Abstract Detail

Conservation Biology

Bullock, Madison [1], Slimp, Madeline [2], Hale, Haley [3], Coker, Cassidy [1], Bailey, Zachary [4], Johnson, Matt [1].

Herbaria uses in ecosystem health assessments: Impacts of land use and climate change on flora in the Guadalupe Mountains over 50 years.

Over the last several hundred years, anthropogenic influences including but not limited to land use and climate changes have caused drastic shifts in ecosystems across the globe. With otherwise little temporal floral data, herbarium specimens provide unique information on ecosystem form and function. However, often herbarium data are haphazardly collected and sparse through time. In contrast, the Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO) collection in the E.L. Reed Herbarium at Texas Tech University represents an extensive floristic survey conducted 50 years ago, with over 1400 recorded collections in over 450 distinct taxa. GUMO is positioned at the intersection of several major floristic regions, resulting in many species of plants that are rare, endemic, or at the edge of their range in the Park. This provides a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of 50 years of land use and climate change on the genetics and physiology of plants in a biodiversity hotspot. We describe our use of herbarium specimens, including targeted sequencing with Angiosperms353, carbon-nitrogen ratios, and stomatal density measurements in a comparison with modern specimens with special focus on three widespread-endemic congeneric species pairs.

1 - Texas Tech University, Biological Sciences, 2901 Main Street, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA
2 - University of California Santa Cruz, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 130 McAlister Way, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, USA
3 - HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, 601 Genome Way Northwest, Huntsville, AL, 35806, USA
4 - Harvard University, Harvard University Herbaria, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

Keywords:
herbaria
Guadalupe Mountains
climate change
ecosystem health
Angiosperms353
stomatal density.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Number: CB4002
Abstract ID:865
Candidate for Awards:None