Author Archives: Jürgen

Fossilized leaf waxes reveal the effects of ancient global warming on plants

It’s All About the Plants
Tuesday, 1 October 2013—10:00–12:00
Goodman Building Lecture Theatre

by
Dr Cesca (Francesca) McInerney, ARC Future Fellow
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide

Dr. McInerney’s research focuses on reading isotopic signatures from the rock record to understand the influence of past climate changes on ancient ecosystems. In particular, she is interested in how plant communities and terrestrial biogeochemical cycles reacted to periods of global warming in the geologic past as a potential analogue to future climate change impacts.

Specifically, she analyzes the stable isotopic composition of fossilized leaf waxes to reconstruct past climates and ecosystems. These leaf waxes are essentially molecular fossils that retain information for millions of years about the plants that made them and the environments they lived in. In order to interpret these ancient chemical signatures, McInerney also studies modern plants and soils as a means of calibrating the isotopic tools she applies to the geologic record.

All Herbarium staff, honoraries, volunteers and students are welcome.

Morning tea provided

New publications June 2013

Caloplaca_Kantvilas & Kondratyuk_Fig2 small

Caloplaca piscatorica

On 27 June 2013, the online edition of the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens published two new taxonomic papers, describing new species of lichens for Australia:

G. Kantvilas & S.Y. Kondratyuk: New species of Caloplaca (lichenised Ascomycota: Teloschistaceae) from Kangaroo Island. PDF (1 MB).
P.M. McCarthy & G. Kantvilas: Two new species of Sarcogyne (lichenised Ascomycota: Acarosporaceae) from central and southern Australia. PDF (808 KB).

Please visit flora.sa.gov.au/jabg to access all available issues of the Journal.

Four updated treatments of plant families of the 5th edition of Flora of South Australia were released on 20 June 2013:

D.A. Cooke: Centrolepidaceae (version 2). PDF (1.28 MB).
J.P. Jessop & J.G. Conran: Commelinaceae (version 2). PDF (677 KB).
N.G. Walsh & J. Kellermann: Papaveraceae (version 2). PDF (645 KB).
C.J. Brodie: Passifloraceae (version 2). PDF (1.19 MB).

These Flora chapters feature updated text, and new photographs and illustrations. Previous version of these chapters are still available on our Superseded Flora treatments page. All available chapters of the new Flora, as well as the Introduction, Glossary and Key to plant families, can be accessed on flora.sa.gov.au/ed5.

Journal switch to e-publication

The Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens is one of five plant taxonomic periodicals published by Australian herbaria and botanic gardens. It is published since 1976 in print form. Since 2011 all back issues of the Journal are available online.

On 1 May 2013 the Journal started electronic publication of articles. This means that papers are available online in PDF format soon after they are reviewed, edited and type-set. Hardcopy is still produced at the end of a year, collating all articles produced between January and December.

Please visit flora.sa.gov.au/jabg to download the first papers of Vol. 26, 2013. Two articles describing new species of lichen for southern Australia.

For authors this will have the advantage of a shorter time between submission of a manuscripts and final publication of the paper. Readers will be able to access papers instantly and free of charge from the Journal’s web-page.

Please contact the Editor for more information.

State Herbarium Open Day (2013)

The State Herbarium of South Australia will be open to the public on 4 and 5 May 2013 during Open House Adelaide as part of the About Time: South Australia’s History Festival.

The heritage-listed 1909 Tram Barn A was once part of a complex housing the Adelaide tram fleet. Now the State Herbarium, it houses over one million plant specimens instead. See some of the first plants collected in the State on Matthew Flinders’ voyage and learn how all these dried specimens are critical to the effective preservation of living plants.

Read more about Tram Barn A and the over one million plant specimens in booklets published by State Herbarium staff.

Guided walking tours will be available on both 4 and 5 May, 2013 at 11am and 1pm.

Bookings are essential.