June Membership Meeting – Scholarship Presentations and Keying Workshop

The June 2024 general membership meeting will feature presentations by three Cal Poly Master’s students. These students received McLeod Scholarships from the CNPS-SLO Chapter to support their ongoing research on California native plants.

Sam Balthazard is studying sudden oak death as a driver of ecological change via its impact on California’s coastal forest canopies and understory plant communities. Sam uses long-term monitoring data to investigate overstory and understory community shifts to understand how sudden oak death is modifying California forests. This work will be used to better prioritize management strategies.

Magdalene Lo is exploring the role of plant pigments in adaptation to soil and drought. She is using focal species Linanthus parviflorus, from High School Hill in San Luis Obispo, which exists in two petal color morphs: pink and white. Magdalene is testing whether pink pigments provide fitness advantages in harsh serpentine soil and drier climate conditions relative to unpigmented plants. Her work will inform our understanding of the role of trait variation in allowing plants to persist across variable soils and drought conditions in California, a topic of high relevance to predicting and managing populations under climate change.

Avin Niknafs is studying a rare species and its close relative, Erythranthe serpenticola and Erythranthe guttata, which co-occur at Laguna Lake in San Luis Obispo. Interestingly, the two species are completely interfertile in the greenhouse and overlap in flowering time in the field, meaning gene flow is possible. Avin seeks to test whether these two species are locally adapted to their respective micro-environments at Laguna Lake (rock outcrop vs. perennial serpentine seep). Her work will contribute to our understanding of how species differences are maintained by natural selection in the face of ongoing gene flow.

As a bonus at 6pm before the regular membership meeting, there will be a free mini-keying workshop. Mindy Trask and Melinda Elster will guide us through the key characteristics to identify rushes with some practice rushes from the SLO area. Bring a 10x hand lens, narrow pointed dissection tool, headlamp and Keil’s Vascular Plants of San Luis Obispo County. Desktop seating is limited so please arrive a few minutes early. Copies of the key to Juncaceae will be provided if you don’t yet have the flora.

Photo: Avin Niknafs studying Erythranthe species at Laguna Lake.