{"id":861,"date":"2018-05-09T12:27:52","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T16:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/?p=861"},"modified":"2018-05-09T12:27:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T16:27:52","slug":"undergraduate-research-s-americanus-flowers-fertilization-and-crosses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/undergraduate-research-s-americanus-flowers-fertilization-and-crosses\/","title":{"rendered":"Undergraduate Research: S. americanus flowers, fertilization and crosses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Post by Mairead Willis, Senior Neuroscience and Behavior Major; Mairead was out of town during the poster session. She describes her work this past year here.<\/em><\/p>\n

This year I got the chance to follow in the footsteps of Gregor Mendel. The McLachlan lab is working on a series of experiments with Schoenoplectus americanus<\/em>. and wanted to know if it was possible to cross different individuals, or for them to fertilize themselves. Armed with Google, a greenhouse, a paper that a fellow student found (thanks, Erin!), and lots of help from everyone who works in the lab, I set out on a nine-month journey to make some baby plants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Figure 1. S. americanus flower<\/p><\/div>\n

The first thing I had to do was watch the flowers. I learned that the stigmata emerge before the anthers. I also learned that if the stigmata aren\u2019t pollinated, the spikelet will sometimes extend to give the flower another shot at reproduction; the photo above shows a flower doing just that. Armed with that knowledge, I sheathed each new flower with a pollen bag, tied the bottom with string, and used a paintbrush to apply pollen from some flowers to the stigma of others. Then, I waited.<\/p>\n

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Figure 2. S. americanus seeds (see brown disks at the base of the flower)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the first week of December, just before I was supposed to go home for winter break, eureka (was that a proper use of eureka?)! Fully formed seeds began to drop from the flowers I had pollinated, as well as some I hadn\u2019t. The brown disks at the base of the flower in Figure 2 above are seeds. I left for break, thrilled and wondering how, exactly, one would germinate S. americanus <\/em>seeds.<\/p>\n

When I returned for the spring semester, I tried out one scientific method, one home-gardening technique, and one method proposed by grad student Megan to put the seeds in a state of mock dormancy for six weeks. At last, just before spring break, I was able to plant my seeds with help from Brady, who taught me how to set up a germination trial.<\/p>\n

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Figure 3. Germination! The white arrow points to the tiny green germinated plant.<\/p><\/div>\n

When I returned from break, I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes! You can\u2019t really see them in Figure 3 above, but inside my germination pots were the cutest, sweetest little seedlings I ever did see. Do I anthropomorphize them? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

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Figure 4. Grown-up plant<\/p><\/div>\n

Today was my last day in the lab, and I transferred the plants, still tiny, to grown-up pots in the greenhouse (Figure 4). This has been by far one of the most exciting and rewarding projects I\u2019ve gotten to work on during my time in college, and I can\u2019t thank Jason and Jody enough for letting me do it. To whoever has this job after me: Have fun and treat those plants right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All my best,<\/p>\n

Mair\u00e9ad Willis<\/p>\n

Class of 2018<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Post by Mairead Willis, Senior Neuroscience and Behavior Major; Mairead was out of town during the poster session. She describes her work this past year here. This year I got the chance to follow in the footsteps of Gregor Mendel. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/paleolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}