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Carnegie Museum of Natural History

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

Blogs about the Anthropocene

Scientists use fossils and other traces to understand how the planet changed over time. In the past these changes were caused by forces like volcanic eruptions and shifts in oceans currents. Now there’s a new force of nature shaping the planet: humans. The effects on air, land, and water are significant enough that scientists propose we are a new geological time – the Anthropocene – or age of Humans.

These blogs are about the many facets of human impact on the Earth, documenting this new age.

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Finding Resilience Through Plant Love

Feeling a little extra thankful for spring blooms? Taking extra care of your house plants? Urge to garden a little stronger than usual? People in Pittsburgh and across the US are turning to plants to find solace and a connection to nature this spring of COVID-19. Of course, people have always been drawn to plants, but this spring is different. If you’re not able to garden or are looking for some plant-y inspiration, look no further than PlantLoveStories.com. This is a project started in 2018 by a group of young women conservation scientists–including Dr. Sara Kuebbing, a professor at Pitt and collaborator with CMNH’s Mason Heberling, and me, a science communication fellow in the CMNH Anthropocene Section. At the site you’ll find first-hand stories about how plants have shaped people’s lives along with a sincere invitation for you to share a plant-based story of your own.

logo for Plant Love Stories
The Plant Love Stories logo designed by the author.

In the museum’s Anthropocene Section we believe that storytelling, emotions, and personal connections are keys to connecting with the public, communicating science, and empowering people to act. Plant Love Stories is a great example of these principles. Plant Love Stories was founded on the idea that plants tend to blend into the background and the public pays less attention to them than animals. We thought the public sharing of personal plant connections might lead, down the road, to greater awareness and funding for plant conservation.

The Plant Love Stories website is a blog, a collection of stories submitted by the public about the role of plants in shaping our lives, relationships, and, in a recent post involving swamp milkweed, resilience during the pandemic.

Plant Love Stories in the CMNH Herbarium: A swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) specimen from the CMNH Herbarium collected in Allegheny County in 1882.

A number of Plant Love Stories have western PA roots (pun intended). We have a few stories written by Dr. Kuebbing’s Pitt students, including “Learning to Look Up” by Swapna Subramanian and “Fidel and the Hopeless, No-Good, Super Sad Raspberry Bush” by Fidel Anderson. I have posted two Plant Love Stories linked to Indiana County, where I grew up: one I wrote about how I did not break my brother’s arm (really, it wasn’t my fault), and one my aunt wrote about her grandmother, my great-grandmother, teaching her how to cook pokeweed. We also have a human love story from Butler County featuring flowering maple trees.

Plant Love Stories at the CMNH Herbarium: A sugar maple (Acer saccharum) specimen from the CMNH Herbarium collected in Butler County in 1925.

Whether you’re planting your biggest ever vegetable garden, tending a single tomato plant, or reading accounts posted on Plant Love Stories, try some plant love to help you get through this difficult time.

Bonnie McGill is a science communication fellow in the CMNH Anthropocene Section. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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Garden for the Birds (or bees, or butterflies, or creepy crawlies, or you get the picture)…

detail photo of blue and pink flowers

“What do I plant?” you may be wondering as spring starts to set in. Maybe you are a master gardener, or maybe you are a novice trying to fill the time during quarantine. Nevertheless, putting plants in the ground is on your mind. What if I told you that choosing native plants over non-native ornamentals does more than create a beautiful landscape – it creates habitat for native wildlife, connects our backyards to bigger natural landscapes, and can help mitigate negative impacts of environmental change.

photo of cedar waxwing on a serviceberry branch with a berry in its mouth

Native plants are the plants that occur naturally in the area, and they have evolved with the local environmental conditions and other plants and wildlife that occur in the area. Because of this, native plants often provide the necessary shelter and food needed for local wildlife while requiring little to no fertilizers, pesticides, or water after they are established. Having more native plants in your backyard increases wildlife habitat, reduces air pollution (no mowing required!), decreases erosion (choose plants with deep root systems over non-native grassy lawns), reduces chemicals and excess water use (easy maintenance!), and adds natural beauty to your very own backyard or patio!

Imagine a world where our backyards, patios, and shared spaces are full of native plants – creating a completely connected world full of beautiful plants and providing food and shelter for wildlife. Our landscapes don’t have to be “Developed” OR “Wild”. Our landscapes can be a mosaic of varying levels and sizes of native habitats and local ecosystems – but always with some habitat, connecting one place to the next.

If you want to know more about the benefits of native plants, the sites below are a good place to start.

Benefits of Native Plants for Birds and People

Where I found my inspiration to plant native 

What do I plant? 

Heather Hulton VanTassel, PhD is the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Assistant Director of Science and Research. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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Air Quality and Urban Gardening

close up photo of hand full of soil

Transforming my ultra-tiny backyard into a garden has been a kind of mental, physical, and spiritual therapy for me during this COVID-19 pandemic. It’s work, even at this scale. But is it healthy? I’m new to Pittsburgh, and unlike my past community gardening experiences at places with better air quality and soil ratings, I now wonder if it’s safe to eat the plants I grow. When I look at the soil, I wonder what more than 150 years of air pollution has done to it. How can I amend past damage, manage the current risks and then eat from it?

I’m not alone in this work. Before I dive in, I want to share a quote by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants:

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”

Professional advice guided my urban garden work. If you are contemplating a similar project, information at the sites listed below will be valuable.

Resources: amending the soil, soil testing, garden planning, and a cool foraging app

Grow Pittsburgh: Info Hub

University of Minnesota: How to Manage Soil and Nutrients in Home Gardens

Phipps Conservatory: Modifying PH Levels in Soil

Falling Fruit – Map the Urban Harvest!

Resources: dangers and benefits of urban gardening and foraging

The Geological Society of America: Hunting Down Hidden Dangers and Health Benefits of Urban Fruit

EurekAlert!: Risk of Lead Poisoning from Urban Gardening is Low, New Study Finds

Oxford Academic: Phytoremediation of Lead: What Works, What Doesn’t

First Step: Soil Test

The work I did to make my soil safe for gardening began with a soil test. A City of Pittsburgh site directed me to a Penn State University Agriculture Extension Office, where for a $9.00 fee, postage to mail a soil sample, and a couple of weeks’ time for testing, I learned that my typical Pittsburgh soil is full of clay and in need of compost and lime.

My front yard faces a busy intersection and contains lead and other contaminants. I decided to try phytostabilization, which is a cheap way to use plants, lime, and compost to both reduce the mobility of heavy metals in the soil and lower the bioavailability of contaminants to the food chain. I wore a mask and gloves when I tilled this soil because contaminants can bind to soil particles and can be inhaled. I mixed some nearby oak leaves into the soil to break up the clay, mixed in some lime, and planted sunflowers. (Any additions of lime should be done according to package directions about how much to use and when to plant.)

photo of a backyard garden under construction

Soil conditions in my backyard were better, requiring only lime to adjust the pH and lots and lots of compost. The backyard is where I will grow vegetables. I learned during my research that pH and compost are the key elements to healthy soil. If the air quality fluctuates during the gardening season, I will be fine as long as I wash the produce thoroughly before consuming and wash my hands after gardening. Now, after long days of online meetings, I’m able to retreat to my garden and, in good way, work myself tired. I feel better now. I feel happy.

I confess, I’m a renter, and I’m doing this work (with my landlord’s approval of course) even though I don’t own the property. My homeowner neighbors ask me why I care and put in so much energy and money into something I don’t own. I think it’s an easy answer: I live here for now, and I do this work to improve my quality of life, and because “joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”

Asia Ward is CMNH Anthropocene Program Manager and Science Communication Fellow. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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A Rare New Species for Natural History: Earth System Scientists

Part of Anthropocene science is earth system science, the study of anthropogenic change of whole earth systems–the water systems, geological systems, ecosystems, and atmosphere–and their feedbacks with each other and human society. Historically earth system scientists have been a rare species at natural history museums, because they do not collect organismal specimens or valuable rocks. Instead they collect samples of air, water, microorganisms, and soil. But CMNH recognizes these scientists are key to understanding the Anthropocene and translating it to the public.

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Two earth scientists have recently joined CMNH. Dr. Carla Rosenfeld will be the museum’s first curator of Earth Sciences. Rosenfeld’s work focuses on the microbial ecology of earth systems: how they naturally mediate the vast majority of water and soil chemistry and can be used to remediate pollution. For example, she is testing the potential for fungi to remove toxins from acid mine drainage. 

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Dr. Bonnie McGill is a science communication fellow with the Climate and Rural Systems Project (CRSP) in the Anthropocene Science Section. With CRSP she is working with rural communities to explore local climate change impacts, identify the social and ecological systems involved, and design community-level actions. Much of her previous work was in the Midwest studying how soil and water conservation in corn and soybean production impacted greenhouse gas emissions and nitrate pollution of rivers.

Bonnie McGill is a Science Communication Fellow at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences working at the museum.

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What is the Anthropocene and How Does it Relate to Earth Day?

The Anthropocene translates roughly to “human” “times” and it is the proposed current geological period that started when the activities of human beings collectively began to have big impacts on Earth system processes, so much so that it leaves a record in Earth’s geology. While it is hard to untangle when exactly the Anthropocene should start, the leading proposal is around 1950, when human population and technology really started to grow rapidly.

The first Earth Day was organized about 2 decades after the Anthropocene “officially” started. Back then the public was already seeing how much impact humans were having on the planet and they were concerned. In the 1970s, America responded and passed all of our major environmental laws, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act. Today, 50 years later, we know a lot more about how human activities are changing the planet, including the threat of global climate change. And like those folks celebrating the first Earth Day, we again have the great opportunity to respond and protect what we love.

Stewardship in the Anthropocene

One big question with the Anthropocene is what the heck are we going to do about it? How can we respond? The concept of stewardship is helpful here. Stewardship can be defined in different ways, but generally it refers to the job of ‘caring for the land and species.’   At CMNH a number of our scientists use their research to inform how people can live and care for the land to produce things they want while taking care of nature. We want to find these beneficial land-use and stewardship practices and share them more broadly. If more people can find ways to support the human economy while also protecting the health of ecosystems, the Anthropocene may cease to be a problem.

Examples of Stewardship Research

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Ancient Canyon Live Oak, Santa Cruz Mountains

Curator of Anthropocene Studies, Dr. Nicole Heller conducts field work in California, where she works to adapt conservation frameworks to better include people and their positive stewardship practices in conservation decision-making. She is working with a group of scientists, farmers, foresters, conservationists, and Indigenous tribes to map and monitor all the different stewardship practices on the landscapes and understand how those practices work together to affect ecological and social health.

Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles, Dr. Jennifer Sheridan, conducts field work in Borneo, where she works with a consortium of scientists and a large palm oil producer to assess how spatial arrangement of forest and plantation can maximize biodiversity conservation. Because deforestation for oil palm plantation is the largest driver of deforestation in this biodiversity hotspot, such partnerships are critical to effective conservation.

Curator of Birds, Chase Mendenhall is a leader in establishing methods for monitoring changes in biodiversity and quantifying factors that enhance re-diversification of human-disturbed landscapes. This work has largely been conducted in Costa Rica.

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Matt Webb and Jon Rice installing decorative bird safe window film. 

Since 1961, Powdermill Avian Research Center (PARC) staff have operated one of the North America’s best bird banding programs, recording the timing of bird migration and a broad variety of life history and ecological attributes of migrating birds. PARC uses their data on birds to inform a wide variety of stewardship actions across the landscape to help birds survive. In one project, PARC works jointly with the American Bird Conservancy and select industrial partners to develop window glass that birds can see and avoid collisions.

Nicole Heller is Curator of Anthropocene Studies at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences working at the museum.

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From cultivation to invasion: a common route

Collected on this Day in 1937

This specimen of princess tree (Paulownia tomentosa) was collected on January 13, 1937 in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh by R.J. Templeton and J.R. Steck.  Though subtle, note the heading on the label “Flora of Cultivation.”  This header suggests that this tree was planted in the park, rather than naturally occurring on its own.

Princess tree has a remarkable presence – large wide leaves larger than your face (though you can’t see that in this winter collected specimen) and very showy, fragrant flowers that burst from large buds in the spring.  Signs of the flowers/fruits remain obvious on the branches year round.

Princess tree is a common urban weedy tree that is not native to Pennsylvania or the United States. Rather, it is native to Central and Western China.  It was brought to Europe in the 1830s (and then to the US) by the Dutch East India Company, with many historical medicinal and ornamental uses, as well as its wood. The tree was named after a Romanov princess, the Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna.

Princess tree can still be found in Schenley Park.  It is especially noticeable, with its flowers at eye level, as you walk or drive across the bridge from the museum to Phipps Conservatory (Schenley bridge).

Listed as invasive by the state, Princess tree should not be planted in Pennsylvania.  It grows quickly and actively spreads beyond its planting, into roadsides, streams, and disturbed forests with potential to displace native plants.

Find this specimen and more here: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=all&catnum=CM120710&othercatnum=1

Check back for more! Botanists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History share digital specimens from the herbarium on dates they were collected. They are in the midst of a three-year project to digitize nearly 190,000 plant specimens collected in the region, making images and other data publicly available online. This effort is part of the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis Project (mamdigitization.org), a network of thirteen herbaria spanning the densely populated urban corridor from Washington, D.C. to New York City to achieve a greater understanding of our urban areas, including the unique industrial and environmental history of the greater Pittsburgh region. This project is made possible by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1801022.

Mason Heberling is Assistant Curator of Botany at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.