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More Across the College Green
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Andrea Gibson, BSJ '94, couldn't turn down the chance to cover a research trip by two faculty members and four students this past August. And considering the destination, who could blame her? Here, Gibson, assistant editor in the University's Office of Research Communications, shares a firsthand account of the trip. It's not often that I get 19 volunteers to carry my pen and notepad for a writing assignment. Then again, my boss doesn't often ship me off to the lush nirvana of Hawaii to report on the work of Ohio University botanists. But that's where I found myself for two weeks this past August. And while Hawaii may not sound like a tough assignment, just try keeping up with a team of scientists trudging through rain forests, bogs and streams and scaling volcanoes in search of freshwater algae and rare violets. As part of the Global Studies in Plant Biology program, Morgan Vis and Harvey Ballard, assistant professors of environmental and plant biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, led a team of two undergraduate students and two graduate students to the Hawaiian Islands of Oahu, Kauai and Hawaii. Vis and Ballard, in fact, frequently travel the globe to study populations of freshwater algae and violets, respectively, in order to understand the plants' evolution and diversity on Earth. They hope their research will aid in the conservation of rare species. On a local scale, the trip has inspired an Athens High School ecology teacher and Ohio University alumnus to return native Ohio plants to a 20-acre land lab near the school. Robb Weinfurtner, BSIT '79, accompanied the botany team to the Hawaiian Islands as part of his work on a master's degree in environmental science. One issue that struck Weinfurtner and several of us on the trip was Hawaii's struggle to protect its native species against newly introduced plants and animals that threaten to wipe them out. About 92 percent of the land plants on the islands can't be found anywhere else in the world, making Hawaii a haven for biological research. "The amount of invasive plant species and the battle to control them and return native species -- it's just overwhelming," says Weinfurtner. "At first when you get on the island, you notice how lush and green it is, but when you start looking at what's really there, you see it's really a disturbed environment." Ohio itself is no stranger to invasive species. Plants like Japanese honeysuckle and multiflora rose have clogged the fields and forests of this state as well. That's why Weinfurtner and his high school students are tearing out the invaders and replanting the school's land lab, located in The Plains just north of Athens, with original plants such as spicebush, paw paw trees, dogwoods, oaks, sycamore and maples. "We're hoping to increase biodiversity," he says. "Those plants will make better food for native animals such as white tail deer, rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks and gray squirrels." Students accompanied Vis and Ballard on a research trip to southeastern Brazil in November and December and will head with them to French Guiana this summer. Read my accounts of our travels in Hawaii online at www.ohiou.edu/researchnews/science/hawaii.htm and in the spring 2002 issue of Perspectives, Ohio University's magazine of research, scholarship and creative activity. You also can find the research publication on the Web at www.ohiou.edu/perspectives/. Article and photo by Andrea Gibson |
