HOBAN LAB - News

January & February 2023

3/17/2023

We said goodbye to long-term Hoban lab member Emily Beckman-Bruns this year after her seventh year at the Morton Arboretum. Best wishes in your future endeavors Emily!

News

Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, attended the annual meeting (virtually) of the Advisory Board of the European project FORGENIUS, a 7 million euro, 10 country project assessing the resilience of forest resources across Europe. The project is using remote sensing, physiology, genomics, on the ground surveys, GIS tools, and models integrating all of this data to determine resilience of approximately 3000 conservation units. These units are designed to safeguard the adaptive capacity of dozens of tree species through the EuForGen collaboration. The project will also update EufGIS digital infrastructure and create new tools for accessing and visualizing all data collected, in a manner that the public and policy makers can understand.
Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, will be traveling to Zurich Switzerland to give an invited talk and participate in a multi-day collaborative workshop on monitoring changes in species’ adaptive capacity, genetic health and genetic diversity. The workshop is convened by ETH Zurich and the Swiss Institute for Forest and Snow. About 50 participants from around the world will participate. The workshop aims to share experiences and approaches that different countries are using, and will directly contribute to the design and improvement of ongoing monitoring programs in Switzerland and Sweden that are sampling threatened species repeatedly over time for DNA analysis to understand changes.

Publications

The Tree Conservation Biology lab contributed an article to the Kew Millenium Seed Bank Partnership newsletter, Samara. The topic was to summarize our work to document, manage and improve ex situ collections of the rare and IUCN Critically Endangered Quercus acerifolia, maple-leaf oak. With partners united by the GCCO including Stephen’s Lake Park Arboretum and the City of Columbia Parks & Recreation Department, we are helping design seed orchards that could produce seed for supplementing wild populations – and ensure a future for this species. You can download the newsletter here.
- Citation: Hoban, Schumacher and Koontz, 2022. “Morton Arboretum guiding ex situ collections of Critically Endangered oak.” Samara: The International Newsletter of the Millenium Seedbank Partnership. Issue 38.
Heuertz, M… Hoban, S… 19 others… Garniere-Gere, P. 2023. The application gap: Genomics for biodiversity and ecosystem service management. Biological Conservation. 278.
Sean Hoban, Michael W Bruford, Jessica M da Silva, W Chris Funk, Richard Frankham, Michael J Gill, Catherine E Grueber, Myriam Heuertz, Margaret E Hunter, Francine Kershaw, Robert C Lacy, Caroline Lees, Margarida Lopes-Fernandes, Anna J MacDonald, Alicia Mastretta-Yanes, Philip JK McGowan, Mariah H Meek, Joachim Mergeay, Katie L Millette, Cinnamon S Mittan-Moreau, Laetitia M Navarro, David O’Brien, Rob Ogden, Gernot Segelbacher, Ivan Paz-Vinas, Cristiano Vernesi, Linda Laikre. Genetic diversity goals and targets have improved, but remain insufficient for clear implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. 2023. Conservation Genetics.
Chloé Schmidt, Sean Hoban, Margaret Hunter, Ivan Paz‐Vinas, Colin J Garroway. Genetic diversity and IUCN Red List status. 2023. Conservation Biology.

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December was a huge month for the Hoban lab as our fearless leader, Sean Hoban, spent December attending the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Montreal to share information on conserving genetic diversity and preventing species extinctions with policy makers, NGOs, and representatives of indigenous groups from around the world. This is described further below, but congrats to Sean on an incredible effort!

News

Sean Hoban attended the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Montreal to share information on conserving genetic diversity and preventing species extinctions with policy makers, NGOs, and representatives of indigenous groups from around the world. He helped host a series of presentations and discussions in which 115 people attended in person and 100+ people attended online, translated in French, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin. They provided advice on how the wording of CBD commitments can be scientifically accurate and measurable, with simple and affordable indicators developed by Sean and his colleagues as well as other indicators such as the Red List and the Living Planet Index. The indicators are based on population census data and reflect genetic diversity change but do not require DNA analysis- just census data or local consultation. He also helped host an information booth which was present for 14 days of the COP, and hundreds of persons visited to learn about genetic diversity conservation. Sean and his colleagues also directly interfaced with decision makers from Canada, Switzerland, USA, Italy, the EU, Norway, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, South Africa, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Botswana, and more. In 2023 and beyond the team will continue to work on deploying simple indicators and metrics for conservation of populations and their adaptive potential, which do not require DNA data, in countries around the world, and supporting the post 2020 global conservation commitments through webinars and training.
Sean Hoban organized, spoke at, and led a set of webinars for delegates who will be attending the Convention on Biological Diversity, 15th Conference of the Parties (COP). The 1.5 hour webinars featured speakers from all over the world who are collaborating with Sean to test “indicators” or metrics for measuring conservation progress. The indicators relate to the resilience and adaptability of populations, and are affordable and simple, and leverage in-country expertise and resources, as explained in a new preprint. The presenters represented Australia, Japan, Colombia, South Africa, Mexico, France and Sweden. You can view the webinars here.
The lab gained a new member in November this year! Laura Aguiniga, a research technician fellow (RTF), will be working on assessing the ex situ genetic diversity representation of the IUCN red list endangered oak Quercus tomentella. Laura is currently in her junior year at Elmhurst University and will be working with the lab for several months. Welcome Laura!

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September & October 2022

11/2/2022

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During September and October the Hoban lab was quite busy - they got together to participate in a Morton Arboretum Centennial tree planting at North Central college, where they planted a Quercus muehlenbergii tree together - coincidentally the species Emily Schumacher, RA II, spent most of September collecting acorns from and potting for her USBG Hybrid Acorn project. The planting and the potting were great ways to spend some beautiful fall days!

News

Chloe Hendrikse, a 2022 NSF REU student, will be a REEF (Research Experience Extension Fellow) for fall 2022 and spring 2023. She will expand her research on oak hybridization. Specifically, Chloe’s using computer simulations to determine how well a commonly used method in population genetics can detect hybrids among oak species, when many species are present together (as in a botanic garden or arboretum). This research will provide advice to studies currently being designed in the Hoban and Hipp labs, and its findings will ultimately guide conservationists interested in sampling seed from rare trees in botanic gardens by answering the question “How likely is it that those seeds are ‘true’ to their parent species?”. Chloe is mentored primarily by Austin Koontz and Sean Hoban, with Emily Schumacher and Kaylee Rosenberger providing support. Chloe will improve her skills in R coding, reproducible research, and science communication.

Presentations

Sean Hoban was an invited speaker, small group facilitator, and panel discussion member for a symposium hosted by the British Ecological Society on September 15th. The symposium was “Climate Change Genomics: Vulnerability, Adaptations and Applications”. Sean spoke on the day dedicated to applications and management. His talk was “Conserving genetic diversity to help species survive climate change... without having genetic data.” The talk described his work on adaptive capacity indicators and their use in global conservation policy and federal endangered species legislation, and also described Emily Beckman Bruns and Murphy Westwood’s work on gap analysis. #Audience size: 50. #Audience type: scientists and students.
Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, gave a short talk on Friday, September 23 about his research and broadly about the resources and impact of The Center for Tree Science and The Morton Arboretum at the annual “Darwin retreat” of the University of Chicago. The event was in person at the Museum of Science and Industry. Audience size: 50, primarily graduate students and other early career people.
At the International Oak Society (IOS) conference in New Mexico, Austin Koontz (RA II) presented on his work concentrated on the difference in conservation recommendations when analyzing rare oaks with different genetic markers. Austin’s presentation shows how measures of ex situ conservation can be impacted by the use of different genetic markers, with findings from 2 rare oaks endemic to the southeastern U.S. (Quercus acerifolia and Q. boyntonii). His findings will help future studies of conservation genetics design their studies, and will help us better understand minimum sample sizes needed for conservation groves for rare oaks.
Sean Hoban gave a guest lecture (virtual) to Dr. Jill Hamilton’s Conservation Genetics class at Pennsylvania State University.

Publications

Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, wrote an article for the September newsletter of the Center for Plant Conservation. In the article, he wrote about recent advances that his lab, and other leading conservationists, have made towards ex situ conservation. He reviewed how we can assess genetic and ecogeographic diversity in botanic garden collections, provided practical advice for seed collectors in the field, and emphasized the importance of being involved in policy making at national and global scales. You can read the article here.
Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, contributed expertise and guidance to a recently published IUCN document, “Selecting species and populations for monitoring of genetic diversity” by Hvilsom et al., available for free here.
Kaylee Rosenberger, Emily Schumacher, Sean Hoban, Alissa Brown. 2022. Species-tailored sampling guidelines remain an efficient method to conserve genetic diversity ex situ: A study on threatened oaks. Biological Conservation.
- A major question in ex situ conservation is how many seeds or plants to conserve to ensure the species can survive in the long term. Recent work in the Hoban Conservation Biology Lab has shown that some characteristics of species are important to consider when choosing this number. In this project we tested whether one ex situ sample size could perform well for all threatened oaks. We first found that one sample size is not appropriate for all oaks- the minimum size for 14 USA threatened oaks ranged from 75 to more than 500 - not all oaks are alike! We also showed that simulations can be used to tailor the recommended size to each species’ number of populations, population fragmentation, and population sizes - we can determine the size needed for each species! This should help conserve these rare oaks, and other threatened trees more effectively.

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August 2022

8/18/2022

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This month, Emily Schumacher, RA II in the Hoban Conservation Biology lab, started surveying for ripe acorns for a project funded by the US Botanic garden sampling acorns from oak trees on the Morton Arboretum grounds. This work will focus on identifying the rate of hybridization (in acorns) between oak species in botanic gardens and determining the contributing causes of hybridization like age of pollen donor, spatial distance from other members of the species, and phylogenetic distance. Emily will be germinating ~500 acorn seedlings in the research cooler and then grow them in the greenhouse. In spring, she will sample DNA from the seedlings and from potential parent trees on the grounds. This project is also informed by Chloe Hendrikse’s REU project, which simulated this kind of study to help us design it. As you can see in the right-hand photo, this project has largely been a team effort - many people at the Center for Tree Science pitched into to get ready for the project!

Big thanks to Meghan Midgely, Savannah Henderson, Jorge Jaime-Rivera, Abigail Leeper, Marvin Lo, Karina Orozco, and Brendon Reidy for helping sterilize the research fridge last week and also to Sean Hoban, Austin Koontz, and Jorge Jaime-Rivera for helping with the pole pruning. Emily is really excited to start collecting acorns and germinating them in a few weeks! Below are more pictures taken during preparatory field work:

Several of the CTS employees celebrating getting the research fridge cleaned with pizza.

Austin Koontz, Jorge Jaime-Rivera, and Emily Schumacher use the pole pruner to collect acorns from Q. muehlenbergii.

Sean Hoban assembles the pole pruner, demonstrating to Austin Koontz, Emily Schumacher, and Jorge Jaime-Rivera how it's used.

News

The Morton Arboretum has received an IMLS National Leadership Grant titled “Establishing a scientific basis for managing genetic diversity in botanic garden collections.” The project will examine (1) the level of duplication/ backup of different provenances conserved in botanical gardens using GIS tools, (2) the relationship between genetic diversity conserved and ecogeographic diversity conserved using genetic and GIS tools, and (3) the extent of hybridization occurring in botanical gardens. The knowledge from these studies will be useful for curation and collection plans for better conserving threatened trees in metacollections. The project will be led by Sean Hoban with support from Murphy Westwood and Silvia Alvarez Clare and will involve collaboration with the following gardens: Huntington, Atlanta, San Diego, Huntsville, Chicago and Auburn (with additional partners advising), as well as Botanic Gardens Conservation International. #B2, #C1, #A

Publications

2022. Over half of threatened species require targeted recovery actions to avert human-induced extinction. FC Bolam, J Ahumada, HR Akçakaya, TM Brooks, W Elliott, S Hoban, L Mair, D Mallon, PJK McGowan, D Raimondo, JP Rodríguez, D Roe, MB Seddon, X Shen, SN Stuart, JEM Watson, SHM Butchart. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Open access. A new Global Framework is currently being negotiated by the world’s governments through the Convention on Biological Diversity. Here we explored how suggested targets in this framework could contribute to reducing threats to species. We found that extinction risk for over half (57%) of threatened species would not be reduced sufficiently without a target promoting recovery actions, including ex situ conservation, reintroductions, and other species-specific interventions. We conclude that intensive recovery efforts are needed for successful conservation, in addition to reducing drivers (pollution, forest loss, overharvest, etc.)
- A nice news article in the Anthropocene Magazine covers this here.
2022. Thurfjell, H., Laikre, L., Ekblom, R., Hoban, S. and Sjögren-Gulve, P., 2022. Practical application of indicators for genetic diversity in CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework implementation. Ecological Indicators. Open access. This is the first large-scale test of indicators for reporting on genetic diversity conservation, first proposed by Hoban in 2020. The indicators are designed for assessing genetic threats, without needing costly and slow genetic data collection- just using available geographic and demographic data. This project, led by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, determined that data for the indicators are available and can be extracted from textual analysis of national Red List reports and national biodiversity databases, and can be used, for at least thousands of species (20-30% of all species examined).
2022. LND Santo, S Hoban, TL Parchman, JW Wright, JAHamilton. Reduced representation sequencing to understand the evolutionary history of Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana Parry) with implications for rare species conservation. Molecular Ecology. This study assesses the need and potential for genetic rescue (boost in genetic diversity and fitness) by moving seeds and seedlings among populations of the rarest pine tree in the world, Torrey pine, a California coastal endemic. The study finds that each population does have low genetic diversity, but each population also has adaptations to its unique environment (one island, which is more exposed to salt and wind, and one mainland). The authors conclude that genetic rescue could be useful but should proceed cautiously.
- A nice article about this study from Penn State here.
Hoban, S and Laikre, L. Conference presentation. “Testing genetic diversity indicators for the post 2020 CBD, including effective population size.” Speaking at G-Bike workshop “Testing Genetic Indicators for the Convention on Biological Diversity” in Brasov, Romania (virtual talk).

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July 2022

7/21/2022

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The Tree Conservation Biology team (the Hoban lab) attended the North American Congress on Conservation Biology in Reno, Nevada. Four members will present on novel approaches to conservation and/or applied findings to help manage and recover endangered trees. Emily Schumacher “Refining Strategies for Protecting Diversity ex situ: A Case Study on Q. acerifolia, a Rare, Endangered Oak”. Kaylee Rosenberger “Species-tailored Sampling Guidelines Remain an Efficient Method to Conserve Genetic Diversity ex situ”. Emily Beckman Bruns “Developing a Metric for Optimizing an Ex situ Collection’s Mitigation of Plant Extinction Risk”. Austin Koontz “Quantifying the Impact of Genetic Markers on Measures of ex situ Conservation”. Congratulations to these four early career scientists who will share their exciting results!
Sean Hoban attended and helped to lead a Powell Center Working Group in partnership with the USGS. Powell Center WGs bring together experts from multiple disciplines to tackle applied challenges relating to geography and the environment. 17 people attended the weeklong meeting to discuss how genetic data and proxy data can be mapped and analyzed at large scale and combined with geographic information to provide land management decisions, through the recently established field of macrogenetics (a new realm of science reviewed by Sean and colleagues, see this NRG article). Topics included protection of genetic diversity, predicting genetic diversity in rare species, and invasive species genetics. Participants came from NGOs, USGS, US FWS, and academia, and from five countries. We also had a fun conservation genetic pictionary (see Twitter).

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June 2022

7/14/2022

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This month members of the Hoban lab, Global Tree Conservation, Megan Dunning from Learning and Engagement, and Murphy Westwood from the Leadership Team hosted collaborators from Chicago Botanic Garden, Montgomery Botanical Center, Atlanta Botanical Garden, and BGCI-US to share updates from their current IMLS National Leadership grant (Coordinating Consortia to Conserve Living Plant Collections). The group also enjoyed an Acorn Express tour and a visit to CBG to discuss other collaborative projects on managing collections of threatened plant species.

Publications:

Assessing ex situ genetic and ecogeographic conservation in a threatened but widespread oak after range-wide collecting effort. 2022. Bethany Zumwalde, Bailie Fredlock, Emily Beckman Bruns, Drew Duckett, Ross A. McCauley, Emma Spence, Sean Hoban. Evolutionary Applications. Open Access. This paper addresses a pressing need for botanic gardens interested in achieving conservation outcomes: how representative and resilient are our ex situ collections, relative to a species’ wild distribution? We address this in Quercus havardii, a widespread but IUCN Threatened oak in southwestern USA. With funding from APGA and USFS, Sean collected and distributed nearly 300 seedlings of this species to botanic gardens in 2016; this study assesses how representative that collection was. We found that a majority of Q. havardii genetic diversity is conserved; one geographic region is better conserved than the other; genetic diversity conservation of this species is lower than documented for 11 previously investigated rarer taxa; and measures of geographic and ecological conservation (i.e., percent area and percent of ecoregions) were typically lower than the direct assessment of genetic diversity. We document how different metrics of genetic and geographic diversity can give different measures of conservation progress. This information will inform future seed sampling expeditions to ensure that the intraspecific diversity of plants can be effectively conserved. This collaboration involved 4 Morton alumni (including an RTF), with a diversity of skill sets, and a collaborator at Fort Lewis College.
Bringing together approaches to reporting on within species genetic diversity. 2022. O’Brien, D., Laikre, L., Hoban S., +14 other authors. Journal of Applied Ecology. In press. Open Access. This paper reviews approaches to monitoring genetic diversity and adaptive potential in species which can help them survive environmental and climate change. The approaches cover DNA-based data as well as demographic and geographic proxies, and expert based assessments. The review explains what genetic threats or concerns are covered by each monitoring approach, and advocates for a unified reporting mechanism. This work was produced via Sean’s participation in the GEO BON organization as well as the Coalition for Conservation Genetics, and stems partly from a visit to Switzerland in 2019 on genetic monitoring. The authors represent a variety of governmental, non governmental, industry, and academic areas, from 9 countries.

Presentations:

Emily Beckman Bruns presented with project partners Colin Khoury (San Diego Botanic Garden) and Abby Meyer (BGCI-US) on their efforts to bring together the genebank and botanic garden communities toward conserving North American crop wild relatives of fruit and nut trees. Emily’s presentation focused on results from a recent accession-level survey of ex situ living collections globally (including seed and tissue banks, and garden collections), which will be used to help prioritize species and populations for wild collecting, propagation, and germplasm exchange. The audience for the presentation was the Plant Germplasm Operations Committee of the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), which falls under the USDA. Over 80 people attended the presentation. This work is funded by the United States Botanic Garden, through a subcontract with San Diego Botanic Garden.
Emily Beckman Bruns attended the American Public Gardens Association annual conference in Portland, Oregon the week of June 20th. She presented a poster highlighting “exceptional species,” whose seeds can’t be stored long-term in a conventional seed bank (see two Pence et al 2022 articles: Defining exceptional species and Gap analysis of exceptional species; IMLS grant #MG-30-17-0055-17). She also gave a rapid-fire presentation that showcased a project identifying regional ex situ priorities for Southeast U.S. high priority taxa of conservation concern. This work was supported by BGCI-US and Atlanta Botanical Garden, and will support strategic planning for the Southeastern Plant Conservation Alliance. The final report will soon be available at http://www.se-pca.org/ex-situ-gap-analysis/.
Sean Hoban has been attending (virtually) another key meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity- the final meeting before the Conference of the Parties, which will be in Montreal in December. At this meeting, hundreds of representatives from countries and NGOs around the world are debating biodiversity targets for 2030 and 2050. Sean is providing advice and answering questions from policy makers from eight countries, plus IUCN and GEO BON. This is a fast paced, confusing, but insightful experience into how biodiversity policy is made! Prior to the meeting, Sean prepared two policy briefs, as well- one on target wording and one on metrics/ indicators for measuring progress.

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May 2022

6/3/2022

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The Hoban Lab was busy this month visiting new places and planning out lots of projects! Austin Koontz and Emily Schumacher visited Starhill Arboretum with Murphy Westwood and Amy Byrne and were shown the grounds by Guy and Edie Sternberg and Alana McKean. Austin, Amy, Emily, and Murphy got a tour of the trees of Petersburg, Illinois (where Starhill Arboretum is located) and the grounds.

This trip was part of a larger project led by the Hoban Lab and funded by the U.S. Botanic Garden focused on quantifying and accounting for hybridization of oak species in botanical gardens. This project will be able to provide recommendations for developing oak metacollection sites to GCCO partners. It was amazing to chat with Guy Sternberg, an oak expert, and explore a new arboretum.

News:

Chloe Hendrikse started at the Hoban Lab this month as a research experience for undergraduates (REU) student. Chloe is an undergraduate student at Ohio University going into her senior year. She will be working on generating simulations to test the performance of hybridization detection with microsatellite and SNP markers between many parental species. Welcome Chloe!
Emily Schumacher, a Hoban Lab research assistant, was featured in the Journal of Biogeography early career researcher blog, focused on her publication on current genetic patterns and past range movements of the rare and threatened tree species, butternut (Juglans cinerea). She summarizes the main results of this study and the next steps for this endangered tree here: https://journalofbiogeographynews.org/2022/05/31/ecr-feature-emily-schumacher-on-temporal-climatic-responses-of-the-butternut-tree%EF%BF%BC/

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April 2022

5/3/2022

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The (Chicago-based) members of the Hoban lab met up this month to chat with Loren Ladd, our former RTF and REEF fellow who is graduating college next month and starting work at a vineyard in the Willamette Valley. Congratulations Loren, we wish you all the best (and are eternally jealous!!)

At the end of April, we finally got some warmer weather in Lisle and were able to enjoy a bike ride around the Arboretum! We were joined by Marvin Lo and Dr. Luke McCormack (members of the Roots Lab, with the Center for Tree Science), and Colby Borchetta, a former CTS Research Assistant. Congrats to Colby and good luck on the move out to Virginia!

Presentations:
- Sean Hoban presented to the BGCI Global Conservation Consortia (virtually) about conserving rare plants ex situ. Emily Schumacher, Austin Koontz, Bethany Zumwalde and Kaylee Rosenberger also attended this. About 40 people attended, a mix of garden professionals (curators, leadership, on the ground conservationists) and researchers.
Publications:
- Sean Hoban led a large collaborative group of 26 scientists to describe the state of the art of Essential Biodiversity Variables and their importance for conserving genetic diversity. The paper describes four important measures of genetic composition, recent efforts to compile data from hundreds of studies around the world, advances in modeling, data standards and repositories, and communication to policy makers. The paper is published open access in Biological Reviews, one of the leading journals for reviewing the state of biological sciences. The paper came about via Sean’s collaboration with GEO BON, a global group dedicated to improving the use of biodiversity observations to decision makers and the scientific community
  - Hoban, S., Archer, F.I., Bertola, L.D., Bragg, L.D., et al., 2022. Global genetic diversity status and trends: towards a suite of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) for genetic composition. Biological Reviews. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12852

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March 2022

4/14/2022

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This month, the Hoban lab had a lot going on, including RAs Emily Schumacher and Austin Koontz trying to move the Big Rock at the Arboretum (which weighs more than a school bus). Just kidding, but look below for a summary of all of the events that happened this month!

Career moves:
- Former REU (2020) and REEF (2021) Kaylee Rosenberger has been accepted into the Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology PhD program at the University of Colorado Boulder which emphasizes statistics and informatics as well as outreach, interdisciplinary collaboration, and internships. She will rotate through three labs in her first year, including several in plant science. We hope to have her back someday for a Tree Talk or visit!
- Two members of the Tree Conservation Biology Lab received NSF GRFP awards. Kaylee Rosenberger, former REU and REEF fellow received an award for a project proposal on hybridization across the Ulmus genus and how hybrids could help species survive pests and disease, and she will start a PhD at CU Boulder in fall 2023. Ashley Hamilton, new lab member and starting a PhD at U Chicago in the fall 2023, received an award for a project proposal on variation in reproductive success among individual trees in a population, and how this variation could affect degree and rate of adaptation in populations of trees. Both have a high interest in science communication and mentorship.
Publications:
- Schumacher, E., Brown, A., Williams, M., Romero-Severson, J., Beardmore, T., Hoban, S. (2022). Range shifts in butternut, a rare, endangered tree, in response to past climate and modern conditions. Journal of Biogeography, 00:1–13. Emily Schumacher, research assistant for the Conservation Biology lab, as well as several other arboretum staff members and collaborators discussed the effects of glaciation and modern climate on the rare and endangered tree species, butternut (Juglans cinerea), in Emily's first first author publication. Using genetic methods, species distribution modeling, and fossil pollen modeling, this study concluded that this species has largely been affected by both modern climate conditions and past glaciation, as well as proposed possible locations of glacial refugia for this species during and following the last glacial maximum, around 21,000 years ago. DOI: 10.1111/jbi.14350
Presentations:
- On March 1st, Austin Koontz virtually presented his master’s research at the Utah Rare Plant Meeting. This is an annual meeting with 50–75 attendees, many of them members of the Utah Native Plant Society, but also including faculty from Utah colleges and managers from federal and state regulatory agencies (i.e. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Utah Rare Plant Program) and nonprofits (e.g. Center for Biological Diversity). Austin’s presentation concerned a species complex of rare and Threatened plants (Primula) native to the Great Basin region of the western U.S.
- March 3, Sean Hoban presented at a meeting of policy makers who are preparing for a set of meetings of the Convention on Biological Diversity, leading up to the global Conference of the Parties (COP). Over 100 policy makers and environmental statistics agencies attended, plus representatives of the CBD, and UN Environment Program. The webinars are presenting information and guidance on indicators. Sean presented with GEO BON colleagues on indicators for species and genetic change that can be measured and reported on easily and frequently, and which can guide conservation action in a time of environmental change. For info and links to view webinars, see here.
- Sean Hoban presented to the BGCI Global Conservation Consortia (virtually) about conserving rare plants ex situ. Emily Schumacher, Austin Koontz, Bethany Zumwalde and Kaylee Rosenberger also attended this. About 40 people attended, a mix of garden professionals (curators, leadership, on the ground conservationists) and researchers.

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February 2022

2/28/2022

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The Tree Conservation Biology team is growing! Sean Hoban will advise a PhD student through the University of Chicago starting this fall. Josephine Robertson, graduate of University of Vermont, is an exciting addition to our team! She has experience in botany, forestry, and plant biology, and is excited to better understand species’ geographic range boundaries, adaptation within populations, and how rare and common species differ.

Dr. Antonio Castilla Alvarez, in collaboration with the Hoban lab, began library preparation and RADseq on ~480 Q. havardii individuals and possible hybrid species. The main questions of this project will be focused on determining where the species boundaries may be drawn among populations of the species and between other possible hybrid species. Many of these individuals were collected by former research assistants Bethany Zumwalde and Emma Spence, as well as members of the Morton Arboretum Hipp lab and external collaborators. This sampling effort was largely assembled by current research Emily Schumacher (see picture for all of the DNA boxes used!) and you can read about Antonio's lab work on his Twitter (here, here, here).

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