Title: Tropical Plant Systematics in Panama
Description: Tropical Plant Systematics in Panama in Plant Biology at Ohio University
Tropical Plant Systematics in Panama (H2)
Sunday, Nov. 29, to Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009
Tropical Plant Systematics (PBIO 369/569)
Instructor information: Harvey Ballard
Prerequisites: "Plant Systematics & Ohio Flora" (PBIO 309/509); fall quarter prep course, "Special
Topics" (PBIO 313/693)
Fall quarter preparation: PBIO 313/693 (2 credits), plus
one “Bobcats Abroad” session, are mandatory prior to the
field course. This preparation will be part of every
student’s fall quarter course load. The two-credit course
will meet every week, and will involve a lecture review of
vascular plant orders and families from PBIO 309/509 plus
additional major groups we will encounter in the Tropics;
discussion of assigned readings on Central American plant
diversity and tropical ecology; and travel-related workshops on passport info, travel logistics,
immunizations/medications, Spanish conversational language, first aid, and packing. The academic
content of the fall prep course will culminate in an exam on plant systematic and plant diversity topics.
The region: The "base camp" for the first two weeks of the intersession field course will be the "Institute
of Tropical Ecology and Conservation" (ITEC) field station on Isla Colón, situated on the dunes at the
northwest end of Isla Colón in the bay of Bocas del Toro in the province of that name. The island has
extensive lowland moist to wet evergreen forest tracts, narrow coastal dunes and mangrove swamps,
and some super-diverse roadside areas, all in the immediate area of the station and within a 5-30
minute easy walk. The station itself is ca. 45 minutes' taxi or bus ride from the only village, "Bocas", at
the eastern end of the island. The last 3 days of the in-country time will be a return to Panama City,
using the Hotel Benidorm as our "base camp". We will then make a long day trip to the Soberania
National Park with its moist lower-elevation forest next to the canal zone, and a second long day trip to
the very different mid-elevation cloud forest at Cerro Campaná National Park, both within an hour's
drive of the city. At those two reserves we will study additional plant families and genera we haven't
encountered on Isla Colón, to expose you to diverse tropical ecological zones and their divergent floras,
as well as noting their different forest structure and diversity patterns.
Panamanian checklists indicate that the two provinces combined
embrace over 4,000 vascular plant species in 1,400 genera of 180
families--nearly twice the number of species found in Ohio! This
particular region, comprising the northwestern third of Panama fully
contiguous with the southeastern Costa Rican border, encompasses an
elevational gradient from sea level to over 3,000 meters and is
exceedingly rich and broadly representative of tropical lowland and
montane forest communities across Central America and northern
South America. The areas around ITEC station and near Panama City
together provide an ideal opportunity to study vascular plant diversity
in one of the most diverse regions of the Neotropics, and one which
spans one of the largest elevational gradients and huge semicontiguous tracts of tropical forest remaining in Central America.
Winter Intersession field course: This 2.5 week specialized course is an intensive examination of ca. 110
important tropical vascular plant families, within a modern phylogenetic context (ca. 65% family overlap
with those in Ohio, building on knowledge and experience learned in PBIO 309/509). Twenty-four plant
families that are particularly diverse in genera and species have been selected to receive further scrutiny
at the generic and even the species level, with students learning to key and identify some of the most
commonly encountered genera and some economically or ethnobotanically important species in those
families. Advanced undergraduate and graduate natural science students who have taken the "Plant
Systematics and Ohio Flora" course (PBIO 309/509) are eligible; because this is a very advanced course
demanding a high initial level of floristic expertise, there will be no exceptions to this prerequisite. You
must have taken the OU course prior to fall quarter or have passed an equivalent mid- to high-level
course at another university. The mandatory fall quarter two-credit course (PBIO 313/693), with its
associated travel workshops, provides an essential overview of the region and its plant life, as well as
critical coverage of travel-related and academic issues. The total amount of minimum daily contact
hours in lecture/lab equals ca. 12 eight-hour days of instruction, excluding evening reviews, exam days
and travel. I will also give you a free day (either Saturday or Sunday, however democracy prevails in the
group) for each of the two weeks on Isla Colón. [NOTE: if you won't have taken PBIO 309/509 by this fall
quarter, or are more interested in a heavily ecological field course, you should keep in mind that Drs.
Glenn Matlack and Christine Fahl expect to offer a "Tropical Plant Ecology" program next fall and winter
intersession (2010) at this same place.]
I may not need to say this, but I will: this will NOT be a vacation; this will be one of the most demanding
and intensive courses you will ever undertake, if not the most. But I plan to make it also one of the most
unforgettable experiences you will have at OU, too. The striking beauty of the locales, the abundant
animal life and the charming "sophisticated camp for
adults" field station play a big role in this, but the
diversity of the flora will really. We will, however, have
a great deal of fun doing the course together.
The field course will emphasize easily identifiable (commonly vegetative) traits of vascular plant families
where possible. Examination of common genera and economically or ethnobotanically important
species will usually utilize more technical characters of flower and fruit. No manual exists for the families
and genera of the region or of Panama, but I am currently drafting keys from various sources to serve
us; keys for half of the 180 northern Panama families have been completed, and some keys to genera in
many families are also finished. In the field, we will capture images with high-resolution digital cameras
(with and without macro lenses) to supplement the newly drafted and field-tested keys. The ITEC field
station has a pretty good plant-related library, but we will also bring down other resources of particular
value to us, including electronic literature. Each of us will also bring down a plant press in our luggage,
and we'll leave those in a crate for the next time the field course is offered (the station has minimal
collecting equipment and no real cabinet but does have a functional plant dryer). A group project during
the 2-week field station period will consist of a systematic vascular plant "florula" at a couple of
particularly diverse forest tracts not far from the station and visits to a number of other areas on the
island. We will collect, process, name and label several hundred plant specimens, a few family-level
exemplars staying with the embryonic ITEC field station herbarium and the rest going to the Smithsonian
Institution's Bocas branch station to be sent on to Panama City's huge herbarium. We will be entering
specimen information nightly into the BRAHMS "Panama Flora" database to generate labels, and will
establish image links with those records regularly. The station has a couple of laptops, but some of us
will bring our own to use. (Internet is currently NOT readily available at the station, by the way; and as of
last winter intersession, electricity was only accessible during 6-10pm each evening, so plan
accordingly.) The final database and image collection will be brought back with us to Ohio and
immediately made available on the internet from our server for
public use, as an invaluable resource for biologists and students
visiting that region.
Field course itinerary
Sunday, Nov. 29—participants fly independently to Panama City;
lodge at Hotel Benidorm
Monday, Nov. 30—group flight to town of Bocas del Toro on Isla
Colón, van ride to ITEC field station
Tuesday, Dec. 1, to Sunday, Dec. 13—field course proceeds at ITEC
field station and Isla Colón
Monday, Dec. 14—fly to Panama City
Tuesday, Dec. 15, to Wednesday, Dec. 16—forest reserve
excursions; late afternoon visit to market for souvenirs
Thursday, Dec. 17—independent return flights to U.S.
Course content: We will examine distinguishing traits, ordinal and family relationships, and taxonomic
diversity of ca. 110 vascular plant families in a modern phylogenetic context during brief lectures prior
to field trips in the area, and will study representatives of these during the field excursions and in lab
during evening reviews upon our return each day. We will typically study 9-10 families every day. For 2
of the most generically diverse families that day, we will devote additional time to study 5 or more of
the most common and most diverse genera in each family, as well as a handful of economically or
ethnobotanically significant species. Thus, over the course of the field course, students will become
proficient in sight identification of most of the tropical vascular plant families in Central and northern
South America (all of the diverse ones with more than 3 genera) and will learn ca. 120 common genera
and a few species in the most diverse families. We will briefly discuss ecological and evolutionary issues
throughout the course as examples arise, but the course is heavily focused on plant diversity and
identification. During the progress of the “florula” project of a specific site on the island, students will
also gain experience in field collection techniques; production of quality herbarium collections; use of
published tropical plant floras, monographic treatments and available websites; data entry and
extraction of information from a biological collections database; and valuable experience in all aspects
of tropical plant diversity studies generally.
Activities: Monday through Friday of weeks 1 and 2, and most of the
three days during the mountain cloud forest excursion, are devoted to
course activities (full days!!). The group will vote on one day off each
of the two weeks on Isla Colón, and the preceding afternoon will
automatically be designated exam time. The days off are available for
everybody to pursue whatever recreational activities they wish (within
a regimented "buddy" system). Generally, breakfast is 7:30-8:00am;
lunch at 12-12:30pm; and supper at 6-6:30pm. During weekdays we
will have lectures on plant families, common genera and economically
or ethnobotanically significant species at 8-9am; field lab at 9am12noon; second lecture on plants 1-2:00pm; field lab at 2-5:00pm; free
time before supper at 5-6:00pm; specimen preparation and data entry
after supper at 7-8:00pm; and plant review at 8-9:00pm. Students
should anticipate 12 full days of non-stop course-related activities and constant review! I have built in
snorkel gear rental and bootie purchase [that’s SNORKEL FOOTWEAR, people] in the "out of pocket"
expenses for everybody, so that folks can take an hour or two every couple of days in the afternoons
(when we will end a little early before supper) to snorkel the mangrove and reef areas near the station,
for fun. During the last 5 days of our time on Isla Colón, professional tree climber Joe Maher will arrive
at the station and take small groups of 2-3 students up into the canopies of several different tree
species, for us to make intensive studies and comparisons of different epiphyte floras in emergent
canopy trees. This will also give you a very different perspective on plant diversity in the upper reaches
of the tropical forest canopy.
The field exams will be held in mid-afternoon. The first exam will cover lowland vascular plant families
exclusively. The second exam will consist of two parts; the first 66% will represent lowland vascular plant
families in the field station area. The second part on the end of the second excursion near Panama City,
will comprise the remaining 34% and will focus on new mid- to higher-elevation plant families. The two
exams will count up to 100 points for undergrads and 125 points for grads.
Throughout our time at the ITEC field station we will revisit one area of roughly 1/8 mile by 1/8 mile
repeatedly (probably at least every other day, if not daily) near the field station, to pursue an intensive
"florula", or systematic survey of vascular plants. As we learn new plant families, genera and common
species, I anticipate we may collect as many as 500-800 distinct species and up to 1,500 plant specimens
(with duplicates of most species) over the two-week period. We will also visit other areas on the island
to study and collect plants, but we'll target much of our effort on the "florula" site. (No collecting will be
permitted during our Panama City area excursions, but we will study the plants intensively in the field.)
This group “florula” project will involve students working in small groups during each visit to collect
(ideally reproductive) and tag specimens of every distinct taxon found,
press specimens in the field, record ecological and frequency
information in notebooks, acquire high-resolution digital images and
latitude-longitude coordinates with a hand-held Global Positioning
System. Duplicates will be collected, where possible, for the National
Herbarium in Panama City and the Missouri Botanical Garden (for
distribution to family specialists). At the end of each field trip on a given
day, students will enter specimen data from field notebooks into a
BRAHMS “Panama Flora” database created by Dr. Ballard for the ITEC
field station herbarium, and will download and link digital images to
those records. Specimen labels will be generated from within the
database. The database and images will be constantly available for
searching and for use in review by the students from the ITEC station
computers, and will be instantly publicly available on the internet as well. As batches of specimens are
completely dried, some evening time will also be spent by students in mounting specimens on
herbarium specimen sheets with labels, for incorporation of specimens into the herbarium. This
constitutes an important service learning activity to assist measurably in expanding the field station's
meager plant collection. No regional herbarium exists except for that of the field station, and the several
hundred anticipated specimens will be an invaluable addition for research purposes and also future field
courses. Undergraduates will be responsible for collecting 50 plant specimens, identifying all of them to
family, and preparing them for the herbarium, for 50 points; and entering data and images into the
database, for an additional 50 points. Grads will be responsible for the same things, but with 75 plants
and identifications to genus level, for 75 plus 75 points. The florula project and database component
together comprise the "final project" in lieu of a final exam. Review of plant families, genera and
common species will be enhanced and reinforced by student engagement in the florula project and in
preparing specimens to greatly augment the field station herbarium. In addition, the numerous new
plant specimens, and the publicly searchable database with images, will provide valuable internet
products to the ITEC field station staff and researchers around the world. Total points possible in the
course for undergrads is 300 and for grads is 400.
Program Costs—tentative (subject to minor change):
Out of pocket (worst case)*
Airfare $800
Passport $110
Tourist visa $5
Meals off-site and incidentals $240
Vaccinations & chloroquine tablets $230
Hand lens $10
Snorkel gear rental $95
Total student costs: Undergrad/Grad
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Tuition $1,132/$1,548
Tech fee $8/$28
Program fee** $1,100/$1,100
Education Abroad admin fee $150/$150
Out of pocket $1,490/$1,490
Total $3,880/$4,316
*subject to substantial modification based on personal situation
**based on 3 grads and 7 undergrads
Last modified by H. Ballard on 2 March 2009.