Chicago Botanic Garden 

Science Update

February 2011

 

The Chicago Botanic Garden is pleased to report on the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center as the building enters its second year.  The building greatly enhanced the Garden’s capacity to advance plant science research and education.  With new equipment, laboratory space, and teaching facilities, the Garden is emerging as a regional, national, and international center for plant conservation science.  

In May 2010, R&D Magazine named the Science Center the “Laboratory of the Year” highlighting both its aesthetic features and inherent sustainability.  The building formally received Gold-LEED certification from the U.S. Green Buildings Council in August 2010 and continues to educate the general public and building professionals on the operations and benefits of a green building.  Work on the Trellis Bridge from Evening Island to the Lavin Evaluation Garden is underway, which will provide easy access from the main gardens to the Science Campus.     

Following is a report highlighting the Science Center’s seamless integration into the Chicago Botanic Garden’s landscape and mission.

Plant Science and Conservation 

The 38,000-square-foot Science Center has significantly advanced the Garden’s capacity to research questions related to climate change, land use, pollution, and invasive species and their impacts on plants, ecosystems, and people.  This research directly shapes the Garden’s conservation and education programs.  Following are examples of projects Garden scientists conducted over the past year.

  • Dr. Pati Vitt is using the Garden’s seed bank as a research base.  One project involves assessing the need for assisted migration and creating projected species’ migration maps.  When climate change makes a habitat too warm or drastically changes precipitation patterns – but land development bars species’ natural dispersal to more appropriate locations – human-mediated migration may be necessary to ensure a species’ survival.  Seed banking is one proposed strategy to support such efforts.   
  • Dr. Daniel Larkin is conducting research that has implications for combating climate change.  He tested whether invasion by common buckthorn and subsequent restoration of an invaded area affected soil carbon-storage in the Garden’s McDonald Woods.  By increasing plant diversity and removing the invasive species, he discovered that soil can store significantly more carbon over the long-term than areas dominated by buckthorn. 
  • The Garden’s director of restoration ecology, Robert Kirschner, is quantifying what level of contaminant reduction can be achieved through a bioswale, using the rainwater glen located under and around the Science Center.  Throughout the year, he tracks and analyzes how much pollution is taken up by the bioswale environment and will eventually present results to the restoration community, as evidence of the usefulness of a bioswale.

The National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank Project has closed another prolific season of collecting seeds from native tallgrass prairie species to safeguard against their disappearance in the wild.  Through December 2010, a total of 356 collections were gathered from 14 different states and 16 unique eco-regions.  Each collection represents a particular species in a specific location.  In total, the Garden has banked seeds from over 1,000 species since the start of the project.  Also included are 794 DNA collections and 1,675 herbarium vouchers that accompany each of the seed collections and serve as additional documentation for identification.  More than 130 volunteers, including individuals and corporate teams from a number of Chicago area corporations provided 1,800 volunteer hours towards this project in 2010.