LIFE
AND OTHER STORIES
AND OTHER STORIES
Pavel Krestov
A Single Cedar's Life Through
the Lens of Botany History
A Single Cedar's Life Through
the Lens of Botany History
- Story
on the “green rush”, botanical gardens, dedication to science in the Gulag, modeling the unknown in tropical forests, and how plants broadcast news about climate change - Story told by
Pavel Krestov, a biologist, geobotanist, director of the Botanical Garden-Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences - Story asked by
Mikhail Gelfand, Vice President for Biomedical Research at Skoltech - Story recorded
in September 2022
before we begin
— How did you become a botanist?
— It kind of runs in the family, my father was a forester. I started earning my first money by planting trees when I was ten years old. The trees grew, and I observed their growth and learned how forestry works. Back then, my friends and I would form groups to collect magnolia vine (Schisandra chinensis) fruits, bracken, and other wild edible plants and sell them to special procurement offices. We made money any way we could. I made my first money working with plants and saved it for gifts for my mom. And when I was ten I bought my first watch.
Later, when I was around 14 or 15, my father started giving me serious work, specifically improvement thinning at forest plantations. To help valuable tree species grow faster, we removed competitors that overshadowed them. We cut down birches, aralia, Maak cherry, alder, and all low-value trees while leaving the undergrowth of valuable trees like cedar.
In 1984 I enrolled in the Far Eastern Federal University, where the main focus was understandably on marine biology. So in my first year, I went to see how hydrobiologists work. After two days of analyzing formalin samples, I realized that formalin wasn't for me. After my first year, I joined the army. It was a kind of a wake-up call that made me really think things through. I came back, re-enrolled into the university, and decided to become a botanist in my third year.
I defended my thesis and opted to continue my research work. My PhD thesis was written under rather unique circumstances. I was a research intern at the Biology and Soil Institute. My salary there made up a third of our family income, with the other two-thirds not related to science, or so it would seem. In addition, I worked as a security guard in a kindergarten and here, in the botanical garden, as a heizer. I wrote my dissertation in a stoker. It was good here – only two computers for the entire botanical garden. My colleague and I, who is now also the director of an institute and a corresponding fellow of the Russian Academy of Sciences, used those computers to write our dissertations. Back then, computers had large and usually white keyboards, but after us using them, the keys turned black. I remember throwing in a piece of coal in the stove and then going straight to the computer with black charcoal hands. My colleagues were always wondering what happened with the computer.
In 1995, I managed to attend the IUFRO international congress in Finland for the first time. There were more than 3,000 participants, including all the classical authors whose books were published by the Mir publishing house and were reference for us. That's how I first saw the people who were defining entire scientific fields at that time. My presentation at the conference piqued their interest, and I received an offer to work in Canada. Needless to say, I accepted. The year was 1995. You probably can't fully grasp what life was like back then. In Canada, my understanding of botany and the organization of science was completely transformed. I lived there for three years. Two out of three years I spent apart from my family. We decided to go back because I thought that if I could work here with the same structure and intensity as in Canada, it would be easier for me to progress in science. I must say even now, there is virtually no competition here in Russia. I have been working here since 2000, and in 2010 I became the director of the Botanical Garden.
— It kind of runs in the family, my father was a forester. I started earning my first money by planting trees when I was ten years old. The trees grew, and I observed their growth and learned how forestry works. Back then, my friends and I would form groups to collect magnolia vine (Schisandra chinensis) fruits, bracken, and other wild edible plants and sell them to special procurement offices. We made money any way we could. I made my first money working with plants and saved it for gifts for my mom. And when I was ten I bought my first watch.
Later, when I was around 14 or 15, my father started giving me serious work, specifically improvement thinning at forest plantations. To help valuable tree species grow faster, we removed competitors that overshadowed them. We cut down birches, aralia, Maak cherry, alder, and all low-value trees while leaving the undergrowth of valuable trees like cedar.
In 1984 I enrolled in the Far Eastern Federal University, where the main focus was understandably on marine biology. So in my first year, I went to see how hydrobiologists work. After two days of analyzing formalin samples, I realized that formalin wasn't for me. After my first year, I joined the army. It was a kind of a wake-up call that made me really think things through. I came back, re-enrolled into the university, and decided to become a botanist in my third year.
I defended my thesis and opted to continue my research work. My PhD thesis was written under rather unique circumstances. I was a research intern at the Biology and Soil Institute. My salary there made up a third of our family income, with the other two-thirds not related to science, or so it would seem. In addition, I worked as a security guard in a kindergarten and here, in the botanical garden, as a heizer. I wrote my dissertation in a stoker. It was good here – only two computers for the entire botanical garden. My colleague and I, who is now also the director of an institute and a corresponding fellow of the Russian Academy of Sciences, used those computers to write our dissertations. Back then, computers had large and usually white keyboards, but after us using them, the keys turned black. I remember throwing in a piece of coal in the stove and then going straight to the computer with black charcoal hands. My colleagues were always wondering what happened with the computer.
In 1995, I managed to attend the IUFRO international congress in Finland for the first time. There were more than 3,000 participants, including all the classical authors whose books were published by the Mir publishing house and were reference for us. That's how I first saw the people who were defining entire scientific fields at that time. My presentation at the conference piqued their interest, and I received an offer to work in Canada. Needless to say, I accepted. The year was 1995. You probably can't fully grasp what life was like back then. In Canada, my understanding of botany and the organization of science was completely transformed. I lived there for three years. Two out of three years I spent apart from my family. We decided to go back because I thought that if I could work here with the same structure and intensity as in Canada, it would be easier for me to progress in science. I must say even now, there is virtually no competition here in Russia. I have been working here since 2000, and in 2010 I became the director of the Botanical Garden.
— Why do we need botanical gardens today? I get it why they were essential in the 19th century. All sorts of imported exotic plants were planted there. But now…
— That wasn’t even in the 19th century. It was the era of geographical discoveries. People didn't do it because of exotics or some kind of romantic ideas. The reasons were very practical. People went for gold, spices, medications. That's pretty much the complete list.
— So, out of these four, only gold wasn't a botanical item, and silver either.
— Silver wasn't as valuable as expensive spices. Also, all the goods brought back from distant travels had to be planted somewhere and preserved, so it was necessary to create gardens. And they did create them in countries where the pioneer ships arrived, namely Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Italy. The first garden that still exists today was created in the 16th century in Padua. It still has the same round shape with and divided according to the cardinal points, as intended by its creators. Plants from different continents were brought there, planted, and carefully preserved.
I think by and large the purpose of botanical gardens remains the same today. When we talk about botanical gardens, we're talking about a plant gene fund that can be used in selection for various purposes: medicinal, technical, decorative, food, and others.
Nowadays, more emphasis is placed on aesthetics because at some point the Italians said, "Bel giardino," meaning that the garden should be beautiful. Since then, gardens have been tried to be made attractive to people. As a result, people started visiting gardens to admire plants and started paying for it. There has been a shift in perception, and the practical value of plants preserved in botanical gardens has taken a back seat. The beauty of the garden began to generate significantly more income.
— Is a modern botanical garden a scientific institution or a cultural institution?
— I spent my entire administrative career ensuring that it remained a scientific institution. Because even in organizing cultural events, there should be a scientific basis and a scientific message to people to make them more knowledgeable and provide information that would improve our society's life in general.
— That wasn’t even in the 19th century. It was the era of geographical discoveries. People didn't do it because of exotics or some kind of romantic ideas. The reasons were very practical. People went for gold, spices, medications. That's pretty much the complete list.
— So, out of these four, only gold wasn't a botanical item, and silver either.
— Silver wasn't as valuable as expensive spices. Also, all the goods brought back from distant travels had to be planted somewhere and preserved, so it was necessary to create gardens. And they did create them in countries where the pioneer ships arrived, namely Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Italy. The first garden that still exists today was created in the 16th century in Padua. It still has the same round shape with and divided according to the cardinal points, as intended by its creators. Plants from different continents were brought there, planted, and carefully preserved.
I think by and large the purpose of botanical gardens remains the same today. When we talk about botanical gardens, we're talking about a plant gene fund that can be used in selection for various purposes: medicinal, technical, decorative, food, and others.
Nowadays, more emphasis is placed on aesthetics because at some point the Italians said, "Bel giardino," meaning that the garden should be beautiful. Since then, gardens have been tried to be made attractive to people. As a result, people started visiting gardens to admire plants and started paying for it. There has been a shift in perception, and the practical value of plants preserved in botanical gardens has taken a back seat. The beauty of the garden began to generate significantly more income.
— Is a modern botanical garden a scientific institution or a cultural institution?
— I spent my entire administrative career ensuring that it remained a scientific institution. Because even in organizing cultural events, there should be a scientific basis and a scientific message to people to make them more knowledgeable and provide information that would improve our society's life in general.
Photographer: Engeny Gurko /
for “Life and Other Stories”
for “Life and Other Stories”
— The way I see it, a gene pool is when there are many, many seeds of different varieties of some plant. But in a botanical garden, it's usually one specimen of each shrub, at most a flower bed.
— Indeed, although, a botanical garden is the perfect place for preserving the gene pool in any conceivable storage form. Firstly, herbariums. Major botanical gardens have herbariums, some of which are quite substantial in size, such as the one in the Central Siberian Botanical Garden (CSBG) in Novosibirsk. We also have a good herbarium in Vladivostok, and there is one in Moscow at the Moscow State University garden. Naturally, they can't be compared with the one in the Komarov Botanical Institute or the herbarium at the Moscow Botanical Garden. Speaking of the gardens established under the Academy of Sciences, they were immediately supported with a scientific foundation and assigned scientific objectives, one of which was the accumulation of a beneficial plant gene pool. These gardens — Moscow Botanical Garden, the one in Novosibirsk, and ours — were established right after the war: in Moscow in 1945, in Novosibirsk in 1947, and ours in 1949, during a time when gardens were hardly a priority. There, naturally, gene pool preservation was the secondary objective. The primary goal was to acquaint people with the plant life of the Earth and provide some form of psychological rehabilitation following extremely dark times.
— Were they trying to distract people somehow?
— I believe they were also trying to solve scientific problems. For instance, there is a scientific issue known as introduction...
— Where there is introduction, there is invasion.
— I feel this issue is somewhat exaggerated, as invasion is less associated with botanical gardens than it is with economic development, for instance. Yulia Vinogradova is currently working on a project funded by the Russian Science Foundation, conducting an impressive study on plant invasions along Russian railways, particularly along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
— You mean the plants growing on the sides of the roads and on the slopes?
— Yes, the plants that grow on the slopes. There are numerous opportunities to track the spread rate of different species, their sources of introduction, and so on.
— Indeed, although, a botanical garden is the perfect place for preserving the gene pool in any conceivable storage form. Firstly, herbariums. Major botanical gardens have herbariums, some of which are quite substantial in size, such as the one in the Central Siberian Botanical Garden (CSBG) in Novosibirsk. We also have a good herbarium in Vladivostok, and there is one in Moscow at the Moscow State University garden. Naturally, they can't be compared with the one in the Komarov Botanical Institute or the herbarium at the Moscow Botanical Garden. Speaking of the gardens established under the Academy of Sciences, they were immediately supported with a scientific foundation and assigned scientific objectives, one of which was the accumulation of a beneficial plant gene pool. These gardens — Moscow Botanical Garden, the one in Novosibirsk, and ours — were established right after the war: in Moscow in 1945, in Novosibirsk in 1947, and ours in 1949, during a time when gardens were hardly a priority. There, naturally, gene pool preservation was the secondary objective. The primary goal was to acquaint people with the plant life of the Earth and provide some form of psychological rehabilitation following extremely dark times.
— Were they trying to distract people somehow?
— I believe they were also trying to solve scientific problems. For instance, there is a scientific issue known as introduction...
— Where there is introduction, there is invasion.
— I feel this issue is somewhat exaggerated, as invasion is less associated with botanical gardens than it is with economic development, for instance. Yulia Vinogradova is currently working on a project funded by the Russian Science Foundation, conducting an impressive study on plant invasions along Russian railways, particularly along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
— You mean the plants growing on the sides of the roads and on the slopes?
— Yes, the plants that grow on the slopes. There are numerous opportunities to track the spread rate of different species, their sources of introduction, and so on.
Photographer: Engeny Gurko /
for “Life and Other Stories”
for “Life and Other Stories”
— There is an excellent project by Memorial and the Timiryazev State Biology Museum in Moscow where they study the vegetation in the areas of former labor camps.
— I'm not familiar with that project, but I do know that a significant amount of botanical research was conducted within labor camps.
In the Magadan region, Hugo Grosset, while being a prisoner, began his scientific research on the Siberian dwarf pine. He was later transferred to a settlement where he continued his work and made a significant discovery. The Siberian dwarf pine falls over in winter, before the snow, and then it's covered with snow in its fallen state. It has even been suggested that it senses the arrival of snow, behaving quite sensibly. Grosset discovered that the Siberian dwarf pine has special tissues made of cells with thick walls. When the temperature drops below zero, frost dehydrates the cell walls, causing the tissue to contract and the tree to fall over, after which it is naturally covered with snow. This happens in Magadan but not in Japan because in Japan it snows at above freezing temperatures. It was a serious research that he conducted using a scalpel and a very old microscope.
— The project I mentioned isn't about the science conducted by people in or near labor camps but about the plants that spread with the people who were sent to those camps.
— Wherever people go, plants follow. This process isn't just related to humans. There are also migrations of animals and birds. Plants themselves are capable of migrating too. I'm currently trying to distinguish between two processes because there is a natural migration of species that isn't invasive but is related to climate. In Central Russia and Siberia, this is hard to observe because the forest zone is usually backed by the steppe from the south. But in our Far East, there is a continuous forest gradient from Chukotka to the tropics, and along that gradient, forest species have the opportunity to migrate. This migration is now very noticeable.
— Do they migrate to the north?
— Yes. Actually, there is another vector as well, the gradient of climate continentality from the coast to Transbaikalia. It's a very short and sharp gradient, and migrations along it are also noticeable.
— I'm not familiar with that project, but I do know that a significant amount of botanical research was conducted within labor camps.
In the Magadan region, Hugo Grosset, while being a prisoner, began his scientific research on the Siberian dwarf pine. He was later transferred to a settlement where he continued his work and made a significant discovery. The Siberian dwarf pine falls over in winter, before the snow, and then it's covered with snow in its fallen state. It has even been suggested that it senses the arrival of snow, behaving quite sensibly. Grosset discovered that the Siberian dwarf pine has special tissues made of cells with thick walls. When the temperature drops below zero, frost dehydrates the cell walls, causing the tissue to contract and the tree to fall over, after which it is naturally covered with snow. This happens in Magadan but not in Japan because in Japan it snows at above freezing temperatures. It was a serious research that he conducted using a scalpel and a very old microscope.
— The project I mentioned isn't about the science conducted by people in or near labor camps but about the plants that spread with the people who were sent to those camps.
— Wherever people go, plants follow. This process isn't just related to humans. There are also migrations of animals and birds. Plants themselves are capable of migrating too. I'm currently trying to distinguish between two processes because there is a natural migration of species that isn't invasive but is related to climate. In Central Russia and Siberia, this is hard to observe because the forest zone is usually backed by the steppe from the south. But in our Far East, there is a continuous forest gradient from Chukotka to the tropics, and along that gradient, forest species have the opportunity to migrate. This migration is now very noticeable.
— Do they migrate to the north?
— Yes. Actually, there is another vector as well, the gradient of climate continentality from the coast to Transbaikalia. It's a very short and sharp gradient, and migrations along it are also noticeable.
— It's a natural migration where a habitat is simply shifting or expanding. But what about classic invasions? Like in the case of hogweed, for example.
— Of course, classic invasions also happen, and there are plenty of them. In Primorsky Krai, there is no Sosnowsky's hogweed because there is a very effective limiting factor, winter soil temperatures that drop below -10°C.
— Does it freeze?
— We have two types of indigenous hogweed in the Far East that grow well in such conditions, but for Sosnovsky's hogweed, it's indeed too cold. However, that’s going to change in the next ten years. It will eventually spread. It's already present in Sakhalin and Kamchatka.
— Is it warmer in Kamchatka?
— There, the snow covers the soil, and it doesn't freeze.
— Of course, classic invasions also happen, and there are plenty of them. In Primorsky Krai, there is no Sosnowsky's hogweed because there is a very effective limiting factor, winter soil temperatures that drop below -10°C.
— Does it freeze?
— We have two types of indigenous hogweed in the Far East that grow well in such conditions, but for Sosnovsky's hogweed, it's indeed too cold. However, that’s going to change in the next ten years. It will eventually spread. It's already present in Sakhalin and Kamchatka.
— Is it warmer in Kamchatka?
— There, the snow covers the soil, and it doesn't freeze.
— Do you have the awful Spanish slugs?
— Yes, we do, but I'm not sure if they're Spanish or North American. I saw them a few years ago in British Columbia. They're considered a zoological symbol there. They are obscenely large.
— Those are yellow banana slugs. They seem to be crawling all over the North American Pacific Coast. And Spanish slugs were brought to Moscow a few years ago with planting material. They're also large but dark brown. And they eat absolutely everything.
— They eat everything and hide everywhere. If you lift up some old plank, you'll find them there.
Generally, zoological invasions are closely linked to plant invasions, and invasions of pathogenic organisms are of particular interest. Various nematodes, spider beetles, deathwatch beetles... Fungi also spread with plants. I'm talking about rust fungus and all that sort of thing. There is a very interesting case of a pine nematode, which is carried by beetles (I forgot the exact species). It started affecting the red pine in Japan from the Sea of Japan side...
— Yes, we do, but I'm not sure if they're Spanish or North American. I saw them a few years ago in British Columbia. They're considered a zoological symbol there. They are obscenely large.
— Those are yellow banana slugs. They seem to be crawling all over the North American Pacific Coast. And Spanish slugs were brought to Moscow a few years ago with planting material. They're also large but dark brown. And they eat absolutely everything.
— They eat everything and hide everywhere. If you lift up some old plank, you'll find them there.
Generally, zoological invasions are closely linked to plant invasions, and invasions of pathogenic organisms are of particular interest. Various nematodes, spider beetles, deathwatch beetles... Fungi also spread with plants. I'm talking about rust fungus and all that sort of thing. There is a very interesting case of a pine nematode, which is carried by beetles (I forgot the exact species). It started affecting the red pine in Japan from the Sea of Japan side...
— What's special about them? How do very small insects differ from the regular ones?
— That's precisely what we've been studying for the past twenty years. That question sparked everything, and now it just won't stop.
— That's precisely what we've been studying for the past twenty years. That question sparked everything, and now it just won't stop.
— How do beetles transmit the nematodes?
— It's a complex cycle that also involves fungi as temporary hosts for the nematodes. The nematode infiltrates the growing point, and within a year the pine tree dies completely. In Japan, almost the entire population on the Sea of Japan coast died out within two years. It took them a long time to figure out why. Then after some time it appeared in South Korea, but they already knew how to deal with it through their connections with Japan. Then it moved to North Korea, and they didn't know why all their plantations were dying. In fact, all the pine trees in North Korea have now been destroyed.
— How do you combat it?
— Mechanically. It's quite simple. You have to pick, uproot, and destroy the trees infested with nematodes. They can be identified and removed at an early stage when the upper branches are just starting to dry out. Then you create pine-free strips to keep the nematode in a localized area.
— Such a specific invasion won't last long, will it?
— It won't last long, but despite its short duration, it can cause a lot of damage.
Take the Boxwood Grove, for example. Last year, I visited Sochi for the first time in my life. Everything there has been destroyed. It's heartbreaking to see what's happening. This is a classic example of ineptitude in decision making.
— It's a complex cycle that also involves fungi as temporary hosts for the nematodes. The nematode infiltrates the growing point, and within a year the pine tree dies completely. In Japan, almost the entire population on the Sea of Japan coast died out within two years. It took them a long time to figure out why. Then after some time it appeared in South Korea, but they already knew how to deal with it through their connections with Japan. Then it moved to North Korea, and they didn't know why all their plantations were dying. In fact, all the pine trees in North Korea have now been destroyed.
— How do you combat it?
— Mechanically. It's quite simple. You have to pick, uproot, and destroy the trees infested with nematodes. They can be identified and removed at an early stage when the upper branches are just starting to dry out. Then you create pine-free strips to keep the nematode in a localized area.
— Such a specific invasion won't last long, will it?
— It won't last long, but despite its short duration, it can cause a lot of damage.
Take the Boxwood Grove, for example. Last year, I visited Sochi for the first time in my life. Everything there has been destroyed. It's heartbreaking to see what's happening. This is a classic example of ineptitude in decision making.
Photographer: Engeny Gurko /
for “Life and Other Stories”
for “Life and Other Stories”
— Going back to the topic of botanical gardens... What kind of research can be conducted in a botanical garden that cannot be carried out elsewhere? What distinguishes the scientific aspect of a botanical garden from that of selection facilities?
— There has been a significant drop in the scientific role of botanical gardens compared to the recreational one. However, if we consider the world's leading gardens such as the Missouri Botanical Garden, several large gardens in Japan and Korea, the Korea National Arboretum, and Kew Gardens in the UK, they are all involved in research on long-term gene pool conservation. This includes various methods of preserving the gene fund in test tubes at low temperatures and different techniques for seed preservation under various temperature conditions. Seeds, particularly those of tropical plants, are incredibly diverse. For instance, many recalcitrant seeds need to constantly retain moisture because without it, they lose their ability to germinate. This gene pool is deliberately gathered and conserved, serving both practical purposes and as a safeguard against global catastrophes.
Then there are numerous trials on seeds. The primary objective of botanical gardens, established globally since the 15th century, continues to function effectively in places like America, South America, Japan, and Asia. Plants are imported and tested for their potential to form commercially profitable populations. They are assessed in terms of their feasibility for cultivation or reproduction in specific climates and then distributed for profit. There is also an issue with agricultural and forest plants, which inherently possess significant resource value. Botanical gardens can potentially search for wild relatives of cultivated plants for breeding.
We have a relatively small garden, but we strive to uphold a focus on integrative systematics research. Currently, this is a lost cause. Only Komarov Botanical Institute has somewhat functioning systematists. There are also systematists in the Main Botanical Garden and the Central Siberian Botanical Garden, and only a handful in universities. Recruiting staff for gardens is quite challenging. And the employees are not getting younger.
— Could it be that no one wants to pursue classical botany anymore?
— They don’t.
Moreover, all botanical gardens have a common state assignment, to conduct fundamental scientific research. Meanwhile, they are expected to pay for manure, peat, the entire cycle of care for live plants, and other vitally important things out of their own pocket.
— Botanical systematists have a very narrow research focus, don't they?
— Indeed, they do. Right now, we need to support areas where they could widen their speciality a bit, at least in terms of the tools they use in their work. We need to use all the available methods, from molecular to morphological systematics. Currently, we have an excellent team working with cryptogamic organisms, which is a significant challenge, as it's one of the least studied groups of plants, liverworts and hornworts (Figure 1). We were among the first in the world to examine oil bodies in liverworts, which turned out to be a reliable anatomical trait for distinguishing species. However, the problem is that they can only be observed while the plant is alive. Can you imagine how much this complicates research?
— There has been a significant drop in the scientific role of botanical gardens compared to the recreational one. However, if we consider the world's leading gardens such as the Missouri Botanical Garden, several large gardens in Japan and Korea, the Korea National Arboretum, and Kew Gardens in the UK, they are all involved in research on long-term gene pool conservation. This includes various methods of preserving the gene fund in test tubes at low temperatures and different techniques for seed preservation under various temperature conditions. Seeds, particularly those of tropical plants, are incredibly diverse. For instance, many recalcitrant seeds need to constantly retain moisture because without it, they lose their ability to germinate. This gene pool is deliberately gathered and conserved, serving both practical purposes and as a safeguard against global catastrophes.
Then there are numerous trials on seeds. The primary objective of botanical gardens, established globally since the 15th century, continues to function effectively in places like America, South America, Japan, and Asia. Plants are imported and tested for their potential to form commercially profitable populations. They are assessed in terms of their feasibility for cultivation or reproduction in specific climates and then distributed for profit. There is also an issue with agricultural and forest plants, which inherently possess significant resource value. Botanical gardens can potentially search for wild relatives of cultivated plants for breeding.
We have a relatively small garden, but we strive to uphold a focus on integrative systematics research. Currently, this is a lost cause. Only Komarov Botanical Institute has somewhat functioning systematists. There are also systematists in the Main Botanical Garden and the Central Siberian Botanical Garden, and only a handful in universities. Recruiting staff for gardens is quite challenging. And the employees are not getting younger.
— Could it be that no one wants to pursue classical botany anymore?
— They don’t.
Moreover, all botanical gardens have a common state assignment, to conduct fundamental scientific research. Meanwhile, they are expected to pay for manure, peat, the entire cycle of care for live plants, and other vitally important things out of their own pocket.
— Botanical systematists have a very narrow research focus, don't they?
— Indeed, they do. Right now, we need to support areas where they could widen their speciality a bit, at least in terms of the tools they use in their work. We need to use all the available methods, from molecular to morphological systematics. Currently, we have an excellent team working with cryptogamic organisms, which is a significant challenge, as it's one of the least studied groups of plants, liverworts and hornworts (Figure 1). We were among the first in the world to examine oil bodies in liverworts, which turned out to be a reliable anatomical trait for distinguishing species. However, the problem is that they can only be observed while the plant is alive. Can you imagine how much this complicates research?
— Didn't molecular systematics kill traditional systematics?
— It tried to, but it failed. This is partly thanks to the passive and non-revolutionary nature of the special committee developing the botanical nomenclature code. It didn't change frequently because species names were traditionally tied to a morphological type, and mere molecular systematics wasn't sufficient to describe a species. However, this "harmony" was later disrupted by the concept of cryptic species. After finding a loophole in the code, molecular scientists began describing visually identical species that were clearly distinguishable by DNA sequences. Imagine you're walking in the Karoo in South Africa. You point at a beautiful orange daisy and ask a local expert about the species, and they tell you, "It used to be, let's say, an orange Mesembryanthemum, but now it's a complex of ten externally indistinguishable species, and I won't be able to tell you the name of the species until I sequence its DNA." However, our colleagues working on integrative systematics of liverworts have successfully identified morphological and anatomical traits that distinguish species previously described as cryptic. So I believe there is a lot of work to be done here, especially with organisms that are not well-studied.
Above all, systematics forms the foundation for much more serious science. Pure molecular systematics sometimes led to amusing dead ends simply because samples were collected from misidentified plants. Take Chosenia (Figure 3), for example. It's a very tall tree resembling a willow, with an impressive habitat ranging from central Japan to Chukotka. Can you imagine such a range for a tree? It grows in river valleys where gravel accumulates. During the day, the temperature on gravel spits can reach +50 degrees, and at night it can drop to +5 degrees, with the water level fluctuating unpredictably. And for its molecular systematics study, they took samples from a willow tree. It's also a large tree, but it's a willow. So, they put Chosenia in the same group as a willow and are now pondering what to do with it. There are many stories like this.
— It's understandable. People can be incompetent. But indeed, if there are twin species... Animals have many morphological traits, while plants seem to have fewer....
— And they all shift.
— Let's say there are two species based on molecular traits, and then everything easily hybridizes.
— Sure. It happens all the time.
— It tried to, but it failed. This is partly thanks to the passive and non-revolutionary nature of the special committee developing the botanical nomenclature code. It didn't change frequently because species names were traditionally tied to a morphological type, and mere molecular systematics wasn't sufficient to describe a species. However, this "harmony" was later disrupted by the concept of cryptic species. After finding a loophole in the code, molecular scientists began describing visually identical species that were clearly distinguishable by DNA sequences. Imagine you're walking in the Karoo in South Africa. You point at a beautiful orange daisy and ask a local expert about the species, and they tell you, "It used to be, let's say, an orange Mesembryanthemum, but now it's a complex of ten externally indistinguishable species, and I won't be able to tell you the name of the species until I sequence its DNA." However, our colleagues working on integrative systematics of liverworts have successfully identified morphological and anatomical traits that distinguish species previously described as cryptic. So I believe there is a lot of work to be done here, especially with organisms that are not well-studied.
Above all, systematics forms the foundation for much more serious science. Pure molecular systematics sometimes led to amusing dead ends simply because samples were collected from misidentified plants. Take Chosenia (Figure 3), for example. It's a very tall tree resembling a willow, with an impressive habitat ranging from central Japan to Chukotka. Can you imagine such a range for a tree? It grows in river valleys where gravel accumulates. During the day, the temperature on gravel spits can reach +50 degrees, and at night it can drop to +5 degrees, with the water level fluctuating unpredictably. And for its molecular systematics study, they took samples from a willow tree. It's also a large tree, but it's a willow. So, they put Chosenia in the same group as a willow and are now pondering what to do with it. There are many stories like this.
— It's understandable. People can be incompetent. But indeed, if there are twin species... Animals have many morphological traits, while plants seem to have fewer....
— And they all shift.
— Let's say there are two species based on molecular traits, and then everything easily hybridizes.
— Sure. It happens all the time.
— Is the concept of species well defined for plants? Various citrus fruits, – lemon, tangerine, lime, grapefruit, pomelo, sweetie, and different types of oranges, were cultivated from three ancestors, I think. I remember a time when pomelos didn't even exist. If you showed Mr. Linnaeus a lemon and a tangerine, he would probably say that they were two different species.
— Yes. This is a completely different way of understanding diversity, and even the concept of species isn't the most important here.
— What's the most important then?
— It's precisely the genetic diversity that results from all the crossbreeding, hybridization, and everything else... And I doubt anyone knows how to formally assess it yet. There have been several attempts to understand roses... Unsuccessful attempts... I've seen several grants supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research... Roses are a system that hybridizes a lot. It's impossible to establish species there, and the original sources are often unknown. They use varieties and groups of varieties, and that's it.
— What is a pure variety? It's a mysterious concept, really.
— Indeed. A variety is a plant individual that is maintained for a very long time and in various ways until it is disconnected from life support systems.
— Yes. This is a completely different way of understanding diversity, and even the concept of species isn't the most important here.
— What's the most important then?
— It's precisely the genetic diversity that results from all the crossbreeding, hybridization, and everything else... And I doubt anyone knows how to formally assess it yet. There have been several attempts to understand roses... Unsuccessful attempts... I've seen several grants supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research... Roses are a system that hybridizes a lot. It's impossible to establish species there, and the original sources are often unknown. They use varieties and groups of varieties, and that's it.
— What is a pure variety? It's a mysterious concept, really.
— Indeed. A variety is a plant individual that is maintained for a very long time and in various ways until it is disconnected from life support systems.
— The gardener was negligent and allowed cross-breeding. Game over...
— That's also incompetence. Seeds have nothing to do with maintaining varieties. In this case we’re talking about vegetative propagation.
— Do plants deteriorate if they are vegetatively propagated for a long time?
— They do indeed. Potatoes are a typical example. It needs to be constantly renewed, one needs to maintain pure lines and change varieties. Otherwise, potatoes will degenerate, and the variety becomes less productive.
So, as I said, one of the problems is systematics. However, there are other questions. For example, the study of how plants react to climate change is a new, unexpected issue that has recently emerged that can be effectively tackled in botanical gardens. This is a suitable task as a botanical garden allows for detailed observation of a plant. The plant is always visible and can be grown in a relatively controlled experimental setting where two samples placed in different locations can exhibit variations due to a known set of climatic conditions.
— That's also incompetence. Seeds have nothing to do with maintaining varieties. In this case we’re talking about vegetative propagation.
— Do plants deteriorate if they are vegetatively propagated for a long time?
— They do indeed. Potatoes are a typical example. It needs to be constantly renewed, one needs to maintain pure lines and change varieties. Otherwise, potatoes will degenerate, and the variety becomes less productive.
So, as I said, one of the problems is systematics. However, there are other questions. For example, the study of how plants react to climate change is a new, unexpected issue that has recently emerged that can be effectively tackled in botanical gardens. This is a suitable task as a botanical garden allows for detailed observation of a plant. The plant is always visible and can be grown in a relatively controlled experimental setting where two samples placed in different locations can exhibit variations due to a known set of climatic conditions.
— Do you need a large diverse area to do this?
— Absolutely. There is a reason why botanical gardens are connected in the network. Gardens are typically established as a network to encompass the full spectrum of climatic variations across a country. These variations enable comparisons of how a particular variety or species thrives in different locations while also facilitating the development of models. Currently, our forest studies are progressing quite well, spanning several gardens including the Siberian Garden and the Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute, although the latter is now a bit less involved. We collaborate with some of the world's largest gardens, such as the Missouri Gardens and Kew Gardens. This enables us to integrate data and tackle global challenges. The Smithsonian Institution oversees an international network that monitors large sample plots within forest ecosystems. We have sample areas that are registered within the global monitoring network.
— To what extent has the systematics of plants changed at a higher level?
— I would say significantly. The revolution occurred already in the early 2000s. As a geobotanist, I'm just a user, and for me, molecular methods are a tool. I now see some people struggle with the set of names that existed and then suddenly changed. Although nothing in particular has changed in our latitudes, except for the Orobanchaceae and Scrophulariaceae, where significant shifts have occurred. Everything that used to be Ledum is now classified as Rhododendrons (Figure 2). That's it, there is no more Ledum, only Rhododendrons. The expansion of systematics tools, mainly thanks to the advancement of molecular studies, has brought about tectonic shifts in global systematics.
— Absolutely. There is a reason why botanical gardens are connected in the network. Gardens are typically established as a network to encompass the full spectrum of climatic variations across a country. These variations enable comparisons of how a particular variety or species thrives in different locations while also facilitating the development of models. Currently, our forest studies are progressing quite well, spanning several gardens including the Siberian Garden and the Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute, although the latter is now a bit less involved. We collaborate with some of the world's largest gardens, such as the Missouri Gardens and Kew Gardens. This enables us to integrate data and tackle global challenges. The Smithsonian Institution oversees an international network that monitors large sample plots within forest ecosystems. We have sample areas that are registered within the global monitoring network.
— To what extent has the systematics of plants changed at a higher level?
— I would say significantly. The revolution occurred already in the early 2000s. As a geobotanist, I'm just a user, and for me, molecular methods are a tool. I now see some people struggle with the set of names that existed and then suddenly changed. Although nothing in particular has changed in our latitudes, except for the Orobanchaceae and Scrophulariaceae, where significant shifts have occurred. Everything that used to be Ledum is now classified as Rhododendrons (Figure 2). That's it, there is no more Ledum, only Rhododendrons. The expansion of systematics tools, mainly thanks to the advancement of molecular studies, has brought about tectonic shifts in global systematics.
Photographer: Engeny Gurko /
for “Life and Other Stories”
for “Life and Other Stories”
— Is it possible that there will be another tectonic shift in the next 20 years?
— That's precisely why we're doing this. We see new details emerge constantly. Science is evolving into a multi-system field. Biota and plant systems are multi-scaled. Their overall integration involves many levels, with different factors leading to integration at each level. Therefore, the more levels are simultaneously involved in studying an object, the more opportunities there are to discover something new.
All in all, geobotany in Russia is a fascinating discipline in terms of both scientific development and controversies. Since the inception of geobotany, various schools have emerged, fiercely debating theoretical issues related to vegetation cover structure. In my opinion, Sukachev's geobotanical school, the most famous in Russia, was totalitarian despite Sukachev's progressive scientific approach. It suppressed any dissenting views. For instance, the school of Ramensky, who studied ecological scales and worked mainly with grasslands in the south, was suppressed after he opposed Sukachev. After that, he was practically banned from publishing his views on vegetation cover structure in any official scientific magazines for 30 years. Fortunately, he managed to publish his ecological scales in the 1970s, and they greatly influenced the organization of agriculture.
On the other hand, Germany has probably the only geobotany institute in the world, located at Leibniz University in Hannover. Its director, Richard Pott, is the author of the textbook General Geobotany (Allgemeine Geobotanik. Biogeosysteme und Biodiversität). Its first page reads, "The Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago." That's where geobotany begins for them. They study the levels of plant system organization where other factors, not biological but environmental, begin to play a significant role. Therefore, geobotanists study a broad spectrum of issues. In Russia, for a long time, much was reduced to disputes between different schools of vegetation classification. There is the Sukachev school with its moss-covered spruce forest, and there is the Braun-Blanquet school, which argues that the moss-covered spruce forest is an artificial formation and has no right to exist. But if we delve into the relationship between plants and climate, there is a lot more to discuss. Primarily, of course, it concerns climate change.
— In the UK, there is a project where people simply record the blooming periods and observe how everything is gradually shifting north...
— And any elderly lady can tell you that something is growing better now than it used to, or vice versa. This seemingly simple phenology has yielded some interesting results. For example, we've recently discovered Siebold's magnolia in our natural forest areas. This plant doesn't usually grow in the Russian Far East. It's native to Korea, China, and, to some extent, Japan. And we found it in the forest. This is to answer your first question about whether botanical gardens are harmful because they spread everything... We planted Siebold's magnolia in our garden in 1974. It was brought from North Korea and grew for a long time without bearing fruit. In the 1980s, it started blooming and would bloom one year and then not bloom the next. Then it started bearing fruit but wouldn't spread beyond the garden. And now it has appeared in the forest. We looked at our phenological observations and found that over the past 20 years, the vegetation period for magnolia has increased by eight days — not much, really — and the blooming period has doubled. Now it blooms for forty days instead of twenty as in the 1980s, so the seeds have begun to mature, and birds have started spreading them. As a result, it has moved into the forest and started to settle everywhere. So that's an interesting example of how plants migrate using human assistance.
— That's precisely why we're doing this. We see new details emerge constantly. Science is evolving into a multi-system field. Biota and plant systems are multi-scaled. Their overall integration involves many levels, with different factors leading to integration at each level. Therefore, the more levels are simultaneously involved in studying an object, the more opportunities there are to discover something new.
All in all, geobotany in Russia is a fascinating discipline in terms of both scientific development and controversies. Since the inception of geobotany, various schools have emerged, fiercely debating theoretical issues related to vegetation cover structure. In my opinion, Sukachev's geobotanical school, the most famous in Russia, was totalitarian despite Sukachev's progressive scientific approach. It suppressed any dissenting views. For instance, the school of Ramensky, who studied ecological scales and worked mainly with grasslands in the south, was suppressed after he opposed Sukachev. After that, he was practically banned from publishing his views on vegetation cover structure in any official scientific magazines for 30 years. Fortunately, he managed to publish his ecological scales in the 1970s, and they greatly influenced the organization of agriculture.
On the other hand, Germany has probably the only geobotany institute in the world, located at Leibniz University in Hannover. Its director, Richard Pott, is the author of the textbook General Geobotany (Allgemeine Geobotanik. Biogeosysteme und Biodiversität). Its first page reads, "The Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago." That's where geobotany begins for them. They study the levels of plant system organization where other factors, not biological but environmental, begin to play a significant role. Therefore, geobotanists study a broad spectrum of issues. In Russia, for a long time, much was reduced to disputes between different schools of vegetation classification. There is the Sukachev school with its moss-covered spruce forest, and there is the Braun-Blanquet school, which argues that the moss-covered spruce forest is an artificial formation and has no right to exist. But if we delve into the relationship between plants and climate, there is a lot more to discuss. Primarily, of course, it concerns climate change.
— In the UK, there is a project where people simply record the blooming periods and observe how everything is gradually shifting north...
— And any elderly lady can tell you that something is growing better now than it used to, or vice versa. This seemingly simple phenology has yielded some interesting results. For example, we've recently discovered Siebold's magnolia in our natural forest areas. This plant doesn't usually grow in the Russian Far East. It's native to Korea, China, and, to some extent, Japan. And we found it in the forest. This is to answer your first question about whether botanical gardens are harmful because they spread everything... We planted Siebold's magnolia in our garden in 1974. It was brought from North Korea and grew for a long time without bearing fruit. In the 1980s, it started blooming and would bloom one year and then not bloom the next. Then it started bearing fruit but wouldn't spread beyond the garden. And now it has appeared in the forest. We looked at our phenological observations and found that over the past 20 years, the vegetation period for magnolia has increased by eight days — not much, really — and the blooming period has doubled. Now it blooms for forty days instead of twenty as in the 1980s, so the seeds have begun to mature, and birds have started spreading them. As a result, it has moved into the forest and started to settle everywhere. So that's an interesting example of how plants migrate using human assistance.
— It probably would have still gotten there without human intervention, just at a slower pace.
— A very interesting technology named species distribution modeling has been developed recently. We've created a series of climate models that allow us to see how plants behaved in the past and how they will behave in the future as predicted by these models. We're seeing some very interesting things that we can now actually observe with our own eyes.
Take the Korean pine (commonly known as cedar, Figure 4), for example. In the Pleistocene, it inhabited the shelf of the dried Yellow Sea, Korea, and a little bit of Northeast China. In the south, its habitat reached as far as Guangdong Province, which is the southernmost part of China. Naturally, it wasn't present in Russia. But then it started to spread. In the Holocene, it occupied most of its current habitat, and today, it continues to extend its reach. But something happened. In Korea, there was a period of reforestation after the Korean War, when they started creating plantations of Korean pine with the goal of harvesting its timber and nuts. But now, just 40 years later, all the pines on these plantations are leaking resin and dying...
— Is it due to age? Or has it become too hot?
— It's too hot. But more importantly, it's dry, so the pines got attacked by invaders, insects and fungi. We use a wide range of dendrochronological methods, including examining growth rings. And what's happening now in the southwest of the cedar's habitat is that conditions are becoming unsuitable. We've obtained distribution models and are seeing processes that are happening now. And they're happening quite fast. Firstly, we're losing the southern populations, which hold the most ancient gene pool of this species. Secondly, we notice that conditions north of the cedar's distribution range are becoming favorable for its growth. We've already proposed to the Sakhalin government to cultivate cedar plantations, as they could be utilized in Sakhalin in about fifty years. The cedar will thrive there, unlike in the south of Primorsky Krai.
— That's wonderful, but ecological models still seem overly simplified. There are so many variables that if you attempt to create a comprehensive model, you'll end up with more unknowns than equations. And if you opt for a simple model, it will be hard to discern where the truth lies.
— That's partly true. It's evident that a cedar, or any plant for that matter, has absolutely no comprehension of what a global temperature rise of one degree is. Just like violets on a windowsill. We can either water them a cup daily or neglect them for a week and then drench them with a bucketful of water. It's the same volume of water, but they'll probably die in the second scenario. Hence, we try to select and incorporate the factors and environmental parameters that we deem physiologically significant... The process of conceptualizing and designing the model plays a crucial role. Then we take numerous factors and, essentially, evaluate the contribution of each factor to the model... Everything is quite unstable, but we are aware of the error margin, and that's the most important thing.
— A very interesting technology named species distribution modeling has been developed recently. We've created a series of climate models that allow us to see how plants behaved in the past and how they will behave in the future as predicted by these models. We're seeing some very interesting things that we can now actually observe with our own eyes.
Take the Korean pine (commonly known as cedar, Figure 4), for example. In the Pleistocene, it inhabited the shelf of the dried Yellow Sea, Korea, and a little bit of Northeast China. In the south, its habitat reached as far as Guangdong Province, which is the southernmost part of China. Naturally, it wasn't present in Russia. But then it started to spread. In the Holocene, it occupied most of its current habitat, and today, it continues to extend its reach. But something happened. In Korea, there was a period of reforestation after the Korean War, when they started creating plantations of Korean pine with the goal of harvesting its timber and nuts. But now, just 40 years later, all the pines on these plantations are leaking resin and dying...
— Is it due to age? Or has it become too hot?
— It's too hot. But more importantly, it's dry, so the pines got attacked by invaders, insects and fungi. We use a wide range of dendrochronological methods, including examining growth rings. And what's happening now in the southwest of the cedar's habitat is that conditions are becoming unsuitable. We've obtained distribution models and are seeing processes that are happening now. And they're happening quite fast. Firstly, we're losing the southern populations, which hold the most ancient gene pool of this species. Secondly, we notice that conditions north of the cedar's distribution range are becoming favorable for its growth. We've already proposed to the Sakhalin government to cultivate cedar plantations, as they could be utilized in Sakhalin in about fifty years. The cedar will thrive there, unlike in the south of Primorsky Krai.
— That's wonderful, but ecological models still seem overly simplified. There are so many variables that if you attempt to create a comprehensive model, you'll end up with more unknowns than equations. And if you opt for a simple model, it will be hard to discern where the truth lies.
— That's partly true. It's evident that a cedar, or any plant for that matter, has absolutely no comprehension of what a global temperature rise of one degree is. Just like violets on a windowsill. We can either water them a cup daily or neglect them for a week and then drench them with a bucketful of water. It's the same volume of water, but they'll probably die in the second scenario. Hence, we try to select and incorporate the factors and environmental parameters that we deem physiologically significant... The process of conceptualizing and designing the model plays a crucial role. Then we take numerous factors and, essentially, evaluate the contribution of each factor to the model... Everything is quite unstable, but we are aware of the error margin, and that's the most important thing.
Photographer: Engeny Gurko /
for “Life and Other Stories”
for “Life and Other Stories”
— Could it be that the result is derived not from the model but from common sense? And then you adjust the model until it aligns with common sense.
— I believe that almost all simulation models are like that, which makes modeling anything with biota quite challenging. But at least there are some formal parameters of the plant, like its distribution or other functions, and we have formal parameters of the environment. All that makes modeling a viable option that is currently being actively utilized. My colleagues and I have published several papers based on species distribution data. We also incorporated paleontological data, which led us to discover some fascinating things, such as the existence of refugia in one place for thousands of years. Imagine a group of species with diverse needs, evolving under environmental conditions over millions of years, spreading almost globally, and then facing abrupt climate change leading to near-total extinction. Except for certain locations where, primarily due to unique topography, there is a set of factors compensating for the lack of climatic resources. Too chilly? Here you have slopes facing the sun. Too arid? Here are the mists brought to this particular location from the ocean due to certain wind patterns. It's in such geographically limited areas that plant species — contemporaries of dinosaurs — have survived until our time. The models accurately pinpoint where the most ancient populations are preserved and where there are conditions conducive to their preservation. It's precisely these areas that should be the focus of more thorough genetic research.
— I believe that almost all simulation models are like that, which makes modeling anything with biota quite challenging. But at least there are some formal parameters of the plant, like its distribution or other functions, and we have formal parameters of the environment. All that makes modeling a viable option that is currently being actively utilized. My colleagues and I have published several papers based on species distribution data. We also incorporated paleontological data, which led us to discover some fascinating things, such as the existence of refugia in one place for thousands of years. Imagine a group of species with diverse needs, evolving under environmental conditions over millions of years, spreading almost globally, and then facing abrupt climate change leading to near-total extinction. Except for certain locations where, primarily due to unique topography, there is a set of factors compensating for the lack of climatic resources. Too chilly? Here you have slopes facing the sun. Too arid? Here are the mists brought to this particular location from the ocean due to certain wind patterns. It's in such geographically limited areas that plant species — contemporaries of dinosaurs — have survived until our time. The models accurately pinpoint where the most ancient populations are preserved and where there are conditions conducive to their preservation. It's precisely these areas that should be the focus of more thorough genetic research.
— Succession of plants is also given considerable attention, isn't it?
— It's being addressed. I have a bone to pick with geobotanists who also deal with succession. In Russia, significant advancements in succession research have been made by the Leningrad school of geobotany, the Moscow school of geobotany, and the emerging Far Eastern school. They have identified certain patterns in the changes of forest ecosystems in the European and Siberian parts of Russia. But the ecosystems in Europe and Siberia are quite simple. However, if we move further south, to our Far East or the Caucasus, the ecosystem there is exponentially more complex. And what Russian geobotanists have been doing — which I consider a cardinal sin — is trying to explain complex ecosystems with simplistic models. Naturally, this has led to disastrous outcomes that have significantly impacted forestry management, production planning, ecosystem management, and so on. For instance, since the 1960s, Moscow has been dictating what should be done in the Far Eastern forests, leading to Scotch pine being planted in swamps. Such is the mindset of Russian people: if there is an open space, it must be used to grow a forest.
— But there are pines that grow right on swamp islands.
— Indeed, there are. But in Russia, Pinus sylvestris, which grows just about everywhere, reaches as far as Komsomolsk-on-Amur but doesn't extend further to the sea. So planting it on Sakhalin, for instance, is utterly futile. And yet a lot of such trees have been planted there. We would be better off with southern pines, like the Japanese red pine from Korea and Japan, which have a natural range and growth conditions in that region. However, in Moscow, they know the Scotch pine. They know that it grows in swamps and will grow anywhere, so they instruct the Far Eastern forestry departments to plant this pine, and then it inevitably dies. And this has been going on for nearly a century. Can you imagine that? What a waste of resources.
Another example of explaining complex ecosystems with simplistic models comes from the field of biogeography... As Russians were colonizing Siberia, they moved southward, and the vegetation changed accordingly. A person accustomed to birch trees, seeing a liana for the first time, immediately labels what they see as subtropical. Even today, well-educated people like yourself claim that Sochi is subtropical and so is the Far East. That's simply not true. It's a gross oversimplification, to put it mildly. Therefore, everything we do in the field of bioclimatic modeling, based on a vast amount of data, allows us to more accurately determine the climatic potential of a region for agricultural development. International collaboration is crucial here. Together with our colleagues, we've managed to create global databases for modeling.
— Is it even possible to provide a description for a tropical forest? Or will every square meter be unique?
— It's possible, albeit quite difficult. Take, for example, our Finnish colleagues who worked in Brazil. There, the trees reach a height of 80 meters. In Brazil, you can at least somewhat identify trees by their bark, but in East Asia it's practically impossible because the convergence is such that the trees look identical. They all have light, smooth bark. To identify them, you need to pluck flowers from the top of the crown. So, a team of climbers is hired to collect and deliver material that can be used to identify the plant. That material is then used to compile a geobotanical description, one per month at most. The diversity is simply staggering. In Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a little north of São Paulo, there are 450 species per hectare of trees in the first canopy. That is, one tree of each species per hectare. And the same level of diversity exists in Malaysia.
— If there is only one tree of a given species per hectare, how do they find each other to reproduce?
— That's a good question. For trees it's easier because there are insects that fly far. There are birds, bats, flying foxes, and so on. In Russia, we have a rather more mundane plant ginseng. It's so rare and valuable (even compared to gold) that a unique professional group of people, known as root miners, emerged in the Far East in the 19th century to extract it. Only a minuscule percentage of these root miners were fortunate enough to find it. The process of ginseng pollination is truly a mystery. Obviously, like with most plants, things usually occur without pollination, but there must be a certain window when this plant can be pollinated. However, it typically grows so far apart that scientists are yet to present a convincing explanation.
In the 1960s, the Smithsonian Institution embarked on an extraordinary project. They started setting up special monitoring sample areas in tropical forests. The primary goal was to monitor the effects of various changes on forest structure, timber reserves, and numerous other forest parameters on a worldwide scale. Much has been accomplished, and now sample areas from more northern and southern latitudes are being added to this system alongside the tropical forests. These sample areas all use the same methodology, are fully comparable, and allow for automatic reading of formal parameters such as tree height, growth rate, and changes in tree crowns, among other things.
In general, we currently have information on tropical forests (although there are barely any true tropical forests left in the world). But there are also entirely unexplored regions, such as Papua New Guinea. And I'm not just talking about forest ecosystems. There is a lack of basic information on their taxonomic composition, species have yet to be described. The situation is so bad that it's hard to find a systematist who can at least identify a tree and name it.
— It's being addressed. I have a bone to pick with geobotanists who also deal with succession. In Russia, significant advancements in succession research have been made by the Leningrad school of geobotany, the Moscow school of geobotany, and the emerging Far Eastern school. They have identified certain patterns in the changes of forest ecosystems in the European and Siberian parts of Russia. But the ecosystems in Europe and Siberia are quite simple. However, if we move further south, to our Far East or the Caucasus, the ecosystem there is exponentially more complex. And what Russian geobotanists have been doing — which I consider a cardinal sin — is trying to explain complex ecosystems with simplistic models. Naturally, this has led to disastrous outcomes that have significantly impacted forestry management, production planning, ecosystem management, and so on. For instance, since the 1960s, Moscow has been dictating what should be done in the Far Eastern forests, leading to Scotch pine being planted in swamps. Such is the mindset of Russian people: if there is an open space, it must be used to grow a forest.
— But there are pines that grow right on swamp islands.
— Indeed, there are. But in Russia, Pinus sylvestris, which grows just about everywhere, reaches as far as Komsomolsk-on-Amur but doesn't extend further to the sea. So planting it on Sakhalin, for instance, is utterly futile. And yet a lot of such trees have been planted there. We would be better off with southern pines, like the Japanese red pine from Korea and Japan, which have a natural range and growth conditions in that region. However, in Moscow, they know the Scotch pine. They know that it grows in swamps and will grow anywhere, so they instruct the Far Eastern forestry departments to plant this pine, and then it inevitably dies. And this has been going on for nearly a century. Can you imagine that? What a waste of resources.
Another example of explaining complex ecosystems with simplistic models comes from the field of biogeography... As Russians were colonizing Siberia, they moved southward, and the vegetation changed accordingly. A person accustomed to birch trees, seeing a liana for the first time, immediately labels what they see as subtropical. Even today, well-educated people like yourself claim that Sochi is subtropical and so is the Far East. That's simply not true. It's a gross oversimplification, to put it mildly. Therefore, everything we do in the field of bioclimatic modeling, based on a vast amount of data, allows us to more accurately determine the climatic potential of a region for agricultural development. International collaboration is crucial here. Together with our colleagues, we've managed to create global databases for modeling.
— Is it even possible to provide a description for a tropical forest? Or will every square meter be unique?
— It's possible, albeit quite difficult. Take, for example, our Finnish colleagues who worked in Brazil. There, the trees reach a height of 80 meters. In Brazil, you can at least somewhat identify trees by their bark, but in East Asia it's practically impossible because the convergence is such that the trees look identical. They all have light, smooth bark. To identify them, you need to pluck flowers from the top of the crown. So, a team of climbers is hired to collect and deliver material that can be used to identify the plant. That material is then used to compile a geobotanical description, one per month at most. The diversity is simply staggering. In Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a little north of São Paulo, there are 450 species per hectare of trees in the first canopy. That is, one tree of each species per hectare. And the same level of diversity exists in Malaysia.
— If there is only one tree of a given species per hectare, how do they find each other to reproduce?
— That's a good question. For trees it's easier because there are insects that fly far. There are birds, bats, flying foxes, and so on. In Russia, we have a rather more mundane plant ginseng. It's so rare and valuable (even compared to gold) that a unique professional group of people, known as root miners, emerged in the Far East in the 19th century to extract it. Only a minuscule percentage of these root miners were fortunate enough to find it. The process of ginseng pollination is truly a mystery. Obviously, like with most plants, things usually occur without pollination, but there must be a certain window when this plant can be pollinated. However, it typically grows so far apart that scientists are yet to present a convincing explanation.
In the 1960s, the Smithsonian Institution embarked on an extraordinary project. They started setting up special monitoring sample areas in tropical forests. The primary goal was to monitor the effects of various changes on forest structure, timber reserves, and numerous other forest parameters on a worldwide scale. Much has been accomplished, and now sample areas from more northern and southern latitudes are being added to this system alongside the tropical forests. These sample areas all use the same methodology, are fully comparable, and allow for automatic reading of formal parameters such as tree height, growth rate, and changes in tree crowns, among other things.
In general, we currently have information on tropical forests (although there are barely any true tropical forests left in the world). But there are also entirely unexplored regions, such as Papua New Guinea. And I'm not just talking about forest ecosystems. There is a lack of basic information on their taxonomic composition, species have yet to be described. The situation is so bad that it's hard to find a systematist who can at least identify a tree and name it.
Photographer: Engeny Gurko /
for “Life and Other Stories”
for “Life and Other Stories”
— We’ve been talking about trees. What about grasses and shrubs?
— Grasses mean very little in tropical forests. There, the tree is the primary form of growth, and grasses and shrubs are mostly epiphytes that grow not on the soil but on other larger plants that "lift" the smaller ones towards the light.
— Is there a lack of light?
— There is a competition for light. It's all about the plant communities in the crown tops of big trees. Crown ecosystems are also studied, but it's extremely labor-intensive, and naturally, it's only about biodiversity and nothing more. Given all the complexities that prevent the straightforward use of existing methodological tools in tropical forest ecosystems, a very interesting approach has been proposed, which is now being actively developed in our field. It's called plant traits, that is, the study of characteristic features of plants.
Once again, Russian geobotany took a long time to develop a system of plant life forms. A life form is the habitus of plants that evolves under specific climatic and ecological conditions. This is Serebryakov's idea, but our scientists didn't fully implement it. They created a branched system, but they haven't progressed past describing life forms. The Europeans, on the other hand, have implemented the plant traits approach. It's now very widespread, and there is a massive database. Instead of working with plant species, they link characteristic external traits of plants with all environmental factors, examining what functional load a particular manifestation of a trait carries. And significant progress has been made.
This approach has proven to be highly popular in areas with unknown biota, where many species have not yet been described. Take a study from New Guinea, for example. Given: a very rare butterfly species that must be preserved amid intensive exploitation of tropical forests, where many species are not described, and if they are described, they can be identified in wilderness by only one or two people in the world. It's impossible to write any regression equation, as we do in Russia, to see where this butterfly is distributed and to what type of ecosystems it is tied. Instead, scientists use an artificial language invented by my friend Andy Gillison that describes the external traits of plants and, alongside the binary Linnaean systematics, creates a systematics based on manifestations of certain traits. For instance, what does a leaf look like? It's either in the horizontal or vertical plane, or it's hanging. Where is its chlorophyll located? Is it at the top, at the bottom, or on both sides? Is there chlorophyll under the bark? What life form does this plant belong to according to Raunkiær? When there is a system of such traits, a regression equation can be made, and we can see some connections between biodiversity and a set of traits.
without any issues.
— Grasses mean very little in tropical forests. There, the tree is the primary form of growth, and grasses and shrubs are mostly epiphytes that grow not on the soil but on other larger plants that "lift" the smaller ones towards the light.
— Is there a lack of light?
— There is a competition for light. It's all about the plant communities in the crown tops of big trees. Crown ecosystems are also studied, but it's extremely labor-intensive, and naturally, it's only about biodiversity and nothing more. Given all the complexities that prevent the straightforward use of existing methodological tools in tropical forest ecosystems, a very interesting approach has been proposed, which is now being actively developed in our field. It's called plant traits, that is, the study of characteristic features of plants.
Once again, Russian geobotany took a long time to develop a system of plant life forms. A life form is the habitus of plants that evolves under specific climatic and ecological conditions. This is Serebryakov's idea, but our scientists didn't fully implement it. They created a branched system, but they haven't progressed past describing life forms. The Europeans, on the other hand, have implemented the plant traits approach. It's now very widespread, and there is a massive database. Instead of working with plant species, they link characteristic external traits of plants with all environmental factors, examining what functional load a particular manifestation of a trait carries. And significant progress has been made.
This approach has proven to be highly popular in areas with unknown biota, where many species have not yet been described. Take a study from New Guinea, for example. Given: a very rare butterfly species that must be preserved amid intensive exploitation of tropical forests, where many species are not described, and if they are described, they can be identified in wilderness by only one or two people in the world. It's impossible to write any regression equation, as we do in Russia, to see where this butterfly is distributed and to what type of ecosystems it is tied. Instead, scientists use an artificial language invented by my friend Andy Gillison that describes the external traits of plants and, alongside the binary Linnaean systematics, creates a systematics based on manifestations of certain traits. For instance, what does a leaf look like? It's either in the horizontal or vertical plane, or it's hanging. Where is its chlorophyll located? Is it at the top, at the bottom, or on both sides? Is there chlorophyll under the bark? What life form does this plant belong to according to Raunkiær? When there is a system of such traits, a regression equation can be made, and we can see some connections between biodiversity and a set of traits.
without any issues.
— If it's a butterfly nibbling on one plant, what difference does it make how its leaf hangs?
— Sometimes it matters. Sometimes it depends a lot on ecosystems. What do they do? They arrive at a site, recruit students, teach them these simple trait assessments, and gather big data that can then be incorporated into a model showing the distribution of a specific community. This can be done without knowing the species of trees. Naturally, it's an approximation, but it still yields results. At least we can identify valuable forest areas that should not be cut down at all and should be excluded from exploitation and assess forest areas that can be used.
— One final question. How can we understand which forest is valuable?
— A valuable forest can easily be lost forever.
— Sometimes it matters. Sometimes it depends a lot on ecosystems. What do they do? They arrive at a site, recruit students, teach them these simple trait assessments, and gather big data that can then be incorporated into a model showing the distribution of a specific community. This can be done without knowing the species of trees. Naturally, it's an approximation, but it still yields results. At least we can identify valuable forest areas that should not be cut down at all and should be excluded from exploitation and assess forest areas that can be used.
— One final question. How can we understand which forest is valuable?
— A valuable forest can easily be lost forever.
This interview was first published on Naked Science website on March 30, 2023
