Fungus Eating Flowers: Orchids, Climate Change, and the Nature of Evolution
By: Christian Elliott A shorter version of this story ran in Sierra Magazine on December 4, 2022. Dennis Whigham closes the car door, straightens his blue baseball cap and squints into the woodland before him. A maze of planks crisscrosses a forest floor covered with cables and hoses. Little yellow flags wave in the breeze and lights on white metal boxes tied to trees blink on and off. Motors hum as little robot lids open and close, taking methane measurements. PVC pipes support wide nets of leaves above the ground. He smiles. “Now all I have to do is figure out where the hell we put the seed packets,” he says, stroking his white beard. This is the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s high-tech experimental forest in coastal Maryland. Twice a year, scientists flood it with 80,000 gallons of saltwater to study the effects of hurricanes and sea level rise on forests. It’s a massive, expensive undertaking called TEMPEST. But Whigham’s goal here is different. He, like many other Smithsonian scientists, has hitched a ride on TEMPEST’s infrastructure – International Space Station-style – to do his own experiment. He wants to know how sea level rise will affect Maryland’s native orchids. He’s arrived with his longtime colleague Melissa McCormick to locate and dig up orchid seeds they planted throughout the forest a year ago to see if any have sprouted. It’s not an easy task, but two heads are better than one. As she walks carefully through the dead leaves, trying not to step on hoses, McCormick points out a small green leaf, speckled with purple. “Tipularia!” she says triumphantly, bending […]
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