Chris Martine | Plants are Cool, Too!

Pictures of two faucet snails from different angles to show identification features on a ruler to show scale with the following text: Invasive Species Spotlight: Faucet Snail / Mud Bithynia (Bithynia tentaculata) Key Identification Features: Small shell approximately 12-15 mm at full size with a rounded spire of 5-6 whorls and the shell opening (aperture) less than half the total height of the shell Shell color can vary from shiny light brown to black “Right-handed” (dextral) shell opening with covering called an operculum that is whitish and calcified with a pattern of concentric rings

Species spotlight for National Invasive Species Awareness Week. Invasive faucet snails are a growing concern in the Champlain Basin and Great Lakes region and can outcompete native snails, clog drain and intake pipes, and spread parasites to birds.
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#NISAW #InvasiveSpecies #Wildlife #Ecology

Yellow four-petal flower with red spots at petal bases

Eulobus californicus, the California Primrose, blooming in Anza-Borrego today #nativeplants 🌿

Beneroff wins best student presentation — Martine Botany Lab Rebecca Beneroff MS ‘27 has been announced as winner of the Best Student Poster in botany at the 2026 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) conference in Portland, OR. Her poster, “Co...

Big congrats to Bucknell's Rebecca Beneroff for winning Best Student Presentation for a Poster in the Division of Botany at the #SICB2026 conference!! @botanicalbecks.bsky.social

www.chrismartine.com/lab-news/ben...

Devani Jolman in a Bucknell sweatshirt

Excited to launch the new lab website, including the announcement that Devani Jolman will be joining us as the new Burpee Postdoc!

www.chrismartine.com

Hooray for herbaria!

14 people posing in the herbarium, with mounted specimens in the foreground

Very happy to host almost 40 folks in the Manning Herbarium today through the Bucknell Institute for Lifelong Learning. So many excellent questions and lots of genuine interest in why collections matter. #iamabotanist

It's time to gear up for #Botany2026 and submit an abstract!

We’ve gathered over 4000 literature records on Rhododendron 🤯 👏🏼

References span 459 years of investigation and discovery 🌸💡

Topics range from ecology, reproductive biology, horticulture, medical chemistry, physiology, evolution and even some materials science 👀
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www.zotero.org/groups/47355...

Celebrating @kheyduk.bsky.social’s big day.

#coffeepotramen

Students from the Herbarium Curation course in Bucknell’s herbarium

Pleasure to host Donald McClelland’s Lycoming College students in the Manning Herbarium this afternoon. Central PA PUI botany powers, unite!

#iamabotanist #plantpeopleFTW

Emerging flower buds from bare, frozen ground

Temps in the single digits F, ~20 inches of snow cover — but the central PA winter aconite is still on its way to an early February bloom.

#botany

A comparison of female and hermaphrodite flowers of meadow checkermallow (Sidalcea campestris).

Pollinator-mediated fitness differences do not fully explain the maintenance of #gynodioecy in Sidalcea campestris

New #AJB research by Brooklyn Richards, Thomas Kaye & F. Andrew Jones

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2...
#botany #plantscience #Malvaceae #pollen #pollinator

Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, Melissa L. Sevigny

Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, Melissa L. Sevigny

Continuing on my theme of dunking on the Glen Canyon Dam, but with actual human women who are boss lady scientists who do pre-dam botanical research

7/

Register for the Smithsonian's National Botanical Symposium, “American Botany: 250 years of Discovery” 29 May '26. I'll be speaking on American oaks, w/ several greats: @barbarathiers.bsky.social, Caroline Strömberg, Wes Knapp, & Rose Bear Don't Walk.

Join us!

naturalhistory.si.edu/research/bot...

Me, also!

Photo of the Australian bush tomato Solanum tudununggae. Grayish prickly calyx fully encloses the dry and mature berry held inside except for a 3 cm pore at its apex. Silvery-blue foliage in background plus flowers with purple corolla and yellow anthers.

From the upcoming #AppsPlantSci #PlantDispersal issue 🌱

A simple and affordable protocol to assess censer seed dispersal: First confirmation of the mechanism in the genus #Solanum

By Abigail Motter, @martinebotany.bsky.social & Melody Sain

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #botany

A simple and affordable protocol to assess censer seed dispersal: First confirmation of the mechanism in the genus Solanum Premise The censer seed dispersal mechanism, whereby mature fruits are retained on plants and seeds dispersed by mechanical shaking, is among the most specialized wind-aided seed dispersal strategie...

New online today in Applications in Plant Sciences, chapter of Abigail Motter's Bucknell undergrad honors thesis confirming the 1st censer mechanism of seed dispersal in #Solanum. Loads of effort from Abigail & Melody Sain went into this one. #botany

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Pennsylvania outside, bush tomato country inside.

Snow

I first saw the heretical combination of the subheading of "ECOLOGY" and title, "The beauty of slag," and I swooned.

Check out this terrific and fun story in UChicago Magazine about the novel ecosystem/slag research we're working on locally! #WildCalumet

mag.uchicago.edu/science-medi...

Don't miss your chance to be on a BSA committee! Deadline to apply is February 1.

To learn more about BSA committees, including 8 with student position openings, visit: botany.org/home/governa...

#BSAcommittees #IamaBotanist #BSAleadership

🌍 Did you know? The African continent is home to about 20% of the world’s bird species! 🦅

This incredible biodiversity is highlighted in the IPBES #RegionalAssessment for Africa, showcasing the continent's vital role in global ecosystems.

ℹ️ https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/africa

Anti-herbivore effects of non-glandular trichomes and leaf chemistry in a desert plant This video, provided by the authors of the Functional Ecology article 'Separate and Synergistic Anti-Herbivore Effects of Non-Glandular Trichomes and Leaf Chemistry in a Desert Plant'…

📽️Check out a video of this research here!

👉https://buff.ly/1m3EoVW

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Trapped and poisoned: Barbs and leaf chemicals from the desert stingbush work together against chewing caterpillars Rosemary A. E. Glos, Abrianna J. Soule, Marjorie G. Weber This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Plants have a wide range of strategies t…

📰Published📰Trapped and poisoned: Barbs and leaf chemicals from the desert stingbush work together against chewing caterpillars🍃

buff.ly/aWf2E4R

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Pictures people with plants Text about why in biology degrees. Read all at https://botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk/the-thymes/

🧪🌿🌾🪾🌹🏵🪳🐌🌍 What should be the required and optional content in Biology or Biological Sciences degrees? The case for including plants as required content in latest issue of newsletter of Botanical University Challenge botanicaluniversitychallenge.co.uk/the-thymes/ ##BUC2026

"Science created a bridge where politics could not. Now, the U.S. risks losing that bridge." 🧪🌍🔬

PhD position #ecology #evolution #academic 🌍🧪
#PhDlife #job @stockholm-uni.bsky.social

Read more about this fascinating new species described by @martinebotany.bsky.social here: blog.pensoft.net/2026/01/06/h...

Thanks ❤️❤️❤️❤️!!!!

Cats kill millions of birds, bats, lizards and other native animals a year, HBRC says But other native animals such as bats, lizards, and invertebrates, are also particularly vulnerable, Hawkes Bay Regional Council says.

Cats kill millions of birds, bats, lizards and other native animals a year, HBRC says.

"They kill indiscriminately. The Global Invasive Species Database (2014) nominated cats among the 100 worst invaders," the spokesperson said.

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www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/584...