January 20, 2005

Degree trains next generation of plant scientists

Northwestern and the Chicago Botanic Garden will teach new scientists to apply human reason to problematic environmental changes.

By Megan Fellman

Chocolate, coffee, rice, wheat, corn, eucalyptus, aloe vera, wood, cotton and oxygen. Where would we be without plants? At a time when native plant species are increasingly endangered around the world, so, it seems, is the plant scientist. Not enough botanists or plant conservationists are being trained to address the growing national and international threats to biodiversity and impending global mass extinctions.

In response to this critical shortage, Northwestern and the Chicago Botanic Garden are joining forces to offer the nation’s first master of science degree in plant biology and conservation — a unique interdisciplinary program designed to educate the next generation of plant scientists. This is the first major collaboration between the two institutions.

“This is a wonderful new marriage of intellectual interests, culminating in an important new graduate program that neither institution could offer alone,” said Jon E. Levine, professor of neurobiology and physiology and director of the program in biological sciences. “We are experiencing major environmental changes — loss of habitat and biodiversity, extinction of species, global climactic change — and these shifts are having a major impact on human life and the science of our globe. By teaching new scientists to apply human reason and science to these large and complex problems, we are looking to the future.”

From the Eastern prairie white-fringed orchid of the Midwest to the Aloe rauhii of Madagascar, thousands of the Earth’s plants are in peril. According to a 1997 World Conservation Union report, 34,000 species, or 12.5 percent, are facing extinction. The United States’ flora is the fourth most endangered in the world; 4,669 species, or 29 percent of the country’s plants, are in danger of becoming extinct. Here in Illinois, more than 300 species of native plants are listed as threatened or endangered.

The primary causes of species extinction or endangerment are habitat destruction, commercial exploitation (such as plant collecting), damage caused by non-native plants and animals introduced into an area, and pollution. Direct habitat destruction threatens the most species.

Applications are being accepted for the first class, entering in fall 2005.