Post by account_disabled on Mar 4, 2024 23:56:42 GMT -5
This South American wildflower was thought to be extinct, to the point that its official scientific name is Gasteranthus extinctus. But now, scientists are reporting the first confirmed sightings in years. Not only does this mean that this little flower did it, but that an important concept in conservation biology called Sentinel extinction needs to be re-examined.
Scientific names are chosen for many reasons: they may honor an important person or hint at what an organism looks like or where it is from. For a tropical wildflower first described by scientists in , the scientific name " extintus " was a cautionary tale. The orange wildflower had been found years earlier in an Ecuadorian forest that had since been largely destroyed; The scientists who named it suspected that by the time it was named, it was already extinct . But in a new paper in PhytoKeys , researchers report the first confirmed sightings of Gasteranthus extinctus in years.
Gasteranthus extinctus"Gasteranthus Extinctus received its striking name in light of extensive deforestation in western Ecuador," says Dawson White, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum in C Level Executive List Chicago and co-senior author of the paper. "But if you claim that something is gone, then no one is going to go out and look for it anymore. "There are still many important species that are still out there, although in general, we are in this era of extinction." »
The rediscovered plant is a small forest floor dweller with flamboyant neon orange flowers. "The genus name, Gasteranthus , is Greek for 'belly flower.' Its flowers have a large pouch at the bottom with a small opening at the top where pollinators can enter and exit,” says White.
Gasteranthus extinctus is found in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, where the land flattens into a plane that was once covered by a cloud forest. The region, called Sentinel Ridge, is known among biologists for being home to a unique set of plants that disappeared when their forests were almost completely destroyed in the s. The late biologist EO Wilson even named the organisms' phenomenon which become instantly extinct when their small habitat is destroyed as “Sentinelan extinction”.
Gasteranthus extinctusCentinela's story was also an alarm to draw attention to the fact that more than % of the forests in the western half of Ecuador have been logged and converted to farmland. What remains is a fine mosaic of tiny islands of forest within a sea of bananas and a handful of other crops.
“Centinela is a mythical place for tropical botanists,” says Pitman. "But because it was described by the most important people in the field, no one double-checked the science. "No one came back to confirm that the forest was gone and those things were extinct."
But around the time Gasteranthus extinctus was first described in , scientists were already showing that some victims of the Centinelan extinction were not actually extinct. Since , some scientists have organized expeditions in search of Gasteranthus extinctus yet, but they were unsuccessful. But when White and Pitman received funding from the Field Museum Women's Board to visit Centinela Ridge, the team had the opportunity to see for themselves.
Search for Gasteranthus Extinctus
Starting in the summer of , they began reviewing satellite images trying to identify primary rainforest that was still intact (which was difficult, White recalls, because most images of the region were obscured by clouds). They found some contenders and assembled a team of ten botanists from six different institutions in Ecuador, the United States and France, including Juan Guevara, Thomas Couvreur, Nicolás Zapata, Xavier Cornejo and Gonzalo Rivas. In November they arrived in Centinela.
Gasteranthus extinctus“It was the first time I had planned an expedition where we weren't even sure we were going into a forest,” Pitman says. "But as soon as we reached the ground, we found remnants of intact cloud forest, and we detected Gasteranthus extinctus on the first day, within the first two hours of searching. We didn't have a photo to compare it to, just pictures of dried herbarium specimens, a line drawing, and a written description, but we were pretty sure we'd found it based on its small spiky hairs and showy "pot-bellied" flowers.
Pitman remembers mixed emotions when the team found the flower. "We were so excited, but really hesitant in our enthusiasm, we thought, 'Was it really that easy?'" he says. "We knew we needed to consult with a specialist."
The researchers took photos and collected some fallen flowers, not wanting to damage the plants if they were the only ones left on Earth. They sent the photos to taxonomy expert John Clark, who confirmed that yes, the flowers were the not-so-extinct Gasteranthus extinctus . Fortunately, the team found many more individuals while visiting other forest fragments, and they collected museum specimens to verify the discovery and leave for DNA analysis. The team was also able to validate some unidentified photos posted on the community science app iNaturalist as well as G. extinctus .
Scientific names are chosen for many reasons: they may honor an important person or hint at what an organism looks like or where it is from. For a tropical wildflower first described by scientists in , the scientific name " extintus " was a cautionary tale. The orange wildflower had been found years earlier in an Ecuadorian forest that had since been largely destroyed; The scientists who named it suspected that by the time it was named, it was already extinct . But in a new paper in PhytoKeys , researchers report the first confirmed sightings of Gasteranthus extinctus in years.
Gasteranthus extinctus"Gasteranthus Extinctus received its striking name in light of extensive deforestation in western Ecuador," says Dawson White, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum in C Level Executive List Chicago and co-senior author of the paper. "But if you claim that something is gone, then no one is going to go out and look for it anymore. "There are still many important species that are still out there, although in general, we are in this era of extinction." »
The rediscovered plant is a small forest floor dweller with flamboyant neon orange flowers. "The genus name, Gasteranthus , is Greek for 'belly flower.' Its flowers have a large pouch at the bottom with a small opening at the top where pollinators can enter and exit,” says White.
Gasteranthus extinctus is found in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, where the land flattens into a plane that was once covered by a cloud forest. The region, called Sentinel Ridge, is known among biologists for being home to a unique set of plants that disappeared when their forests were almost completely destroyed in the s. The late biologist EO Wilson even named the organisms' phenomenon which become instantly extinct when their small habitat is destroyed as “Sentinelan extinction”.
Gasteranthus extinctusCentinela's story was also an alarm to draw attention to the fact that more than % of the forests in the western half of Ecuador have been logged and converted to farmland. What remains is a fine mosaic of tiny islands of forest within a sea of bananas and a handful of other crops.
“Centinela is a mythical place for tropical botanists,” says Pitman. "But because it was described by the most important people in the field, no one double-checked the science. "No one came back to confirm that the forest was gone and those things were extinct."
But around the time Gasteranthus extinctus was first described in , scientists were already showing that some victims of the Centinelan extinction were not actually extinct. Since , some scientists have organized expeditions in search of Gasteranthus extinctus yet, but they were unsuccessful. But when White and Pitman received funding from the Field Museum Women's Board to visit Centinela Ridge, the team had the opportunity to see for themselves.
Search for Gasteranthus Extinctus
Starting in the summer of , they began reviewing satellite images trying to identify primary rainforest that was still intact (which was difficult, White recalls, because most images of the region were obscured by clouds). They found some contenders and assembled a team of ten botanists from six different institutions in Ecuador, the United States and France, including Juan Guevara, Thomas Couvreur, Nicolás Zapata, Xavier Cornejo and Gonzalo Rivas. In November they arrived in Centinela.
Gasteranthus extinctus“It was the first time I had planned an expedition where we weren't even sure we were going into a forest,” Pitman says. "But as soon as we reached the ground, we found remnants of intact cloud forest, and we detected Gasteranthus extinctus on the first day, within the first two hours of searching. We didn't have a photo to compare it to, just pictures of dried herbarium specimens, a line drawing, and a written description, but we were pretty sure we'd found it based on its small spiky hairs and showy "pot-bellied" flowers.
Pitman remembers mixed emotions when the team found the flower. "We were so excited, but really hesitant in our enthusiasm, we thought, 'Was it really that easy?'" he says. "We knew we needed to consult with a specialist."
The researchers took photos and collected some fallen flowers, not wanting to damage the plants if they were the only ones left on Earth. They sent the photos to taxonomy expert John Clark, who confirmed that yes, the flowers were the not-so-extinct Gasteranthus extinctus . Fortunately, the team found many more individuals while visiting other forest fragments, and they collected museum specimens to verify the discovery and leave for DNA analysis. The team was also able to validate some unidentified photos posted on the community science app iNaturalist as well as G. extinctus .