Students at Gwynn Park Middle School plant orchid seedlings as part of the Classroom Cultivation project. (Credit: Gwynn Park Middle School)
What does it take to grow an endangered orchid and bring it back to the wild? This past school year, the Smithsonian decided to ask hundreds of middle and high school students. It’s part of a participatory science project called “Classroom Cultivation,” run by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and Smithsonian Gardens. Its goal: Turn students into scientists and classrooms into botany labs.
Orchids are some of the trickiest plants to grow—either in a lab or in the wild. This is largely because they are so frustratingly picky about their habitats. And every species has a different wish list.
“Orchids can be a bit of a drama queen, a diva,” said Shatiyana Dunn, who runs Classroom Cultivation for SERC. “They have very specific elements that they like to grow in.”
A freshwater wetland in Merritt Island, Florida. A new study found hotter, fresher wetlands emit more methane. (Credit: Chris M. Morris, cropped. CC-BY-2.0)
Your local wetland could be sending over 500 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere every year, per square mile. Or virtually none. It’s a bit of a mystery—one that’s been troubling climate scientists for decades. But a new report published this week is helping nail down which wetlands are more likely to be methane bombs.
Denim Fisher (left) and Narcia Jackson look at pinned insects under a microscope at Sweet Hope Free Will Baptist Church. (Credit: Alison Cawood)
As a young student drawn to the intuitive side of things, Denim Fisher never felt completely at home in the science world. But she always had a deep love for nature, as a place to center and ground herself. That love, she acknowledged, comes mixed with trauma.
“The act of engaging with nature can be a daunting, frightening experience for most Black people,“ she said. “This fear response stems from historical racism and the awful things that we endured in these forests.”
Fisher was a graduating senior this year at Pikesville High School in Baltimore. Last winter and spring, she joined a high school internship program run on Saturdays by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and Temple X. One particular Saturday stands out, walking through Gwynns Falls Park with her mentor, Alfie Chambers.
“We saw a poplar tree,” Fisher said. “Alfie taught me that Black bodies were lynched on this tree. This tree has gigantic branches, and mobs intentionally used these trees because of the increased likelihood of someone’s death.”
For Fisher, the internship offered a chance to explore new ways to reconnect her community with nature, and to create spaces for healing.
Megan Vahsen, lead author of the plant evolution paper, stands with a soil auger in a wetland at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. (Photo: Helena Kleiner)
Our predictions of how well wetlands can withstand climate change may not be as accurate as once believed. Research has often overlooked one critical factor: plant evolution. This spring, a research team with two Smithsonian biologists received the Ecological Society of America’s George Mercer Award for their findings on the century-long evolution of a wetland plant and its potential impact on wetland survival.
“There has been this long-standing idea that evolution is really slow and happens at magnitudes that are not impactful at the ecosystem level,” said Megan Vahsen, lead author of the study. “And I think what this paper shows is that’s not necessarily true.”
Denise Breitburg, marine ecologist and Smithsonian scientist emerita (Photo courtesy of Denise Breitburg)
Oxygen is a vital element for virtually all animals on Earth and many microbes. But oxygen concentrations are falling in some of the most valuable ecosystems on the planet. According to a recent paper, the number of freshwater and coastal water bodies with little to no oxygen has increased in coastal areas, with hundreds of regions affected worldwide. Meanwhile, in the open ocean, oxygen-deficient waters have increased fourfold since 1960.
In the new paper, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, researchers around the globe are urging leaders to acknowledge the ocean’s oxygen loss as a new “planetary boundary.” Planetary boundaries are global thresholds for major Earth systems, beyond which humanity cannot safely operate. The nine existing boundaries include climate change and freshwater. In this Q&A, we spoke with co-author Denise Breitburg, a scientist emerita at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, on why ocean oxygen should become the 10th planetary boundary. Edited for brevity and clarity.
Charlie Staines (right) and his wife, Sue Staines, have documented over 1,000 beetle species at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. (Photo: Cheryl Harner)
Beetles, with their astonishing diversity and ecological prowess, quietly underpin the health of ecosystems around the globe. But do we even know what beetles roam our backyards? As of July 2024, the bug-catching duo Charlie and Sue Staines have identified over 1,000 beetle species on the campus of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), unveiling a dazzling array of nature’s tiny marvels.
There are over 25,000 beetle species in North America alone. This makes their conservation critical to the survival of countless organisms, including our own. As prominent decomposers, they aid in the breakdown of forest matter and recycling of nutrient-rich material back into the ecosystem. As predators, they reduce populations of problem insects, like aphids and caterpillars. By studying beetles at SERC, we can better understand their populations, their roles in ecosystems and the overall health of the environments they inhabit.
Lady’s slippers and rattlesnake plantains silent ambassadors for endangered orchids
by Melissa McCormick and Kristen Goodhue
North American orchid exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show, featuring showy lady’s slippers, yellow lady’s slippers and Kentucky lady’s slippers (Credit: Julianne McGuiness)
Maryland’s native orchids will enjoy a rare moment in the spotlight at the Chelsea Flower Show in London this week, one of the most famous flower shows in the world. The show’s “Orchids in the Wild – The Beauty of Nature” exhibit, running May 20-25, includes 27 native orchids from North America, as part of a display co-hosted by the Smithsonian highlighting the plight of orchids.
Watch: Uzay Sezen, Jess Shue and Alex Koure demonstrate how to bring leaves down from the canopy with a crossbow.
Nearly every beech tree in Harvard Forest is sick. A fungus called Neonectria is attacking their bark, leaving it pockmarked, gnarly and coated in fruiting spores that look like angry zits. And it’s trying to steal their sugar. But the trees are fighting back.
To make that discovery, biologist Uzay Sezen spent two years extracting genetic material from beech leaves. For comparison, he also looked at healthy beeches in a forest at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Maryland, his home institution. The work was part of a new study published this spring in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“What is it Harvard Forest trees are doing differently, in order to survive that chronically diseased state?” Sezen asked.
SERC wetland and orchid ecologist among first recipients of Smithsonian’s Distinguished Career Service Medal
by Kristen Goodhue
Dennis Whigham in the Kenai Lowlands of Alaska (Credit: Kelsie Moore)
Senior botanist Dennis Whigham spent his career studying what others might miss: The unassuming alder tree. The underappreciated wetland. The threatened orchid that’s so small and green, it nearly blends in with the forest. The microscopic fungi that same orchid depends on to survive. In the process, he built collaborations to understand and protect some of the rarest and most vital pieces of life on Earth.
This spring, after 46 years heading his Plant Ecology Lab, Whigham received the Smithsonian’s Distinguished Career Service Medal. He is among the first Smithsonian staff to receive it, the first year the institution has offered it.
Oyster restoration in Maryland’s Harris Creek (Credit: SERC Fisheries Conservation Lab)
In Maryland, two things mark the return of spring more than any other: boating and blue crab season. Oyster season—a cold-weather enterprise—closes March 31. But this year, like last year, dozens of volunteers are taking their boats to local oyster reefs—not to harvest them, but to check the health of Maryland’s oyster restorations.
It’s part of a new participatory science project at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center called “Oyster Cam.” The project trains watershed organizations and their volunteers to deploy underwater cameras, collecting videos of oyster reefs across the state.
