Program
Note that we have cancelled MPC 2020!
Friday May 1
Optional workshop:
Online Database Solutions for Paleobotany (LSB 401, 1-5 pm), information below!
Evening Welcome Dinner (TBD)
Saturday May 2
Brief Welcome
Morning Keynote Speaker (Burke Museum)
Dr. Ellen Currano (University of Wyoming)
General Sessions (Burke Museum)
Evening Poster Session (Life Sciences Building)
Dinner (Life Sciences Building)
Evening Keynote Speaker (Life Sciences Building)
Dr. Maria Alejandra Gandolfo (Cornell University)
Sunday May 3
Sunday morning field trips:
Washington Park Arboretum: Explore the 230 acres of unique living plants collections, managed by the UW Botanic Gardens and the City of Seattle. Right next to the Arboretum is the Japanese Garden, which is also well worth a visit (it is $8 for regular adults, $4 for senior citizens and students with ID). The tour will be self-led but coordinated and facilitated by us.
Kruckenberg Botanical Garden: Experience the beautiful garden, founded by famed UW botanist, the late Dr. Art Kruckenberg, centered around native Pacific Northwest plants and other rare species. The tour will be self-led but coordinated and facilitated by us.
Seattle Spheres: Take a tour of the spheres, often referred to as the "Amazon Spheres", and their contained plant life led by Amazon Botanist and paleobotanist, Dr. Jeff Benca. One to two groups of six people can experience the tantalizing Spheres.
Sunday all day field trips:
Anacortes–Deception Pass: We will visit Washington Park and Deception Pass State Park to explore the rocky shoreline/intertidal zone, where you can see glacial striations in the exposed rock, and experience several native, conifer-dominated vegetation types (we’ll see Douglas fir, grand fir, seaside juniper among others). Aside from lush forests and marine invertebrates, we might spot bald eagles, seals, and porpoises.
Trip includes driving and walking. Lunches will be provided.
Bloedel reserve on Bainbridge Island: We will take the ferry to Bainbridge Island just east of Seattle and explore the beautiful Bloedel Reserve through a guided tour. Dubbed one of North America’s 10 Best Botanical Gardens by USA Today, the Bloedel Reserve is well worth seeing for both its manmade gardens and preserved forests. In addition, the classic ferry ride gives one of the better views of the Seattle skyline.
Trip includes driving, going by boat, and walking. Lunches will be provided.
Burke Paleobotany Collections and Labs access:
Do you want to check out our collections, maybe even do some work? Contact Caroline Strömberg (caestrom@uw.edu) to set this up, and check out the collections page and paleontology database.
MPC 2020 Workshop:
Online Database Solutions for Paleobotany
Are you frustrated by the lack of a publicly accessible database for plant morphotype occurrences, that links to photographs and descriptions of morphotypes? Has not having a database like this held you back from doing exciting research? Have you struggled to write a data management plan for an external grant because there just isn’t quite the right database for your data?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, please join us for a paleobotany database working group meeting on Friday, May 29 from 10 AM-3 PM (Pacific Time). The meeting will be co-hosted by Ellen Currano (paleobotanist, University of Wyoming), Dori Contreras (paleobotanist, Perot Museum of Nature and Science), and Andrew Zaffos (geo-informaticist and invertebrate paleontologist, Arizona Geological Survey). In collaboration with the Paleobiology Database’s Shanan Peters and Mark Uhen, Ellen, Dori, and Andrew submitted an EarthCube proposal to create a fossil plant morphotype and trait database and web client that will interface with iDigBio and the Paleobiology Database to make paleobotanical data widely available. Our proposed system will operate as both workbench and forum, allowing users to add interpretations of taxonomic links between separate fossil specimens. This includes synonymizing morphotypes from different regions or described by different research groups, as well as linking plant organs that belong to the same species. We also hope to encourage the creation of new community standards for the description of the many clades and organs not included in The Manual of Leaf Architecture.
We hope you will join us for this meeting, and we would love to have a good mix of students, postdocs, early career researchers, and very experienced paleobotanists! We will utilize active learning techniques and breakout groups to ensure everyone’s voice is heard. We are looking for your help to make this database and web client the best it can be and to maximally meet the needs of the entire paleobotany community.
Please register for the conference and workshop here.
Left: Online database solutions for paleobotany as presented in the NSF EarthCube prospectus by Currano and colleagues. Above: Platycarya, Eocene, Wind River Basin, Wyoming.