Hi everybody –

Last week I was able to take advantage of the option to participate in an alternative to the CLM orientation in Chicago. Since my internship with the USGS in Henderson, NV started in February the CLM program offered a stipend for me to enroll on a workshop, symposium, etc. of my choosing in my field of study. I was able to work out two alternatives to the CLM orientation–one the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium in Washington, DC which I went to last week, and the other a Jepson Herbarium workshop through UC Berkeley I will travel to next weekend.

The theme of the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium was “Location, Location, Location: Recent Breakthroughs in Biogeography.” The event kicked off Thursday night with a poster session where I mingled with the presenters and other folks. Most were Master’s and PhD students presenting their research–some were describing new plant species, others creating phylogenies to recreate plant family lineages. The symposium continued all day Friday where the invited speakers presented their research. The talks ranged from biogeographical patterns of tropical reef fishes, how to calibrate a molecular clock to create a phylogeny using newly discovered fossils, and the fate of Andean frailejones–some with an entire range of only 4 square-kilometers–under different climate change models. Overall the talks were very stimulating and the symposium was a great experience for me. I even had time to enjoy the museums, art galleries, monuments, and memorials on the National Mall.

I look forward next weekend to touring botanic gardens in the San Francisco Bay area with folks from the Jepson Herbarium. The weather’s heating up here in Las Vegas so after a long week of field work we’re all looking forward to a few days of rest in the A/C.

Sam Somerville

USGS Las Vegas Field Station, Henderson NV