{"id":1298,"date":"2014-04-03T13:07:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T17:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2014-04-03T15:52:24","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T19:52:24","slug":"ending-a-research-drought-in-the-australian-outback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/ending-a-research-drought-in-the-australian-outback\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending a Research Drought in the Australian Outback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dennis Wm. Stevenson, Ph.D.<\/a>, is Vice President for Laboratory Research at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>. One of his major research interests is plant evolution.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Dennis<\/a>
Dr. Dennis Stevenson with Dasypogon hookeri<\/em>, locally known as the pineapple bush<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I spent the month of November 2013 in Australia on fieldwork for a project on the coevolution of certain plant groups\u00a0and the specialized\u00a0wasps that pollinate them. The plan was to collect the plants with their pollinators in the act, and to that end, I was accompanied by an entomologist, Dr. James Carpenter of the American Museum of Natural History<\/a>.\u00a0We also had collaborators from various herbaria and natural history museums across the continent.<\/p>\n

The itinerary was a\u00a0drive of more than 3,000 miles from Adelaide<\/a> in South Australia<\/a>\u00a0to Brisbane<\/a> in Queensland<\/a>, following\u00a0the River Murray in South Australia and then\u00a0another river, the Darling, to Broken Hill<\/a>, a mining city in New South Wales<\/a>. From there, our route took\u00a0us\u00a0to Bourke<\/a>, then Cunnamulla<\/a>, and east to Brisbane. At both the start and end of the itinerary there was rain, so late spring flowers were in full bloom. But in between, things\u00a0did not go quite according to plan because\u00a0the Outback was in deep drought.\u00a0In Cunnamulla, a police officer told us it had been more than a year since the last rainfall!
\n<\/p>\n

\"Hakea<\/a>
Hakea leucoptera<\/em> (Proteaceae) with a pollinating wasp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ground cover in most places was generally non-existent, and the emus and kangaroos were coming into the towns to browse in parks, yards, and anywhere else with vegetation. In a normal year, the Fan Flower Family, Goodeniaceae, would dominate the ground cover along roadsides as well as in forests, with the wasp genus Metaparagia<\/em> as the principal pollinators. Suffice it to say we found exactly one plant with one flower.\u00a0In fieldwork, as in other endeavors, the best-laid plans of mice and men go oft\u00a0astray.<\/p>\n

We had traveled many thousands of miles to do fieldwork, and we were not to be denied by a mere drought.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A collaborator in New South Wales<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fortunately,\u00a0gum trees (Eucalyptus<\/em>), mesquite (Acacia<\/em>), beefwood (Grevillea<\/em>), needlewood (Hakea<\/em>), and some other shrubs are pretty tough, woody desert plants. Many of these\u00a0were in full bloom. Shifting the focus to studying these plants saved the expedition and, in fact, the collecting was quite successful.\u00a0However, I\u00a0refrained from collecting wasps; that\u2019s what the entomologist was for. As a result of our work, we discovered wasp pollination in several genera and species of Australian shrubs and trees that were not known to have wasp associations.\u00a0Moreover, we also discovered new species of wasps.<\/p>\n

In the end, resourcefulness paid off.\u00a0We will just have to make a second trip to complete the original project\u2014if it ever rains.<\/p>\n

\n

Photo of Dr. Dennis Stevenson by Paula Rudall, Royal Botanic Garden, Kew.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a year without rain, Dennis Stevenson’s botanical expedition to the Australian Outback takes an interesting turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":1302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[116],"tags":[168,150,139,313,317,316,315,314,312],"yoast_head":"\nEnding a Research Drought in the Australian Outback - Science Talk Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/ending-a-research-drought-in-the-australian-outback\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ending a Research Drought in the Australian Outback - Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After a year without rain, Dennis Stevenson's botanical expedition to the Australian Outback takes an interesting turn.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/ending-a-research-drought-in-the-australian-outback\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-03T17:07:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-04-03T19:52:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Dennis-Stevenson.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"781\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dennis Stevenson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/\",\"name\":\"Science Talk Archive\",\"description\":\"Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/ending-a-research-drought-in-the-australian-outback\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Dennis-Stevenson.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Dennis-Stevenson.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":781,\"caption\":\"Dennis Stevenson with Dasypogon hookeri. 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