Four years ago this month I had my first breakthrough in science- I was accepted into the NSF's Research Experience for Undergraduates program at Duke. The program was called "Bioinformatics and Systematics of Plants and Fungi." Many of the students were working on building phylogenies for the various groups of organisms they were interested in. I, on the other hand, was interested in speciation and just happened to be working on plants. The group went on a field trip to the Croatan National Forest in SE North Carolina and, walking around the savanna most of the other students were interested in all the different kinds of plants around. I was not, and I took some pretty pictures of flowers and trees, but I said to myself "I could never be as interested in plants the way those guys are. I just want to know about evolution."
Flash forward to April 30, 2008- a day I spent in the southern Adirondack Mountains doing nothing other than collecting as many different types of mosses- (mosses!) as I could find. 2004Matt would have slapped 2008Matt upside the head, "what the hell you wastin your time doin that for?!?" But he'd be wrong. What 2004Matt didn't understand is that you do need to care about the organisms in order to know about evolution. It's a pratical matter, as well: if I'm interested in a certain species, even if it's a model organism worked on almost entirely in the laboratory, I still need to collect specimens. In order to do that, I need to know how to find the species, and when I do collect it, I need to know what information to record about a site. So I need to know a lot about the ecology of the species, common associated other organisms, and a lot about its life cycle just to collect the organism.
So it's not enough to just claim that it doesn't matter what species I work on. While it's true that there are certain principles of evolution and genetics which broadly apply to all things (they do, after all, have DNA and are subject to natural selection). Still, it is the very qualities that make organisms unique which need to be accounted for during the whole process. I fear that some of my colleagues forget that, and I am very happy to have a serious field component of my research. Working on a group of organisms like mosses really lets me appreciate the diversity of life in new ways, in areas of forests that are usually trampled upon without thought.
To me, a day like I had in the Adirondacks was just as important as all the stops collecting Funaria. Yes, I'm going to be working on a particular species of moss, but it is still essential to understand the variation within the moss world, as each species has a unique method of living and reproducing. Getting myself locked in to one species would be a shame, so I didn't mind that we didn't collect Funaria at all in the Adirondacks. We didn't really look for it either, we just tried to collect interesting mosses in every NY county we passed on our way to Maltaville, NY at the end of the day.
When we got to the place we were staying, there were two other travelers staying there as well, a pair of men from Denmark, who are traveling all over the eastern US from March until June. Their purpose is to listen to Americans from all walks of life to get a sense of our culture. They're writing about it for their hometown newspaper and hope to get a book out of it. They also have a website, and I'm mentioned in there somewhere...
The next day is a whirlwind tour of three New England states: Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, on our way to Providence, RI. I'm looking forward to meeting up with my brother, who goes to Brown, and Piers is looking forward to collecting in Rhode Island: the only eastern US state missing from his personal collection.
Miles Traveled: 243
Funaria populations: 0 (by design, but plenty of mosses collected!)
Flash forward to April 30, 2008- a day I spent in the southern Adirondack Mountains doing nothing other than collecting as many different types of mosses- (mosses!) as I could find. 2004Matt would have slapped 2008Matt upside the head, "what the hell you wastin your time doin that for?!?" But he'd be wrong. What 2004Matt didn't understand is that you do need to care about the organisms in order to know about evolution. It's a pratical matter, as well: if I'm interested in a certain species, even if it's a model organism worked on almost entirely in the laboratory, I still need to collect specimens. In order to do that, I need to know how to find the species, and when I do collect it, I need to know what information to record about a site. So I need to know a lot about the ecology of the species, common associated other organisms, and a lot about its life cycle just to collect the organism.
So it's not enough to just claim that it doesn't matter what species I work on. While it's true that there are certain principles of evolution and genetics which broadly apply to all things (they do, after all, have DNA and are subject to natural selection). Still, it is the very qualities that make organisms unique which need to be accounted for during the whole process. I fear that some of my colleagues forget that, and I am very happy to have a serious field component of my research. Working on a group of organisms like mosses really lets me appreciate the diversity of life in new ways, in areas of forests that are usually trampled upon without thought.
To me, a day like I had in the Adirondacks was just as important as all the stops collecting Funaria. Yes, I'm going to be working on a particular species of moss, but it is still essential to understand the variation within the moss world, as each species has a unique method of living and reproducing. Getting myself locked in to one species would be a shame, so I didn't mind that we didn't collect Funaria at all in the Adirondacks. We didn't really look for it either, we just tried to collect interesting mosses in every NY county we passed on our way to Maltaville, NY at the end of the day.
When we got to the place we were staying, there were two other travelers staying there as well, a pair of men from Denmark, who are traveling all over the eastern US from March until June. Their purpose is to listen to Americans from all walks of life to get a sense of our culture. They're writing about it for their hometown newspaper and hope to get a book out of it. They also have a website, and I'm mentioned in there somewhere...
The next day is a whirlwind tour of three New England states: Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, on our way to Providence, RI. I'm looking forward to meeting up with my brother, who goes to Brown, and Piers is looking forward to collecting in Rhode Island: the only eastern US state missing from his personal collection.
Miles Traveled: 243
Funaria populations: 0 (by design, but plenty of mosses collected!)
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