I’m a biologist many assume that I do
experiments with mice and then I’m
trying to find a cure for cancer or some
other human disease now when I tell
people that I’m a plant biologist they
kind of look at me funny and say
especially around here they say why
plants when you really should be working
on curing some human disease and so
today I’m gonna talk about why I think
studying plants and in my case studying
the butterfly wheat plant is indeed a
valuable and worthy endeavor it’s
something that we can all learn from in
particular I want to talk about the
interconnectedness of all organisms okay
and even though I study one plant I’m
gonna talk about the connections the
really interesting and somewhat
unexpected connections that all living
organisms have with one another in the
case with butterfly weed I want to talk
about the connections well obviously as
the name implies with butterflies but
also perhaps with organisms like deer
and of course even us right so how did I
get into this right right it’s not as if
I grew up on a farm or anything like
that I actually grew up in New York City
right and in Queens in fact and so we
had some house plants in our seventh
floor apartment and and there was of
course salad right but that’s where my
mind was in terms of plant so it wasn’t
really until I got to college right but
I went to a college in a pre rural area
and I was like wow it’s beautiful around
here is green and lush kind of like this
campus and I thought wow what are these
organisms right and so I actually took
some classes in plant biology and that’s
when my mind was really open to the one
these groups of organisms that it really
hadn’t really thought about and I
learned that wow these organisms they’re
so similar on that fundamental
level two all organisms like animals
gets so different and so that’s where I
realize this is what I wanted to spend
my life doing that’s what I found my
passion hopefully you’ll be able to find
your passion in whatever and in whatever
you find and so I got my degree in
biology and but I wasn’t done and so I
went on and I went on to graduate school
got my PhD in plant biology studying
pollination in the canola plant
interestingly enough but what does this
have to do with butterfly weed
well the butterfly week project didn’t
start until I actually got up here and
became a professor at Iona College I was
taking my botany class on a field trip
to a place called marshland Conservancy
in Rye New York and I actually started
just a serendipitous conversation with a
curator there the then curator there
Allison balance she mentioned that there
was this plant called butterfly weed
that was growing in their managed meadow
there and that wow this is a really
interesting plant because she hadn’t
really seen this plant elsewhere and so
I thought okay I’ll kind of take a look
into it and I realized wow this is a
really interesting plant and something
that I could really get my teeth into
and really study and so what is this
plant
well you can see there’s two pictures of
the plant okay right there and you can
see number one the beautiful orange
flowers associated with a plant right
and so in fact you can actually buy this
plant right in garden stores and you can
plant them and so you can use them in
your own gardens right now this plant
belongs to the milkweed family and Kane
will talk about milkweed sin a little
bit and they grow up to about height
about two or three feet they’re
perennials
right and so they’re really beautiful no
it’s the connection to butterflies
obviously when these are called
butterfly weed obviously it doesn’t look
like much of a weed at all they’re
actually quite lovely
right but the connection to the
butterflies though butterflies obviously
they pollinate the plant so the plant
gets something out of it but the
butterflies including that especially
that of the monarch butterfly they lay
their eggs on the underside of the lease
and when the eggs hatch the larvae
actually
use the leaves as a food source they eat
the leaves okay and so they can utilize
the leaves for food but there’s more to
it than that okay in fact the leaves
right the planet forms these chemicals
and the chemicals are actually usually
toxic to most animals but instead for
the butterflies those toxins get
incorporated into their own bodies and
they use those toxins as a way to defend
themselves against other predators and
so this really interesting connection
between that of the butterfly weed and
that of the butterflies now butterflies
aren’t the only plant animals that
pollinate there’s actually bees that
pollinate there’s flies beetles also
pollinate this particular plant so
there’s a lot of thing a lot of
organisms that this butterfly weed this
plant is associated with okay so what
else right and why did I get into this
product well the reason why I first
started getting into this project was
because when I loved actually turns out
that this plant is actually disappearing
in the Northeast United States
this plant normally grows right in the
kamut in most of the contiguous United
States from east of the Rocky Mountains
but they’re disappearing the Northeast
in the 1950s right there was a scientist
named Wyatt and he actually separated
out the species into three different
subspecies there was a subspecies on the
east coast there was a subspecies in the
southeast and there was a sub C’s
subspecies the dominant form in the
interior of the United States and so I
was kind of curious wow if this plan is
disappearing in the Northeast well how
do we then can we introduce this plant
back to where it normally was in the
Northeast and in fact it’s actually
protected plant in five states including
that of New York States so it’s actually
disappearing in New York State so if
we’re trying to reintroduce this plant
what can we do should we preserve try to
preserve what’s already here to
reintroduce the plant back into the
Northeast or can we just go ahead and
plant any butterfly weed from anywhere
whether it be from the southeast or the
Midwest and then just go ahead and
reduce
and so what was I looking at well are
these plants genetically distinct from
another are there really three
subspecies associated with this species
so why it actually determine those
subspecies based on just leaf shape and
I thought well maybe there needs to be
something more so I actually take a look
at the genetics of this plant okay so I
took some samples right from a number of
populations but these are the six that I
started off with from throughout the
United States and I took a look at their
DNA okay and so when I did I actually
found that yes plants that are growing
say in Tennessee right those plants are
more genetically related to each other
than in say compared to a plant in New
York okay and so that makes sense
however and this is preliminary data
however every once in a while will come
upon a plant say in Tennessee that was
more genetically similar to a plant in
New York then to other plants in
Tennessee in other words two plants that
are hundreds of miles apart that are
more related to each other more
genetically similar to a plant that was
say 20 feet from that particular plant
so what’s going on how is that possible
that you can have such genetic
similarity to plants that are so far
apart right as compared to plants
they’re nearby well well think about it
right so if you know anything about some
of these pollinators of the butterfly
weed like the monarch butterfly the
monarch butterfly has huge migration
migratory ranges in fact the month with
the migration of the monarch Monarchs go
from all the way to Canada all the way
down to Mexico and back again okay and
so my research is saying hey wow these
monarchs may be carrying pollen for
hundreds of miles so that they’ll be
picking a pollen stay in Tennessee and
then carrying it all the way to New York
and allowing for reproduction and
pollination in New York so that we can
get this really intermixing of genetic
material throughout the entire
country and so this connection is really
really important and so the butterflies
utilize the butterfly weed as a food
source but the butterfly weed is also
meaning the butterflies to not only help
pollinate within only a certain area but
over hundreds of miles these connections
are really important right and so
butterflies themselves are considered to
be really important organisms they’re
considered to be indicator species in
other words what happens to the one is
an indication of what’s going to happen
to others in the same ecosystem so
they’re very important and what else do
we know about these butterflies
including that of the monarch butterfly
is that they too are actually
disappearing they’re actually getting
lower and lower numbers and people are
starting to really worry about that and
so in fact there are some studies
predictions that a number of butterfly
species are going to go extinct in the
next couple of decades so why are they
disappearing also so there’s a number of
hypotheses one of these hypotheses is
that it’s climate change climate change
is actually causing the demise of so
many these butterflies that climate
change the butterflies can’t take these
extremes in weather conditions and so
they’re the poor they’re dying off
another hypotheses that is somewhat
related to climate change is well their
food supply the milkweeds of which
butterfly weed is one of the milkweeds
is disappearing isn’t that what we’re
talking about here the butterfly would
is disappearing if the food supply
disappears then what’s going to happen
to the butterflies they’re gonna go to
so there’s another connection there
right so talk about that very important
relationship that butterfly weed and
other milkweeds have with that of the
butterflies and so what’s going on with
the butterfly weed right that’s what I’m
interested in so there are a number of
hypotheses in terms of the butterfly
weed number one it they too are being
affected by climate change okay
and I haven’t know their hypothesis that
is much a little more local okay so like
I said I’ve been studying the butterfly
weed in this particular matter at marsh
lands Conservancy
okay so on the left is just a picture of
Westchester County you’re all probably
all familiar with it okay it’s north of
New York City you can see the Hudson
River on the west and then you have Long
Island Sound in the stars where rhyme
for I New York is okay on the right it’s
actually a Google Earth Map of marshland
Conservancy marcin’s Conservancy being
right here you can see it’s surrounded
by a bunch of residential areas okay
there’s rye Golf Course right there okay
and so most of marshland Conservancy is
quite wooded in other words it’s mostly
forest we can see this rectangular area
there that’s actually a mowed portion of
the Conservancy where they actually keep
and manage a meadow and that’s where the
butterfly lead is okay so I’ve been
keeping track of the butterfly weed in
this particular meadow and this is what
I found
and so I’ve been doing this over a
number of years right and so every
single dot and so this is just the top
third of the meadow every single little
dot represents a particular butterfly
wheat that I identified so you can see
in 2003 there’s a bunch of butterfly
weed 2004 bunch of butterfly wheat 2005
a bunch of butterfly wheat but then
there’s this huge drop in butterfly lead
between 2005 and 2008 in fact over a
thousand in 2005 to just about a hundred
in 2008 90% gone it’s even getting worse
in 2014 so what’s going on what’s going
on in terms of why the butterfly weed in
this particular meadow anyway is
disappearing well when I actually take a
look this is what I see so on the left
you can see beautiful butterfly weed
plant in full flower at its best on the
right however this is what I would see a
lot in 2080 from 2014 you can see the
butterfly weed is there but the tops
have been completely cut off
now the other plants around that
butterfly weeders are fine it’s not as
they have been completely cut off as
well as just the butterfly weed in which
the tops have been cut off and so my
hypothesis is that something’s been
eating these guys right something tall
enough is just gonna go ahead and reach
in and just go
eat the tops of these plants so what is
eating these plants right what organism
is eating this plants well there’s only
one herbivore that’s tall enough and
that’s an abundance right in at
marshlands that are eating these plants
and my hypothesis is that it’s deer all
right now
deer it’s been known have been
increasing in population over a number
of years in Westchester County and so
here’s another connection connection
between deer and butterfly we D are
eating the butterfly weed no butterfly
weed what’s going to happen to the
butterflies no butterflies and so now
we’re connecting deer to butterflies
connections that you never would have
really thought about right unless you
actually really looked into it and
studied it right but I’m not done yet
because what’s causing the
overpopulation of the deer who’s
responsible for allowing for the natural
predators of the deer to no longer exist
in this area in Westchester County well
who we yeah we are aren’t we aren’t we
responsible for this overpopulation of
deer and now because we have an
overpopulation they’re starting to eat
the butterfly weed no butterfly weed no
butterflies and so now we have a
connection we have a connection again
from us to butterflies right so there’s
something that perhaps we can learn from
starting just the one plant the
connections that we have one final plot
now obviously the study that I studies
that I just talked about right won’t
cure some human disease but it actually
turns out right those chemicals I talked
about those toxins
well those chemicals right may actually
have medicinal value because in colonial
times right
the butterfly we plant has actually been
used as a traditional medicine to treat
a lung and heart problems and in fact
there’s some scientists that are looking
in related plants to see if they too
have medicinal properties and so perhaps
studying butterfly weed can actually
contribute to treating some sorta
human disease you never know right
there’s always something to be learned
thank you [Applause]