OUTREACH

Renowned composer Marcus Norris worked as an artist in residence in our NSF-funded project that aimed to discover the rules linking leaf venation architecture and function. Marcus Norris composed this concertino that explores themes of resilience in human communities via inspiration from plants. The world premiere of this cello concerto occurred in  March 18th 2022 with a brilliant performance of the South Side Symphony.

Botanical Entanglements: is a site-specific ecological art exhibition that explores embedded histories in plant form. Artist and ecologist Dr. Juniper Harrower, worked as an artist in residence in our NSF-funded project to explore the rules linking leaf venation architecture and function. In this art exhibition, Juniper explores  the roles that plants play in constructing our identities and how we, in turn, influence their ways of living. The Botanical Entanglements exhibition occurred in March 12 - 18th 2022, with a special performance and closing event on March 18th. Held in the Garden’s historic Julia Morgan Hall, the closing event included an introduction by Dr. Benjamin Blonder, an artist talk by Harrower, and a featured concert performance by South Side Symphony. presenting the world premiere of a cello concerto composed by internationally-recognized composer Marcus Norris. The concerto explores themes of resilience in human communities via inspiration from plants. Watch a video about Juniper and the Botanical Entanglements exhibition here.

In this blogpost from the Berkeley Rausser College of Natural Resources you can learn more about our NSF-funded project that investigates leaf venation architecture and functions. Are you ready to embark on this journey to experience how is to be a plant scientist?  

Leaves have a complex network of rigid conduits (tracheids and xylem vessels) that are specialized to conduct water. The  architecture of those networks varies widely across plant species, from purely branching structures (e.g. gingko) to open net patterns (e.g. many ferns) to mostly parallel structures in monocots (e.g. corn) to highly reticulate patterns in many angiosperms. Check it out here some of those leaf venation architectures.

Have you ever seen inside of a leaf? Click here and you will be fascinated by the hidden beauty of leaves.

Check it out those amazing showcasing videos from our undergraduate students Sonoma Carlos, Adrian Fontao, and James Rohde. They will teach you how to measure mechanical and hydraulic properties of leaves and explain to you why those measurements are important. 

Download and play with our beautiful functional guide of the 'Campos de Altitude' plants. Comprised of 32 colorful cards, our guide describes just a small part of the impressive flora of the Brazilian montane vegetation. Check it out and have fun!

Did you know that the Atlantic Forest, the luxurious rainforest covering the Brazilian coast, is the home of more than 20,000 species of flowering plants? For Botanists like me, identifying those species in the field it is quite a hard job. This job becomes even harder when we try to identify plants when they are tiny seedlings, still to young to produce flowers or fruits. To help on this identification task, I created this guide of Atlantic forest seedlings. Check it out here, and next time you visit the Atlantic forest try to see how many different seedlings you can find out there!

Campos de Altitude (i.e. Tropical Montane Grasslands) are predominantly herbaceous-shrubby vegetation that occurs on mountain tops (above 1600 m) in the South and Southeast of Brazil. Despite its restricted geographic distribution (estimated total area of 350 km²), this vegetation comprises a diversity of plants, with more than 332 genera, about 20% of which are endemic to this formation. Check out here some of those beautiful plants that growns on the top of Brazilian mountains.

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is one of the hotspots of biodiversity in the world and hosts more than 20,000 of plant species. In Sergipe (the smallest Brazilian state), less than 7% of the original Atlantic forest is left, comprising very small and disconnected forest remnants. During my bachelors in Biology at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe, I conducted a  floristic survey in one of those remnants (Trapsa ranch, a 600 ha of forests located in Itaporanga city, see map) and  found more than 250 plant species in 160 genus and 62 families. Here you can check it out some pictures of the flora of Sergipe Atlantic Forest. 

Would you like to know what is going on at the top of the Brazilian mountains? See this You tube video recorded by my friend PhD Mayara Assis and featured by me and by many other Brazilian researchers. In this video we share with you the most recent scientific discoveries about the vegetation that cover those mountains and why this fascinating flora is being threatened by many drivers of climate change (e.g. fire, drought, air pollution). Brazilian science matters!!!

Prof Bruno Rosado and I visited the Science Club of the public school Telêmaco Gonçalves Maia (RJ, Brazil). It was a wonderful day of exchange of knowledge! We shared some of our research on plant vulnerability to Climate Change, and we also learn a lot from those brilliant middle school students. Congratulations to the students and to the teacher Patrícia who arranged this outreach activity. 

In this blogpost I discuss the main findings in my recent paper: Three eco‐physiological strategies of response to drought maintain the form and function of a tropical montane grassland. Find out more about the plant species of the ‘Campos de Altitude’ in Southeastern Brazil and how this research aims to help conserve them.

Using a grant donated by the Rufford Foundation, I have produced hundreds of flyers that are still being delivered to the visitors of the Itatiaia National Park (RJ, Brazil). In those flyers I explain the ehat are the main impacts of Climate Change on the Tropical Mountain Grassland vegetation. Download the flyer here, and feel free to disseminate my research you too. Thanks! 

Did you know that lizards are very territorialist animals? Check out the variety of aggressive behaviors that Tropidurus hispidus lizards can display to defend their territory, food, and females against strangers invading their land. I observed and recorded all those behaviors during my bachelors in Biology at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe (Brazil), and now I am pleased to share them to you. 

During my bachelors in Biology at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe (Brazil) I was studying the aggressive behaviors displayed by Tropidurus hispidus lizards. Now see what those lizards (with the help of a creative scientist) do during their free time.