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He completed a B.S. in Biological Anthropology at Western Washington University, a Ph.D. in Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cornell University.

Alex is passionate about understanding the relationships between humans and their environments, the evolutionary and ecological impacts of humans on plants, and the traditional management of plant resources. In his research, Alex addresses issues at the interface of culture and the environment through the integration of ethnographic interviews, population genomics, community ecology, participatory research, and niche modeling.

Alex’s Ph.D. dissertation research centered on the twin management concerns of crop wild relatives and introduced feral forms of the globally important crop species Brassica rapa (turnip, napa cabbage, bok choy, and oilseeds). As part of this project, he identified crop wild relatives for conservation, reconstructed the domestication history of the crop forms, traced the origins and spread of feral populations, documented the importance of weedy field mustard for food security in Latin America, and characterized a rare instance of ongoing redomestication by Indigenous Mexican farmers.

For his postdoctoral research, Alex examined traditional management of agroecosystems by Ethiopian farmers and the resilience of these strategies in the face of climate change. He studied the potential of traditional intercropping of multiple wheat and barley varieties to mitigate abiotic and biotic climate stressors, and he assessed the impacts of market access and government intervention on these practices. His interdisciplinary economic botany research also includes projects on the ecological legacies of First Nations management of Canadian forests, local and Indigenous perceptions of climate change impacts, and activist research in ethnobiology.

At NYBG, Alex plans to leverage collections, facilities, and collaborations across science departments to develop new projects on functional ecology in Mexican and Ethiopian swidden-fallow systems, British Columbian First Nations and Indigenous Mexican forest management practices, and the management of tea genetic resources in Myanmar under climate change. Alex looks forward to contributing to the interdisciplinary and collaborative research community at the Garden and working closely with diverse students and members of NYBG’s audience.

Welcome, Alex!

McAlvay profile and research

The project is a multi-institution collaboration that will establish a novel consortium to integrate information about Bryophytes and Lichens and coordinate the imaging of more than 1.18 million herbarium specimens held in U.S. institutions, at least 250,000 of which will be contributed by NYBG.

As the largest herbarium in the Western Hemisphere, the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium is a priceless resource for scholars from around the world who are documenting earth’s biodiversity of plants and fungi. The herbarium focuses on building collections in all groups and regions, and on large-scale digitization projects. These projects have been supported by many grants over the years, using a piecemeal approach adding up to more than four million specimens digitized, which represents approximately half of the physical collection. Current grant-funded projects focus on geographic regions (Rocky Mountains, south central U.S.), and on different groups of plants and fungi (Ferns, Plants with Extreme Morphologies, Bryophytes and Lichens).

Integrated data that are produced as part of the Bryophytes and Lichens project will form an important resource for evolutionary and ecological studies. Herbarium specimens hold a wealth of information that will become broadly available to researchers studying diverse topics such as biocrust formation, carbon/nitrogen cycling, evolution of symbioses, endophyte/host diversification, and the evolutionary origins of biodiversity.

Curatorial Assistant Laura Briscoe, NYBG’s Principal Investigator on the project, observes, “Previous efforts to digitize our cryptogamic collection have focused solely on capturing collection data from the labels, without capturing images of the specimens themselves. Earlier last year, the Steere Herbarium began imaging all new specimens of bryophytes and lichens, a practice already in place for vascular plants. We are very pleased to bring our innovation and standards of specimen image capture to this project, along with all participating institutions, to provide these specimens a fuller level of documentation for researchers and enthusiasts alike.”

The project will provide professional training for a large number of undergraduates, with a focus on leveraging local resources to promote underrepresented students in STEM fields. Students will be trained in image capture and processing, digitization, databasing, and collections management, and will contribute to project education and public outreach components.

Ms. Briscoe and NYBG Lichenologist James Lendemer, Ph.D., look forward to eventually being able to do outreach on the Garden grounds and share information about these fascinating organisms with others, once it is safe to do so.

More information: University of Tennessee story

Project page: Building a Global Consortium of Bryophytes and Lichens: Keystones of Cryptobiotic Communities (GLOBAL)

The commentary emphasizes this exciting research as a starting point for future efforts on the molecular genetics of ovule development.

The original article was published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution:
Zumajo, C. & B. Ambrose. 2020. Phylogenetic analyses of key developmental genes provide insight into the complex evolution of seeds. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2020.106778

Plantae Blog

MPE Abstract

The latest grant, awarded to a team led by University of Florida and The New York Botanical Garden with collaborators across 10 different countries extends the group’s research program in an exciting modern direction to use phylogenomics to better understand the Melastomataceae, which represents one of the most impressive and diverse radiations of tropical angiosperms.

Dr. Michelangeli has devoted his career to unraveling the systematics of the Melastomataceae, and he has successfully built a large and geographically dispersed team of collaborators during a long period of successful funding from the National Science Foundation.

As a Principal Investigator on an early NSF award, Michelangeli led collaborators in the 2005–2009 effort to produce a phylogenetic analysis of the largest tribe in the family (Miconieae) (Melastomataceae) based on molecular and morphological data. The project then grew as the collaborative team undertook an ambitious long-term NSF-funded Planetary Biodiversity Initiative (2009–2018) to compile a complete web-based monograph of the tribe Miconieae (Melastomataceae). These projects established a solid systematics baseline for neotropical melastomes, and they built an understanding of the relationships, evolutionary history, and ecological diversification of this important plant group. The melastome team then joined a large collaboration of zoologists, paleontologists, and climatologists, funded through NSF’s Dimensions Program (2013-2018), to generate a multidisciplinary framework for understanding biodiversity in the Brazilian Atlantic forest hotspot, a highly diverse and endangered ecosystem in which melastomes have thrived and diversified.

This latest project incorporates state-of-the-art genomics tools to better understand the evolutionary history and genetic diversity of Melastomataceae. The collaborators will build one of the largest existing phylogenomic datasets (including ca. 2500 + species) across any major evolutionary group of tropical angiosperms, allowing them to test the geographic origin and subsequent movement of the family, the evolution of morphological characters, and associated diversification rates throughout the worldwide distribution of Melastomataceae.

The team of researchers will train two post-doctoral associates and two graduate students, giving them the necessary tools to further their development as plant systematists and publicly engaged scientists. The group will highlight their research with exhibition content at the Florida Museum of Natural History and The New York Botanical Garden, whose science exhibits draws more than 500,000 annual visitors. Short botany courses are also planned in Haiti and Peru as part of this project. Dr. Michelangeli summarizes, “The most exciting part of this project is the teaching and outreach aimed at both the next generation of botanists and the general public. It is exciting to use our research as a model to teach evolution, plant morphology, and the tools of modern biodiversity research.”

All told, the Melastomataceae research team has collected more than 7,800 plant specimens in 20 countries, produced more than 160 publications with descriptions of more than 120 new species, and provided training for nine Ph.D. students, four Master’s students, seven postdoctoral researchers, and eight interns. The Melastomataceae research program at NYBG is an excellent example of the power of collaboration, the role of systematics as a foundation for a broad understanding of biodiversity and ecology, the benefits of embracing new technology and tools, and the importance of training future generations of scientists.

Project information: A phylogenomics approach to resolving one of the world’s most diverse, tropical angiosperm radiations: Melastomataceae

New York Botanical Garden Ethnobotanist Ina Vandebroek comments on the disconnect between science and the botanical remedies that are so abundantly used in many immigrant communities.

The Guardian Article

“These scientific facilities are a backbone of our research enterprise. They must have the resources needed to sustain scientific progress during this chaotic period,” said Dr. Robert Gropp, Executive Director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. “Science is an engine we need to reignite the economy and to combat future public health and environmental problems.” The US bioeconomy was estimated to be about $1 trillion per year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSC Alliance), and Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) surveyed individuals affiliated with US biodiversity science collections to better understand the effects of COVID-19 related disruptions and closures on biodiversity research and education collections, and the people who use and care for these scientific resources.

“The response to the survey was tremendous, with more than 390 individual responses,” said Dr. Barbara Thiers, President of SPNHC and Vice President for Science at The New York Botanical Garden.

Survey results include the following:
• 96% of natural history collections were unavailable for use in April.
• Most of the scientific collections reported some regular monitoring of resources, but less than 30% were being monitored for pests – a significant threat to collections.
• More than 90% of respondents were working from home, mostly on some aspect of data transcription based on specimen images captured prior to the shutdown.
• When asked about chief concerns arising from a 1-3 month closure:
o Just under 64% were worried about their ability to provide vital research resources;
o Just under 49% were worried about a loss of funding for collections care materials and supplies;
o Just over 47% were concerned about their ability to provide outreach opportunities for the public;
o Nearly 47% were concerned about the loss of staff because of budget cuts;
o 43.5% were concerned about their ability to meet existing grant and contract deadlines.

Biodiversity Collections Network Article

These hubs of activity that bind nature together are incredibly important to nearly everything that lives on land. And many have vanished.

One of the priority areas for lichen conservation is Appalachia, especially the southern mountains in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. For more than a decade NYBG lichenologist James Lendemer has worked with colleagues and students to build the case that this area is a global hotspot for lichen diversity—and one that is critically imperiled. In the process, they published the monumental, Field Guide to the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Center for Plant Conservation Newsletter

In the Herbarium 2020 challenge, researchers are invited to tackle the problem of identifying species of land plants. This challenge is distinguished in that the included images depict dried specimens preserved on herbarium sheets, exclusively. Herbarium sheets are essential to plant science, as they not only preserve the key details of the plants for identification and DNA analysis, but also provide a rare perspective into plant ecology in a historical context. As the world’s second largest herbarium, NYBG’s William and Lynda Steere Herbarium contributed a dataset of over 1 M specimens representing over 32,000 species for this year’s challenge.

FGVC7 on Google AI blog

Details on Kaggle

Details on Github

Daniel Atha, a botanist at the New York Botanical Garden who lives near the park, joined the group after meeting them at a volunteer drive. He convinced Ms. Lehmann that instead of boxwoods, she and her fellow volunteers should plant native species, which would attract pollinators, insects, and create a waypoint for animals, and humans, between Central Park and Riverside Park. “This is a community garden, with the parks department, but instead of vegetables, we’re planting for the birds and the butterflies,” Mr. Atha said while working in the garden last fall.

One person’s vision, inspired volunteers, expert advice, a successful rat abatement program, and Verdi Square is Rat Park no longer!

NY Times Article

When they started their project, researchers had estimated that the 463 species that were documented in Great Smoky Mountains National Park represented at least 90% of the total number of lichen species in the park. After walking at least 2,000 miles and devoting personal funds and countless hours to the effort, they have identified a total of 920 lichen species — a record for a national park — including eight that occur nowhere else in the world and one that had been presumed to be extinct. In addition to doubling the number of species known for the park, Tripp and Lendemer described more than 35 species that were new to science.

National Parks Article

AHS Award Announcements

In this podcast episode, host Cassandra Quave speaks with Dr. Ina Vandebroek—ethnobotanist and expert in wild Caribbean plants used as food and medicine. They discuss root tonics and other local delights like “bissy” and “cerassee,” which also play an important role in food and medicine in Jamaica.

Foodie Pharmacology Podcast

In a study published by the online research journal Science Advances, scientists analyzed the largest compilation of global plant observation data ever assembled to determine how many of the roughly 435,000 total plant species should be considered very rare. They found that 36.5 percent, or more than 158,000 species, fall into that category.

SCIENCE TALK BLOG POST

SCIENCE ADVANCES ARTICLE

SCIENCE TALK BLOG POST

NATURE MAGAZINE ARTICLE