Beautiful Bridgeport

Today Lauren and I took a field trip (much needed) from the lab. One of the best parts about research (and I keep finding good things) is that when you do research you are part of a community. Lauren and I have been corresponding with botany contacts from across the United States about the best techniques to use for plant anatomy microscopy. (The word 'microscopy' is very hard to pronounce, I have found) (Do not attempt it for the first time when you are in polite company).

As a result, an extremely nice researcher at Stony Brook University in New York offered to do a day long training session with us. The techniques of plant anatomy are gradually being replaced by an emphasis on molecular biology - people seem to believe nowadays that the molecular level is somehow more profound and interesting than the anatomical or morphological level. So it was hard to find people who could properly train us in the art (and it is an art) of plant microscopy.

We began the day at 7am, and drove over to the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson ferry. The ferry ride was funny because we had brought some plant material with us. The plant material (although well contained and not flowering) is an invasive weed in the Polygonum genus. So Lauren and I kept pulling botanical, early morning jokes about transporting invasive weeds across state borders. We also took an inordinate number of polygonum photographs. When you are a researcher, you begin to develop this whole other sense of humor solely related to your research subject. It is difficult to explain or justify to outsiders.

The lab we worked with was incredibly patient, kind and understanding. Even though Lauren and I had never really worked with microscopes before (I have a bit of experience with a Scanning Electron Microscope, but that's it) - the PHD student and the professor were glad to help us section and stain to our heart's content. They even showed us a technique involving lots of fresh carrot which helps to cut the leaf sections in tiny slivers. The slivers were unimagineably small - much finer than a single hair. We needed them to be that small because we are trying to look at the single palisade layer of the plant matter - meaning that the ideal section is only a single cell layer thick. It was especially neat to look at the stomates on the underside of the leaf. Stomates are the little respiratory holes of plants, and they open and close depending on the phsiological needs of the plant (ie the humidity, heat, sunlight and specific plant characteristics). The plant needs to intake oxygen through the stomates in order to photosythesize (which is what plants do best!) Somates are positioned in between two gaurd cells which open and close in response to complex signals and osmotic pathways. Pretty cool. Plus, pictures of stomates (see below) are really cool. They look like little mouths.



The above picture is from the research of one Laura Brezinsky at the University of Hawaii. The stomata is the center of the mouth - and the two "lips" are the gaurd cells around it.

Anyways, it is all pretty exciting - if we look at these anatomical traits in conjunction with the plasticity research we are doing, we will be the first to do so. However, the work required in addition to taking photosynthesis data and plant harvesting will be overwhelming. Forgot happy, sunny afternoons spent gorging onself in the nearest strawberry patch.