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Abstract Detail



Ecology

Fertakos, Matthew [1], Spriggs, Elizabeth [2], Clement, Wendy [3].

The power of herbaria: Using digitized collections to study species distribution modelling and phenology.

Herbarium specimens provide an unparalleled source of data spanning the last several hundred years that are becoming increasingly accessible to researchers through digitization efforts. Recent efforts to digitize collections provide access to hundreds of specimens from which we can extract data on phenology, locality, date of collection, habitat descriptions, and more that can fuel downstream analyses. Our work explores two ways in which herbarium specimens are powerful tools for studying biodiversity.
First, we use species distribution modelling (SDM) to investigate the historical distribution and species limits of three species of North American Castanea (Chestnuts and chinquapins), Castanea dentata, Castanea pumila, and Castanea ozarkensis. SDMs were generated for the last 20,000 years based on 4527 specimens to predict the movement of Castaneaup the eastern United States since the last glacial maximum. These models showed that Castanea survived the entirely different climate of the last glacial maximum much further south from where its current range lies. SDMs were also used to assess the species limits of C. pumila and C. ozarkensis.We found that climate spaces occupied by C. pumila and C. ozarkensis are unique and support recognizing them as separate species. Lastly, fossil pollen data was also compared to the models to assess the accuracy of species distribution modelling. These results supported that species distribution models projected into the past are more accurate than by chance alone, when compared to fossil pollen data.
Our second project gathersphenology data to explore the effects of climate change on flowering time. We focused on two sets of species native to New Jersey, which included (1) Eupatorium perfoliatum and E. resinosum, and (2) Schwalbea americana and Narthecium americanum.Eupatorium perfoliatum is widespread across the eastern half of the United States, while E. resinosum is a narrow endemic to New Jersey Pine Barrens; this comparison allowed us to determine how climate change affects the flowering time of two species with contrasting range sizes. Schwalbea americana is a hemiparasitic plant that shares a similar species distribution with a non-hemiparasitic plant N. americanum; this comparison allowed an exploration of the effects of hemiparasitism on changes in phenology due to climate change.Through analysis of flowering time and mean spring temperature, we recovered varied responses to a warming climate amongst our sets of comparative species.


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1 - The College of New Jersey, Biology, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ, 08628, USA
2 - Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston, MA, 02130, United States
3 - The College Of New Jersery, Dept. Of Biology, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ, 08628, United States

Keywords:
digitized herbarium data
herbarium data
phenology
species delimitation
species distribution model
Castanea
Eupatorium
Narthecium
Schwalbea.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: P, Ecology Posters
Location: Arizona Ballroom/Starr Pass
Date: Monday, July 29th, 2019
Time: 5:30 PM This poster will be presented at 5:30 pm. The Poster Session runs from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm. Posters with odd poster numbers are presented at 5:30 pm, and posters with even poster numbers are presented at 6:15 pm.
Number: PEC013
Abstract ID:483
Candidate for Awards:Ecological Section Best Undergraduate Presentation Award


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