Project Progress: 

• Ash Hamilton, PhD student at the University of Chicago, led an international team of scientists (including Gavin Salas, the lab’s RAMP fellow) on a 10 day field work trip in Baja California Sur, Mexico. This fieldwork is a crucial part of Ash’s dissertation work on effective population size through time on the endangered, endemic Quercus brandegeei. This trip involved the group monitoring selected trees at several sites, collecting more than 1300 acorns in total from these trees, and prepping pots, soil, and nursery space to plant a select 1200 of the collected acorns at a local nursery. When these acorns grow into seedlings, they will be sampled by Ash for genetic analyses and then adopted out to local community members as a part of a conservation program “¡Salvemos el encino arroyero!” led by the Morton Arboretum and a regional governmental agency in Mexico (CIBNOR) [link to CIBNOR].

Outreach and Training

• Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, led a consortium of scientists worldwide to create support materials for policy makers at a recent scientific and technical meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Nairobi Kenya in October. The team created a policy brief translated in four languages, a short video, a flyer, and a post for an online CBD discussion forum. The materials were presented on an easy to read website. This builds on the engagement and support the team provided at the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity meetings in December 2022. The goal of the materials was to explain the recent implementation of genetic diversity indicators in a fast, affordable manner in nine countries, including four megadiverse countries. One message highlighted was that many populations worldwide may be on the precipice of large losses of genetic diversity, and that this status of biodiversity can be monitored in all countries, without the need for DNA sequencing data.

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Events and Presentations

• Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, presented a seminar virtually at the University of Connecticut on November 17 to approximately 15 students and faculty.

Publications

• Castilla, A.R., Brown, A., Hoban, S., Abhainn, E.A., Robinson, J.D., Romero‐Severson, J., Smith, A.B.,Strand, A.E., Tipton, J.R. and Dawson, A., 2023. Integrative demographic modelling reduces uncertainty in estimated rates of species' historical range shifts. Journal of Biogeography. OPEN ACCESS
  • This publication from several current or former Morton employees (Hoban, Brown) and CTS Fellows (Strand, Castilla) was the capstone of an NSF project to improve methods in biogeography- the study of species’ ranges and how they change over time. The paper showed that it is possible to integrate ecological niche models, pollen fossil data, and genetic data to better understand how fast tree species (specifically, Fraxinus pennsylvanica, green ash) migrated north after the last Ice Age. The paper also provides hints about how fast species may respond to modern climate change, and provides open source code for the methods for others to use. This project team’s work was originally sparked by CTS seed funding to bring the researchers together to meet in 2017.
• Carroll, C., Hoban, S. and Ray, J.C., 2023. Lessons from COP15 on effective scientific engagement in biodiversity policy processes. Conservation Biology. OPEN ACCESS
  • This publication provides a perspective and review of the advancement of science-based policy in the Convention on Biological Diversity.  The authors write about the challenges and opportunities of expanding the idea of conservation beyond just conserving species to conserving both genes and ecosystems. The article touches on efforts to conserve 30 percent of ecosystems by 2030, and efforts to measure and manage genetic diversity affordably and quickly. Challenges included explanation of definitions, the speed and complexity of policy negotiations, science communication, and incentives and guidance for scientists to engage.

Events and Presentations:
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• Members from the Global Tree Conservation Program (Silvia, Kate and Victor) and the Conservation Biology group (Emily, Austin and Gavin) attended the Rare Plant Research and Mentoring Program (RAMP) Annual Symposium in Atlanta Botanic Garden. During this meeting, Research Aides Victor García and Gavin Salas presented an update on their research and participated in multiple career development workshops and activities. This activity is part of the NSF-funded Rare Plant RAMP Project. Next year’s symposium will be hosted at Morton Arboretum.  
  
  
• Sean Hoban presented a seminar at University of Toronto October 6. He also spent the day meeting about 15 graduate students and postdocs in the department. The audience for the seminar was about 30 students and professors. Sean also presented a seminar virtually at the University of Memphis on October 19 and met 6 students and postdocs to discuss their work.
• Sean Hoban attended the GEO BON (Group on Earth Observation Biodiversity Observation Network) meeting “Monitoring Biodiversity for Action,” in Montreal, Canada. This meeting brought together many kinds of scientists in biodiversity monitoring, reporting, and policy- from eDNA, to satellites, to community based monitoring. At the conference Sean networked with representatives from IUCN, GBIF, BGCI, the Quebec biodiversity center, and the Forest People’s Program. Sean also gave a talk titled “Assessing genetic diversity in the absence of genetic data, using indicators” to an audience of about 30.

Publications :

• Schumacher, E. K., Wu, Y., Byrne, A., Gray, S., Ladd, L., Griffith, M. P., & Hoban, S. (2023). Examining previously neglected aspects of ex situ gene conservation in two IUCN Threatened plant species: rare alleles, redundancy, ecogeographic representativeness, and relatedness. https://doi.org/10.1086/728186​

We had two new members join the Hoban lab this month: Mikaely Evans, a rising junior at Macalaster College, started her time in the Hoban lab as a NSF REU; and Samarth Mohan, a rising high school junior, started working as a volunteer. Very exciting news and welcome to them both!

Additionally, Emily Schumacher was promoted to the Tree Conservation Biology Lab Manager in the lab. ​In her new role, Emily will work closely with the lab scientist in planning new methodologies and initiatives to continue to grow the Tree Conservation Biology program and increase her role in managing budgets and grant reporting. With Emily’s guidance, the program will seek ways to more effectively research and disseminate knowledge on tree conservation biology, mentor future plant conservationists, and manage a complex set of strategic partnerships including NSF, IMLS, USGS, IUCN, the US Botanic Garden and US Forest Service.

Publications: 

• Hoban, S., Da Silva, J., Mastretta-Yanes, A., et al., 2022. Monitoring status and trends in genetic diversity for the Convention on Biological Diversity: an ongoing assessment of genetic indicators in nine countries. Conservation Letters. Open Access. #A1, B1, A2, C3
  • This paper describes a project underway to apply indicators of genetic diversity conservation which are affordable and simple, in nine countries around the world. We address concerns of policy makers and implementation challenges, and describe a roadmap for further development and deployment, incorporating feedback from a broad community. We demonstrate that countries can successfully and cost-effectively report the status of species’ genetic diversity and adaptive capacity with existing biodiversity observation data, and, in doing so, better conserve the Earth's biodiversity.

Outreach: 

• ​​Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation biologist has been invited to join the Whitebark Pine Recovery Plan Genetics Working Group.  This team, led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, is advising on writing a Recovery Plan for whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), which was recently listed under the Endangered Species Act.  The recovery plan will have a goal of listing all activities needed to recover the species to the point it can be delisted.

Project Progress: 

In honor of women's history month, the arboretum hosted a women in the environment series. Research assistants Emily Schumacher and Austin Koontz attended one of these talks by Tanisha Williams, PhD, one of the founders of #BlackBotanistsWeek who is a postdoc at Bucknell University. Tanisha spoke about her personal relationship with botany and how many other black women have been foundational to our understandings of planets, and also how we can connect more people of color with botany. What an incredible talk!

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.