather but benefitting from the abundant milkweeds farther north, the elaborate migratory pattern of the monarchs evolved. Recently I found out that some of the monarchs that hatch in Manitoba spend their winters in Cuba. So I guess humans are not the only ones who are snowbirds!

With this information in mind, you can modify your own gardens to provide winter habitat for pollinating insects. By leaving rotten logs, rock and leaf piles, and cut plant stems in your yard over the winter, you are providing habitat where pollinators can safely spend the most frigid months of the year.

This post originally appeared on www.LandLines.ca, the blog of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

The use of plants during Christmas arose from pagan Yuletide celebrations of the winter solstice in ancient times. The pagan beliefs have become interwoven and associated with the Christian festival of Christmas, which occurs during the same season. Those plants which remained green, flowered, or bore fruit in the darkest season of the year were felt to have special powers. These powers could be invoked by appropriate ceremonies and could renew the vigour of family and herds, and ensure abundant crops during the coming year.

The tradition of the Yule Log in Europe goes back to prehistoric tree worship and the custom of re-kindling the hearth-fire each year. A log burnt on Christmas Eve was believed to give protection from ill-luck for the following year. The ashes of the log were strewn on the fields to promote good crops and charcoal from it was believed to heal many ills. In many parts of Europe and Britain, an elaborate ceremony of bringing in the Yule Log, “greeting” it with corn and wine and accompanying it with carols has been followed for centuries.

These evergreen plants, which bear fruit in winter, were considered examples of the continuing vitality of the plant world. Originally used as Christmas decorations in England, they were believed to transfer their vitality to the people whose homes they graced. In ancient legends, holly (Ilex) represented the male and ivy (Hedera) the female.

Hooray the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet! You’ll be able to learn what the final five most important plants are before the end of days. So without delay here’s number 6…

There are many other plants that are edible, medicinal or useful for creating shelter or rope.

(Caution: Some edible plants, mushrooms and berries can be easily confused with poisonous ones. Make sure you have correctly identified a plant before eating it. If you are truly serious about learning to identify and use wild plants, I highly recommend taking a survival training or edible plant course).

Post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction is all the rage these days. From zombie plagues (World War Z, The Walking Dead), to genetic engineering gone wrong (Oryx and Crake, MaddAddam), to who knows what (The Road), people are clearly fascinated with this somewhat morbid genre. Reading these stories made me realize that most people are ill-equipped to deal with a world overrun by the living dead, ill-tempered intelligent swine or bloodthirsty cannibals. Sadly, most people can identify more corporate logos than they can edible and medicinal plants. Sorry to say but knowing what the Nike logo looks like won’t help you treat an infection or keep you from starving to death while on the run from skin-eating mutants! So with all this in mind here are my top 10 plants that everyone should know how to identify in case the worst should ever come to fruition.

Coming soon in part 2: the final five plants of the apocalypse!

(Caution: Some edible plants, mushrooms and berries can be easily confused with poisonous ones. Make sure you have correctly identified a plant before eating it. If you are truly serious about learning to identify and use wild plants, I highly recommend taking a survival training or edible plant course).

One of the great things about working at the Museum is being able to see all sorts of specimens and artifacts up close. When I first started working here, I used to enjoy looking through the Natural History cabinets on my lunch break. Creating temporary exhibits in the Museum’s Discovery Room is a wonderful way to share some of my favorite things in the collection with our visitors.

As I was brainstorming for a theme for my new exhibit, the phrase “tree of life” popped into my head. This term usually refers to evolutionary charts showing how species are related to each other. But the Trees of Life exhibit focuses on the ways that trees unintentionally help other organisms, such as lichens, fungi, insects, birds, and mammals, to survive. Since humans also depend on trees for many things, I decided that a case with some wooden artifacts would make an appropriate addition, and provide me with an excellent opportunity to poke around in the Human History collections for a change.

So I combed through the cabinets looking for things related to trees. I found a great collection of colourful lichens growing on bark and twigs. I am especially fond of the vibrant yellow wolf lichen (Letharia vulpina) partly because I collected it myself and partly because it’s really poisonous.

Selecting items for the case of wooden artifacts was extremely difficult as we have so many beautiful pieces. I tried to select artifacts from many cultures, and for many purposes so there are clothes, furniture, toys, and tools from around the globe. One of my favorite pieces is a coat made from the inner fibre of a paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) tree from the South Pacific.

But my favorite piece of all is a bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) tree that grew around a pitchfork. It reminds me that human endeavors are fleeting and that nature will reclaim everything in the end.

Trees of Life will be on display from October 10, 2013 to April 13, 2014.

One of the problems with being a plant is that you can’t move away if the habitat you are growing in becomes unsuitable. Plants have thus developed a life stage that is capable of moving: fruits and seeds.

Some plants use wind to distribute their seeds. Root parasites like louseworts (Pedicularis), produce thousands of seeds that are so small the wind can blow them around for miles. The seeds of these parasites cannot germinate unless they contact the root of a host plant. Fortunately, their small seeds are blown or washed into cracks in the soil, making it easier for them to reach the roots of their hosts. Indian-pipe (Monotropa uniflora) and coralroots (Corallorhiza) also have small seeds, except they depend on special fungus in the soil to help them obtain food.

Other plants have special structures to help a fruit or seed catch the wind. Conifers and broad-leaved trees like Manitoba maple (Acer negundo), produce seeds with wings to help it glide. Milkweed (Asclepias) and three-flowered avens (Geum triflorum) have seeds or fruits with tufts of hair to catch the wind.

In tumbleweeds like bugseed (Corispermum), the entire plant dries up when the seeds reach maturity. When the stem breaks off, the plant is rolled along the ground by the wind, and the ripe seeds fall off.

Plants also employ animals to disperse fruits and seeds. Some fruits like Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium), have hooks that catch onto the fur of passing animals (including dogs and hikers socks!). The animals later rub off these “burs”.

Unfortunately for plants, seeds are very nutritious. To prevent too many seeds from getting eaten by animals, species like bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) produce extremely large quantities of seeds in certain years (called “mast” years). By producing lots of seed all at once, the plant ensures that the animals will not eat all of them. As a bonus, many seed-eating animals ‘plant’ the seeds they don’t eat right away.

The development of fleshy fruits was essentially a decoy to prevent animals from consuming the seeds inside. The seeds of most fleshy fruits have a hard seed coat that makes them indigestible, and many are also poisonous: cherry (Prunus) seeds contain cyanide and apple (Malus) seeds contain arsenic. If the seeds are eaten, they simply exit the body of the animal intact and surrounded by a dollop of warm fertilizer (bonus!). To prevent animals from eating fruits before the seeds are ripe, the fruit colour blends in with the leaves of the plant. As the fruits ripen, they turn red or black and produce an enchanting smell. Who can resist?

Plants have evolved many different methods to get around. If you have ever picked burs off your socks or eaten berries before, our green brethren have recruited you, too, as their courier.

If you have ever heard someone say “I have a theory about that” they don’t. They’re most likely confusing the word “theory” with “completely unsupported, untested hypothesis”. All kidding aside, the words “theory” and “hypothesis” mean something very specific to a scientist, and the former is actually a much stronger statement than the latter. Since most people are not scientists but sometimes need to judge the value of someone’s statements, it can be useful to have at least a rudimentary understanding of how the scientific process works.

The journey to creating a theory is a long and arduous one and, in fact, one that most scientists will only ever contribute peripherally to. But every journey starts with a first step so that is where we will begin. In addition to the scientific jargon, I have taken the liberty of translating it into everyday vernacu… umm, language (it’s hard to stop using big words when you’ve spent 22 years in school).

Step 8

Write a paper for a peer reviewed journal.
Translation: Spend several months preparing a paper and ensuring that the formatting meets the requirements of the most prestigious journal in your field. Submit. Receive rejection letter. Reformat your paper for a less prestigious journal and submit. Receive scathing peer reviews of your paper. Swear. Reluctantly make suggested changes to the paper while grumbling about it to anyone that will listen. Even more reluctantly conclude that the reviewers’ changes do indeed greatly improve your paper. Submit final version. Send a reprint to your mother.

Although I was intentionally being silly, the fact of the matter is that a research project never goes off without a hitch.   Science is certainly one thing: a learning experience.