Iowa State University graduate students describe unidentified species for class project

A fundamental aspect of the Advanced Systematics course at Iowa State University is the "nitty-gritty" details of plant and animal classification and taxonomy.

The best way for students to gain an appreciation for what goes into a species description is to actually complete one say Iowa State professors Lynn Clark and Greg Courtney, who team-teach the course.

World authorities on bamboos and aquatic dipterans respectively, Clark and Courtney decided to use species they had readily at hand.

"Lynn and I both have species in our collections that have not been previously described," said Courtney, associate professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture. "So we thought 'why not come up with real new species for each of them to describe? We thought this would give the students something a little more challenging. Plus it would give them an appreciation of what samples we collect."

This semester's Advanced Systematics course consists of seven graduate students – four in entomology, two plant ecologists and one plant pathology student.

Clark, professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, supplied two unknown bamboo species from South America in the Ada Hayden Herbarium collection, while Courtney had four aquatic flies he had collected in Nepal and Thailand for the entomology students. Thomas Harrington, professor of plant pathology, contributed two undescribed fungi species.

The students are expected to submit a species description that includes, among other things, a brief diagnosis (in Latin for plants and fungi), a summary of the geographical information, a brief taxonomic discussion, and a plate or set of illustrations of the species.

The students will also name the new species.

It's not an easy task according to the student in the course.

"Putting things in your own words can be difficult," said Greg Curler, an entomology graduate student. "You have to be concise yet descriptive while choosing your words carefully."

The result will be a set of material that should lead to publications for the students, according to Clark and Courtney.

"Several, if not all of the students, will be able to shepherd a paper right up through to publication."

"There are so many aspects of this that are educational," Courtney said. "For many of the our students this will be the first time they will have written a paper for publication."

The project is also a unique classroom project according to Jonathan Wendel, professor and chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology.

"I'm struck by the fact that the graduate students in this class are having the great good fortune of having a lab exercise where they actually are describing species that are new to science," he said. "This really is quite extraordinary, and I can think of no other institution where this might be happening."