June 2025

Overall

• Our team has embarked on their field season, assessing the health of a local butternut tree population which has potential for restoration and recovery of this threatened eastern North American tree species. They are assessing habitat conditions and symptoms of the butternut canker disease. Emma and Hank Helmers (REU intern) are shown standing next to a young, healthy, naturally regenerating butternut in the photo above.
• Sean presented an overview of our lab’s science and conservation work to the Perennial Partners – members of the Arboretum for more than 10 years. The presentation told the story of three threatened trees (maple leaf oak, butternut, and arroyo oak) and how we're contributing to knowledge and action to save these species in situ and ex situ. The takeaways were: trees are threatened near and far, we need to act now because many species are on the brink, and it takes a mix of action, knowledge and partnerships to achieve conservation.
• Sean also gave a presentation to about 15 summer science and conservation interns (NSF REUs, Student Conservation Association, and other interns) on scientific ethics, team values, and FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reproducible).
  
• Dr. Aziz Ebrahimi, a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University and the Hardwood Tree Improvement Program, has for several years collaborated with our lab on our work understanding butternut (Juglans cinerea) and improving conservation strategies for this imperiled tree species. He presented research covering tree breeding, pathology, biogeography, genomics, phenology, remote sensing technology, and tree conservation in an Arboretum Tree Talk titled “Tree Improvement and Resilience through Genomics and Phenotyping”.

Publications

• Grant J, Murphy P, Barak RS, Hahn M, Leavens E, Hipp AL. Collaboration to Cultivate the Practices of Science: Local Ecological Research as a Gateway to Biodiversity Science. The American Biology Teacher 87: 220–225. This article—aimed at high school teachers and led by AP Biology teachers Jeff Grant and Patrick Murphy—describes lessons learned over the course of 12 years of collaboration between the Herbarium / Hipp Systematics Lab and Downers Grove North High School AP Biology classes. Through this collaboration, more than 1,000 high school students have been mentored in practices of plant diversity research, using both herbarium collections and the prairie as study systems.