UWSP professor and student researchers identify two new Bolivian plant species
Stevens Point – Two recent graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point made the most of their undergraduate research opportunities to help discover two new plant species, and now their recent results will be published in a national journal.
Eddie Shea of Omro and Tanya Wayda of Stevens Point, both of whom graduated in May, join Emmet Judziewicz, associate professor of biology and forestry, as co-authors of “Two new Bolivian species of Aulonemia (Poaceae: Bambusoideae: Bambuseae),” to be published this fall in “The Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.”
“I am so impressed by both of these young researchers and am honored to have them share in this finding with the scientific community,” said Judziewicz. Both Tanya and Eddie have gained immeasurable experience in the scientific method and can put this research on their resumes for the rest of their lives.”
Both species, Aulonemia austroviscosa and A. bromoides, were collected in the Madidi National Park in the upper Amazon River basin of Bolivia. According to Judziewicz, tunda bamboos reach their greatest diversity in cloud forests of Andean South America.
“The discovery of these two new bamboo species is likely to be followed by more discoveries, with up to 60 tunda bamboo species rather than just over 30 as previously thought by plant biologists,” said Judziewicz. “I am convinced that many more species await discovery in previously remote and inaccessible cloud forests in Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.”
Shea graduated with a triple major in wildlife ecology, biology and natural resource policy, with a minor in natural science. He is working at Glacier National Park on a research project focusing on Clark’s nutcracker and its co-evolved relationship with whitebark pine. Shea plans to attend graduate school within the next year.
Wayda, originally from Merrill, graduated with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. She plans to pursue a master’s degree in ecology. As an undergraduate, she studied arctic ecology and peregrine falcons in Greenland.
Judziewicz, an expert in the flora of the Midwest and the islands of the Great Lakes, works with international biology colleagues, UWSP students and artists describing new plant species, their disappearing habitats, and interactions between bamboos and birds, insects and even larger mammals such as bears. Judziewicz came to UWSP in 2001 and holds a bachelor’s degree from UW-Parkside and a master’s and doctorate from UW-Madison.
In addition to his work in the classroom, Judziewicz, along with UWSP biologist Virginia Freire, are curators of UWSP’s Robert W. Freckmann Herbarium. More information about the herbarium is on the Web at http://wisplants.uwsp.edu.
