Ecology and evolutionary biology department continues study

Things are flowering in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department. Joy Ward, PhD of Plant Physiological Ecology and Plant Genomics, is working on a preliminary study of the effects of carbon dioxide levels in plant life.

Laci Gerhart, a second year PhD student, is assisting Ward in the study.

"We're controlling the environment of plants to see the direct effects of carbon dioxide in the flowering process." Gerhart said.

The team uses ice age fossils as a beginning place when there was little to relatively no carbon dioxide affect plant life.

"We call it carbon starvation," said Gerhart. "The project has been going for five years."

Gerhart is specifically working with fossils from a peat box in New Zealand. Gerhart takes sections of carbon dioxide out the cellular spaces in the 50,000 year old juniper wood.

The aged juniper wood, from Kauri trees found in New Zealand bogs, was obtained through a grant provided to Ward by the National Science Foundation.

"How I see it is what we're looking at is ecosystem function," Gerhart said.

Plant communities in past ecosystems are one part of Gerhart's work.

Ward took over the study after Philip Wells, professor in charge, passed away.

"I focus on the genetic indicators of population and size of plants," Ward said. "Preliminary fossilized plants are my area."

Ward has always been interested in the effects of carbon dioxide on plants food source, and whether warming or cooling plays a role in growth.

"Other people may focus on the climate aspect but I want to know about the vegetation," Ward said.

The team tries to hypothesize levels of carbon dioxide in the future as well.

"My whole goal for the wood is to see if the plants really did this badly or if they developed mechanisms." Ward said.  

A new addition to the study is 10,000-15,000 year old pack rat feces known as midden. The pack rat collection was donated back to the study by the late Wells' wife.

"We were really lucky," Gerhart said. "The actual middens look like tree amber."

The group is able to tell from the feces what types of plants were present in the time period the pack rats were alive.  

All of the fossils mainly show plant activity in the arid Southwest of North America.

"It's great because we're not always sure what plant material is in there," Gerhart said. "We can see the variation in age and opportunity."

The middens also allow the study to see what animals were present long ago because the pat racks preyed on smaller rodents and sometime fur is left in the feces.    

 Ward controls the plants in the chambers by pumping in 380-700 parts per million, a percentage of carbon dioxide. This is the level that is suggested to be present in the future.

"The natural low, in the ice age, was 180-270 parts per million which was not caused by humans," Ward said. "But with the jump in levels it is caused by humans."

Ward received the Wohlgemuth Faculty Scholar Award for new professors in 2006.

Her lab work continues and will eventually be published in an academic journal.

(Photos courtesy of Laci Gerhart)