Herbarium Grows Projects on Campus, Online Photos, data from university plant collection now available to public By Tara Roberts
The University of Idaho’s Stillinger Herbarium is helping scientists gain new insight into plant evolution and giving the public access to a vast collection that represents a historical archive of the plant diversity in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1892 and supported in part by a trust established by Charles R. and Nettie Mae Stillinger, the herbarium is home to more than 200,000 preserved plant specimens. It's the largest herbarium in the state of Idaho. Several scientists use the specimens for research, including herbarium director David Tank, who has received a five-year, $800,000 National Science Foundation Career Award. His work focuses on plants in the genus Castilleja, commonly known as the paintbrushes, which are diverse and abundant across the West. 16
Tank studies systematics, a discipline that pairs the naming and classifying of organisms with the study of their evolutionary histories. His research seeks to understand how the patterns and processes of evolution resulted in the diversity of life on Earth today. His past work includes contributions to the NSF-supported “Angiosperm Tree of Life Project,” which maps the evolutionary relationships of flowering plants. The herbarium offers a wealth of data allowing Tank to examine species-specific traits, including the morphology, geography, ecology and genetics of individual species, while furthering a deeper understanding of those traits. Traditionally, species are described by their physical variations. But improvements in DNA sequencing are creating new tools that can examine species’ boundaries at a
molecular level. Because species are fundamental to our understanding of biodiversity patterns, being able to more accurately delimit and name species is vital in conservation policy developments, Tank said. “The collections allow us to quantify diversity and understand the processes that create that diversity.” The herbarium benefits UI students, too. Its teaching collections are used in several courses, and students have helped gather specimens for it.