In the Collections
In addition to facilitating work by staff scientists, the Arnold Arboretum and its rich resources are utilized by an extensive network of researchers. With more than 15,000 well-documented, living plant specimens representing almost 4,000 taxa, the living collection is ideal for comparative studies of morphology, phylogenetics, physiology, development, ecology, and biodiversity, among other disciplines. In addition to plants, scientists may study other inhabitants of the Arnold Arboretum’s ecosystem including insect, amphibian, and bird communities. Selected projects below highlight the diversity of research projects utilizing the landscape and living collections. Learn more about the Arboretum’s collections policy or request access to the Arboretum for research purposes.
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Hugh McAllister, Ness Botantic Gardens University of Liverpool, studied the Sorbus and Betula trees in the Arboretum in connection with the preparation of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Kew, UK) monographs on these genera. An unexpected discovery was a new hybrid of two distantly related birches, Betula maximowicziana x B. ermanii. |
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Garth Holman of the University of Maine is studying the evolutionary history of the Pine family (Pinaceae), and species-level relationships in true firs (Abies) and hemlocks (Tsuga). The Arnold Arboretum houses more than 100 species of Pinaceae, providing an invaluable living laboratory for collection of fresh tissues and morphological study and provides many characters unavailable from standard museum specimens such phenology, growth habitat, and mature bark. |
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Harvard Forest ecologists Kristina Stinson, David Foster, and Sydne Record are collaborating with Chris Rogers (UMass School of Public Health) to investigate the effect of climate on ragweed and human health. Studying ragweed populations from Boston to the Berkshires (including Bussey Brook Meadow at the Arboretum), the team seeks to determine how geographic variation in plant growth, abundance, and peak flowering time relate to pollen output and allergic potency. |
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Zack Lewis from the Hanken Laboratory at Harvard is investigating lung development in salamanders. He uses the Arboretum’s natural populations of salamanders for studies on the development and evolution of lung loss in the family Plethodontidae (lungless salamanders). |
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Bees are important indicators of the health of an ecosystem. Georgia Shelton, a Harvard Undergraduate (Class of 2014), and Brian Farrell, Professor of Biology at Harvard University, are documenting the bees at the Arboretum. The diversity of bee species found in this urban ecosystem will be compared to a 5 year study in the Boston Harbor Islands National Park. Follow this Bee-search at Georgia’s blog. |
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Woody plants can respond to rising carbon dioxide levels and higher temperatures by modifying their leaves. Using living plants and herbarium specimens, Boston University researchers Abraham Miller-Rushing, Pamela Templer, Richard Primack, and their students found that oaks, maples, and hornbeams maintain their water use efficiency by adjusting the size and density of their stomata, the pores on the bottom surface of the leaves. |
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As part of a large collaboration, Ashley Clingen and Jean-Noel Candau are investigating whether Megastigmus, a genus of chalcid wasp, is actively parasitizing the seeds of Cupressaceae species in North America. This project is designed to keep researchers one step ahead of a possible North American invasion of this insect, to gather information on the phenology of Megastigmus parasitism, and, ultimately, to prevent its further infestation worldwide. |
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Bamboo has many advantages as a construction material: it is a renewable, sustainable resource and has mechanical properties similar to wood, but grows much faster. Lorna Gibson and her research group from MIT are studying the microstructure and mechanical properties of bamboo and developing micromechanical models for its behavior. |
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Guangyou Hao is a post-doctoral fellow in the Holbrook Lab at Harvard University. He is interested in plant ecophysiology with a focus on comparative study in plant xylem water transport and its adaptive significance in coping with environmental stresses, such as drought and freezing temperature. He is currently working on hydraulics of conifers using the Arnold Arboretum collections. |
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Lucy Hutyra is an assistant professor of in the Department of Geography and Environment at Boston University. Her research focuses on terrestrial ecosystems and atmosphere-biosphere exchange of carbon dioxide. Lucy is a leader of the Boston ULTRA-Ex studying Boston’s carbon metabolism across urban-to-rural gradients. |
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David Valbracht is working towards a certificate in botanical art and illustration. Using the wide range of oak species found in the Arboretum, he is preparing an illustrated guide to oaks. In addition, his watercolor paintings inspired by the oaks will be exhibited at the Wellesley College Greenhouses. |
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Boston Metropolitan Area ULTRA-Ex is a NSF-funded project that aims to increase our understanding of how urban “greening” efforts contribute to community ecology and social health. As part of this study, project leader Paige Warren, Michael Strohbach and Rachel Danford of UMass-Amherst are examining bird and arthropod communities in the Arboretum. |
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Jer-Ming Hu is an associate professor at the Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University. He is interested in the phylogenetics and evolutionary developmental biology of the perianth. He is also working on the systematics of Rubus (Rosaceae) and uses the Arboretum’s living collections for phylogenetic and floral morphological studies. |
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In deciduous azaleas, there are 2 genetically distinct clades which separate according to ploidy level. Sally and John Perkins in collaboration with a research team from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, are comparing controlled crosses of tetraploid and diploid clades of deciduous azaleas. The diploid clade accepts pollen from the tetraploid clade and results in well-developed seedpods, but the tetraploid clade rejects the reciprocal cross. |
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Richard Primack of Boston University is surveying the living collection to determine the variation among species in spring leaf out times. The earliest species leaf out in late March and early April and the last species only leaf out in late May and early June. What are the ecological and evolutionary explanations for such large differences among species? Read more in Arnoldia. |
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The impact of climate change on plants has been the focus of research by Richard Primack, students from Boston University, and Peter Del Tredici. Herbarium specimens collected from the living collection in the past and dated photographs can be used to show that plants are now flowering 10 days earlier than they did 100 years ago, and that plants flower earlier in warm years. Read more in Arnoldia. |
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Pamela Templer is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Boston University. As a forest ecologist, she studies the role of plant-microbial interactions in nutrient retention and loss. Her research at the Arnold Arboretum examines the impact of the hemlock woolly adelgid and atmospheric nitrogen deposition on nutrient cycling. She has also used herbarium specimens to examine how past changes in atmospheric chemistry have impacted the physiology of trees. |
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Jun Wen, research scientist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution, is working on the evolution of intercontinental biogeographic disjunctions in the Northern Hemisphere including several species of Prunus at the Arboretum. As a Mercer and Putnam fellow in 1991-1992, she did a series of molecular and morphological studies on eastern Asian/eastern North American disjuncts. |