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[00:00:00] Michael Hawk: Hey, you’re in for a treat today. It’s like two episodes in one. My guest today is Allasandra Valdez, a botanist working on her PhD in plant physiology in Cornell university’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. Allasandra has a background studying invasive species and is the creator and host of the happy botanist podcast. Today’s wide ranging discussion touches on everything from studying plants, response to climate change through looking at carbon 13, isotopes to invasive species, including the hemlock woolly adelgid. And the surprising behaviors of an invasive grass called Johnson grass. They’re both really fascinating. And we also discussed Allasandra his work in science communication and her podcast, the happy botanist. As you know, my jumpstart nature organization seeks to amplify great work being done by others and after meeting Alisandra and learning about her work and her vision, I felt that she really fit the bill. So the last 30 minutes of today’s episode is a reshare of one of her episodes with Dr.

[00:00:57] Daniel Katz. Dr. Katz studies, airborne pollen, specifically allergenic pollen. If you’ve ever wondered why some pollen causes so much havoc, or if it was pollen forecast, you sometimes see on the local weather are accurate, stay tuned to learn more. So without further delay my interview with Allasandra Valdez and later her discussion with Dr.

[00:01:17] Katz. Allasandra, thank you so much for joining me here today.

[00:01:22] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, I’m so glad to be here. This is awesome.

[00:01:24] Michael Hawk: so this is A, maybe a little different style of episode for Nature’s Archive than typical and I’d say for a couple of months now we’ve been. Collaborating and exchanging notes because you started a podcast of your own. And I’ve been interested in following along on your journey with your new podcast.

[00:01:43] I’m glad that we’re making this real and I’m excited to be able to share one of your episodes to my audience.

[00:01:50] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, this has honestly been so exciting as a new podcaster. It’s great to have some podcasting mentors and it’s been so nice to chat and talk about things that I don’t normally talk about in my day to day. So yeah, this is a really exciting endeavor and it’s been building and I’m so glad we are getting the chance to finally have a podcast exchange and share some episodes.

[00:02:15] Michael Hawk: Yeah, definitely. You’re off to a great start as far as I can tell, and from what I’ve heard and seen. I’m looking forward to seeing how it continues to progress. But before we jump too far into that space, tell me a little bit about yourself. you’re a PhD candidate right now.

[00:02:30] What are you studying and we’ll start there.

[00:02:33] Allasandra Valdez: So I’m actually not a PhD candidate yet. And now this is a super complicated thing that not a lot of people really know the process behind. So technically I’m still in my PhD student phase. The candidacy happens after your first exam, and since I just started off my PhD this past year I’m in that PhD student phase until I take My candidacy exam which is gonna be at the end of my second year. But yeah, I started off went to college Not really knowing exactly what I wanted to be at the end. I’ve always had a love for science. So I thought I’d go into the medical field because I thought that’s a great way to practice science and be very, involved with the day-to-days and loving our world and loving our people.

[00:03:22] And as I got into college and started taking some of those medical classes, I just found out it just, it wasn’t for me. And there was this. Class that I started taking and it was an ecology based class looking at some different tree species. And I just like fell in love with ecology and it is one of those moments for me where I like turned around and I could just see how it was all kind of building up to this moment of like this.

[00:03:52] I don’t know, epitome almost of finding out I wanted to become a botanist. So that’s where my start comes from. But my love of nature has been something I’ve always been, a huge outdoors girl and I grew up in the mountains in Pennsylvania and the surrounding trees that I just grew up in them and playing around them.

[00:04:12] So I think that’s really where my botanical love started, but really solidified. In my first year of college, I got my masters at Oklahoma State University this past June, and yeah, now I’m here doing my Ph.D. at Cornell University. what is it specifically that you are studying?

[00:04:30] right now I’m in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and I am in a lab that focuses on the use of application of a method called Stable Isotopes to basically answer a bunch of questions throughout the world. And how I plan to do that is I really am interested in one specific isotope called Carbon-thirteen.

[00:04:53] And I know that sounds really scary, scary word, stable isotope. What is it? And I promise these are the isotopes that don’t blow up. These are the ones that stay around for a long time. but basically with that you can tell a lot about a type of plant science called plant physiology.

[00:05:09] And now plant physiology is basically the inner workings of a plant, how it’s responding to different stimulus outside of it. So I’m really interested in what I like to call plants. Not dying. And how they can not die. And basically just that barely staying alive point where it’s like, are you dead yet?

[00:05:30] Are you sure? Like, but with that you can tell a lot from how the plants are responding to drought and focusing that in the framework of climate change.

[00:05:41] Michael Hawk: I’m gonna tell you what an amazing coincidence because I am currently working on editing a discussion I had with Dr. Lucy Kerhoulas. She is a plant or forest physiologist at Cal Poly Humboldt. And. We talked all about carbon-twelve versus carbon-thirteen

[00:06:01] Allasandra Valdez: Oh, perfect.

[00:06:03] Michael Hawk: uses it.

[00:06:03] So this could be a quick introduction and then we’ll have a deep dive with Dr. Kerhoulas next. what a coincidence. Like I could not have planned that if I wanted to.

[00:06:13] Allasandra Valdez: Oh, that’s perfect. Yeah it’s all the rage right now in the plant physio world is we’ve, we’re big carbon gals over here, gals and guys.

[00:06:21] Michael Hawk: Yeah I learned a little bit from her about the type of machinery used to measure respiration of plants and like a bunch of different things that also go into the broader physiology. Measuring physiological responses and things like that, which was all new to me and very exciting.

[00:06:39] Allasandra Valdez: Oh yeah. Very exciting. We just got our brand new Licor and I have been geeking out

[00:06:44] Michael Hawk: The six, the 6,800 or

[00:06:46] Allasandra Valdez: the six-eight-hundred, oh no, not the sixty-four, the 68, of course. I’m very excited. I’m going to take a course with Licor in the upcoming months and get fully trained on it. I’ve used a Licor in the past, but it’s a wonderful piece of equipment.

[00:07:02] Go Licor. I guess,

[00:07:05] Michael Hawk: Yeah, I guess listeners are gonna have to tune in for the Lucy Kerhoulas episode to learn about what the Licor is and why that’s so exciting

[00:07:13] Allasandra Valdez: yeah, I’m super excited for it too.

[00:07:16] Michael Hawk: So awesome. And you’ve started a podcast of your own. Tell me about that.

[00:07:23] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, so I recently started the podcast it’s called The Happy Botanist. And it has been one of my absolute favorite passion projects. It’s been in the works in my head for like two years now, but officially launched this past October 2 23. Can’t believe it’s already 2024.

[00:07:41] And basically the reason why I started this podcast is I, we talked a little bit about my experience and how I came into college, not really quite sure what I wanted to pursue, and fell into this love for botany and ecology. And with that I’ve started doing some mentorship work when I was in Oklahoma getting my masters, I had some undergraduate researchers who are all.

[00:08:07] Fantastic and amazing, and I saw so much similarities between me and them and basically them kind of dealing with and working through these same questions of like, well, what can I even do with the degree in botany? What can I even learn? Like, why is it even important? They just joined this project because a lot of them heard at one point they needed a research credit and.

[00:08:28] It was a greenhouse based project, so there was like a lot of hands-on experience, and they’re like, oh, I’d like to garden with my grandma. And then I eventually had several students who ended up switching majors into plant ecology regular ecology, general biology, and focusing more on.

[00:08:45] The natural side of science because they found that love and passion for it too. And that whole experience was super rewarding. And I had this epiphany that this experience is not something that’s unique to a lot of students of not sure what to do and what can I even do with the degree in ecology or a degree where I’m studying plants.

[00:09:06] So this podcast is really aimed towards allowing people not just students. But to find that love for plants and really think about how plants relate to them in their everyday lives and just just celebrate plants and think about I’m, I feel like in every episode I’m like, they’re just so cool.

[00:09:24] Like, I love plants. They’re so neat. Like, so it’s a real shout out to just all of the different ways that you can study, interact with plants with the main focus of it being on botany, ecology, sustainability, and conservation.

[00:09:40] Michael Hawk: I know we’ve talked a little bit too about the science communication side of all of this, and. That seems to also be a passion of yours to bring effective communication to the table. So tell me a little bit about the format of your podcast and how you apply some of those science communication principles to it.

[00:09:58] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. So for those that aren’t super familiar with science communication or lovingly said Sci-Com, basically scientists aren’t actually humans. I think we’ve determined and that we cannot communicate with the general public as a broad statement. There’s a lot of papers that get circulated around with some really just fascinating science.

[00:10:21] But they don’t really get sent circulated other than through our very specific niche groups. And maybe once in a while an article will pop up and make some big impact in several forms of. Popular science that maybe you’ll see through science magazines Instagram, TikTok, all of that kind of stuff.

[00:10:39] But basically what science communication is trying to bridge that gap and make this a lot more accessible and understanding, understandable for people who aren’t directly in the science every day in the lab, in the field world. As I’m expecting many of these listeners probably have some form of Sci-Com that maybe they’re already a part of or joined like naturalist groups as well as just reading popular science or even science fiction has a lot of great Sci-Com themes in there too.

[00:11:11] Basically how my episodes are typically set up. I have two episodes a month as of right now. And the first episode being like a 10 10 to 20 minute episode, which is basically like a science blast of a bunch of really cool things that groups of plants can do or problems within the plant communities.

[00:11:30] And helping people better understand the roles that. Plants play. And then my other episodes are, I call them happy hours, and I sit down with a fellow scientist, a fellow botanist, and we talk about. A bunch of different things. We have a wide range of happy hours, but basically we’re talking plants over drinking some botanical drinks.

[00:11:53] And it’s a great way to learn more about other types of research that other people are done. As I’ve said before, I’m a physiologist, so that means I’m really interested in those plants that are workings. So branching out and seeing how different people study and interact with plants, I think is something that is really interesting and a great way to get more than just my very boxed in perspective. But yeah, so trying to spread the word of science.

[00:12:20] Michael Hawk: I like how you positioned it that scientists apparently aren’t humans because they can’t communicate. And that’s I see more and more focus on science communication and some of the. Rigid boundaries that maybe had been set in the past in terms of how stories are told, how narratives are constructed.

[00:12:38] They seem to be this is a positive, but like, like breaking down a little bit. Those boundaries are breaking down and people are, are stretching a little bit more to focus on the communication. I think work by people like yourself helps to elevate that perspective that it’s just not all about the, getting in the weeds of the science. It’s about showing why it’s important and here you go. Throughout your academic career you mentioned you were at Oklahoma State, you had got a master’s. You’ve been involved in a number of different projects. So are there any favorite ones that you’d like to share with the audience today that they may also find interesting?

[00:13:13] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah one of my absolute favorite projects was one of the first projects that I originally got involved in, and. It was a project studying a microscopic bug called the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. And if you live on the east coast of the United States, you might be familiar with this.

[00:13:33] I don’t know if you’ve done any topics or anything on the hemlock, woolly adelgid yet. But basic Oh, they’re so cool. Well, they’re horrible, but so they’re um, these microscopic bugs and they love these hemlock trees. They are non. Native, they’re an invasive bug that came over by mistake. They got contaminated with, I think it was shipping, but double check me on that one.

[00:13:59] But basically this bug came over to the u.s, found its way and started burrowing within these hemlocks, and they’re so small you can’t even see. And they’re called wooly Adelgid because they basically create this like. Fuzzy looking slime, and I know it sounds really gross, but it’s very small.

[00:14:16] But basically they’re causing a mass extinction almost of these hemlock trees which is a huge part of our ecosystems here on the US East coast and especially in Pennsylvania where I grew up. And. I really found this project extremely important because not only did I see these trees being really affected by this non-native organism and really disturbing the ecosystems around it.

[00:14:45] But I also, these were the trees that I grew up with. before I could even identify a single plant species, I would see these trees everywhere. And then as I learned about this hemlock, woolly, adelgid and all of these problems that it was causing, it, it was really interesting to see. I could see almost in live time the shifts in tree communities within my own hometown and around my own local streams that I grew up with.

[00:15:11] that was a project that really got me excited about botany. And there’s a lot of work being done on ways to stop the hemlock, woolly adelgids, keep the spread to a minimum to help with these hemlock trees. So hopefully they won’t go into stink. I don’t think they’re gonna be endangered list yet. But they’re definitely in decline here and it’s one of those things that you can see it, it’s really happening in live time. So that kind of led towards my masters. I had done a couple other projects on invasive species work, and then my masters was all on invasive species.

[00:15:47] An invasive species in the Southwest us. in Oklahoma. And basically there’s this grass called Johnson Grass, highly prolific. Really snuffs out almost every other plant around it. It’s also allelopathic, which means that it produces these chemicals into the soil that say nothing else can grow here but me.

[00:16:09] it’s pretty nasty stuff. And basically with that project. We were trying to find ways to help minimize its impact and help managers be able to help manage it. And it turned out and now this isn’t published work yet, so maybe I shouldn’t be saying too much, but what we found is we are trying to.

[00:16:29] With increased drought, especially in areas like Oklahoma and Texas where it’s super prolific. One of the main ways that we manage it right now is clipping, mowing, grazing, basically getting it out of the ground type of thought process and. When there’s actually drought present, you would think that because there’s drought and because there’s this plant and it’s being clipped and it’s saying, I’m getting hurt, I’m getting hurt, maybe I’ll just die.

[00:16:54] It’s not worth being alive right now. Or here at least. But we actually found that when there was drought and we are doing this management on it of clipping it, we actually found that it was growing better. It was almost growing in some cases double as much as what it was if we just left it alone.

[00:17:12] But it was a really effective strategy when there was a lot of water around and that it was like a normal management strategy. So physical removal management, which is clipping, mowing, grazing, getting it out of the ground is effective when they’re. Was not drought present, but when there was, it actually kinda helped the plant in a sense.

[00:17:33] Michael Hawk: Wow. Where does Johnson Grass grow naturally?

[00:17:37] Allasandra Valdez: It’s, so there’s a couple different places they think it originated from. I, so it’s really big in like Southeast Asia but basically uh, a. Farmer, I think his name was Colonel Johnson. And so it was named after him said, oh my gosh, the cows are gonna love this. It’s great. It’s good foraging.

[00:17:57] It’s really big and leafy. And it grows like crazy. So they brought it over to the U.S, he planted it on his farm, and then they decided to plant it across the entire U.S. Then they’re like, oh my gosh, the cows don’t even like it. And when it’s in drought, it actually is toxic to cattle. And so that was a really great job on their part.

[00:18:22] So always do your research before you go plant species across the entire us. Yeah. And it’s invasive in all 48 connected states right now. But it’s really bad in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona.

[00:18:37] Michael Hawk: So many invasive plants came over for the purposes of cattle grazing or as an accidental side effect for cattle grazing, like mixed in accidentally. And it’s amazing here in California when we go out and we look at our hills, which get this in the summer, they’re very golden looking and it’s because of all these annual grasses that.

[00:18:57] Have dried up and they have an annual life cycle and we have a summertime drought. So they grow in the springtime and and then turn brown. And you start looking at them and they’re all invasives, like almost all of them. And so there’s a major problem in much of the US and the West and here in California in particular with invasive grasses and them. Crowding out the native plants that like all of our insects and everything else depend on. So it’s interesting study. It’s disappointing. And if, I think if if I could do, if I could snap my fingers and do one thing, it would be go back in time, A, to see what the lands actually looked like before all of this, and then B, to warn against doing all of these things.

[00:19:47] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely I feel like as I’ve gotten more into the world and into the knowledge of invasive plants even though that’s not my focus as much anymore but it’s still a big part of what makes me up as my science and my scientific. Path, as one may say it’s not an uncommon story of seed contaminations of getting it accidentally shipped in packaging.

[00:20:13] And it’s just because we didn’t know originally. And as we become more and more global of a society I think that there’s definitely gonna need to be a lot of prevention happening. As from my own research, I’ve found that it is very hard to backpedal in a sense in trying to get rid of the species.

[00:20:32] But that is a for debate along a lot of scientists and on where the focus should be. But yeah, not an uncommon story.

[00:20:42] Michael Hawk: Just not to belabor the invasive species aspect of all of this too much, but I’ve been playing around with a Jumpstart Nature podcast idea, which is those are more narrative podcasts and one being about invasive species. And there’s this track record that we have from Chestnut Blight to Emerald Ash Borer to apparently the Hemlock I better get the pronunciation right.

[00:21:06] Ajid.

[00:21:07] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, ind.

[00:21:09] Michael Hawk: that we keep repeating. And then I know some people that live, say in New Zealand or in Australia and they have very strict regulations on imports and inspecting shipping. And they don’t even allow a lot of plants to be imported because with. Imported plants come, all sorts of things that

[00:21:27] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah.

[00:21:28] Michael Hawk: from worms to bacteria to fungi to ants to whatever.

[00:21:33] it’s an interesting comparison to look at a place like New Zealand and how they manage their ecosystems compared to how we do it here in the us And when you start to think, what might this look like? If you fast forward another a hundred years and which one is the sustainable model

[00:21:50] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. Yeah. Especially for places like New Zealand and I can’t say ’cause I’ve never been to New Zealand, but islands and smaller countries and smaller landmasses are at most risk especially since most of them have a ton of. Endemic species, which are types of species that are not found anywhere throughout the world.

[00:22:12] So they definitely have a lot to lose with the smaller size that you have. So I think that’s, it’s awesome that programs like in New Zealand and Australia and I definitely think that there’s a lot to learn there that we can use to protect our larger North American land masses too.

[00:22:29] Michael Hawk: Yeah they both had some dramatic lessons learned as well that adds to their story. The episode that we’re sharing today from the Happy Botanist, it’s about allergenic pollen, and I am just curious, like, how did you stumble upon that topic?

[00:22:47] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. Oh my gosh. So it was just, it happened to be a friend of a friend kind of situation. So when you join a PhD program instead of having grade levels, they put you in what’s called cohort, which basically just means this is the group of people who started with you and we’ll finish around the same time as you.

[00:23:09] And so one of the girls in my cohort, she happened to be one of the first graduate students of Dr. Dan Katz, and she was telling me all about the amazing research that they were planning on doing and some of the projects he had done in the past. And I. It was so different to me because there’s not a lot of research out there on allergenic pollen and I found myself asking questions that I never even really considered before.

[00:23:37] Like, well, what makes some pollen allergenic pollen and other pollens just fine for people. And really having that focus on the health and the impact of communities of how plants and people can relate. I just found it really fascinating. And so she was able to connect me with Dr.

[00:23:56] Katz who is an amazing guy and an amazing researcher, and they just had their first field season, which is super exciting and I know that lab is gonna produce some really fantastic work out there. I was like, I have to get you on an episode. Let’s find a time.

[00:24:11] And it worked out really well. And it’s been an amazing time.

[00:24:15] Michael Hawk: Well, I enjoyed it and that’s partly why we’re sharing it here today. before we get into the standard questions that that we talked about, are, do you have any upcoming episodes that you wanna shout out or tease or get people excited for? I.

[00:24:29] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. So we have a really exciting episode coming out February 15th. It is another happy hour, and his name is Seven Song and he is a herbal practitioner at a free clinic here in Ithaca. And he’s just absolutely a, an amazing herbalist. But we focus. The podcast, the Happy Hour on Plant Taxonomy and understanding the importance of learning how to properly identify plants.

[00:25:02] So we’ve got that one coming up and that it’s gonna be it was one of my favorite conversations so far, although I have loved them all. like he’s,

[00:25:10] Michael Hawk: Sometimes you hear herbalist and there may not be strong qualifications. It sounds like he’s got a science background if you’re getting into taxonomy and

[00:25:18] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. Yeah. That’s why I really appreciated his perspective because he’s focused through a science background. Even though he isn’t formally trained as a scientist having that science foundation and really looking at health and wellness and using plants as medicine, in a very clinical way.

[00:25:41] Michael Hawk: All right, great. We will be looking forward to that and it. And you told me about a mini series that you have coming up. What’s that about?

[00:25:50] I.

[00:25:51] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, I’m doing a little bit of a mini-series on plant’s perspective, so it’s gonna be the next few episodes that are releasing on the first of each month focused on how plants perceive the world around them. So one just came out February 1st, the first one, which is on. Smell. And so we’re gonna talk a little bit about in the next coming ones, topics such as how plants perceive light and plants perceiving gravity, and even how plants can respond to touch.

[00:26:16] So how plants can respond to external stimulus quote unquote make decisions with their decision lists. Non-existent brains.

[00:26:25] Michael Hawk: This. That sounds amazing. That’s something I’ve actually thought a lot about. I recently, well, it’s now probably been a year, I read ed Yong’s book called An Immense World, which is about animal sensory systems and how I. How different those processes are. And I’ve always thought, well plants do the same thing and they’re even more different.

[00:26:44] Like they have sensory systems and they respond and they create they have a chemical response to certain conditions and they aren’t so different from us. So this sounds really interesting and I’m looking forward to listening to it.

[00:26:56] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, I think it’ll be great.

[00:26:58] Michael Hawk: Okay. You’re not gonna get away without answering the standard questions that I like to ask all my guests. So, Here we go. Thinking back has there been any specific event like maybe a wildlife encounter or a relationship with a mentor or a book or whatever that really stands out to you as escalating your care for the natural world?

[00:27:19] Allasandra Valdez: That’s a really good question, and maybe I’ll have to steal that one too for my happy hours.

[00:27:25] Michael Hawk: That’s fine.

[00:27:27] Allasandra Valdez: So I’ve been thinking a little bit about this question and I think that for me one of the main events besides the project I talked a little bit about with the hemlock, wooly adelgid one of the main.

[00:27:42] Moments in my life where I really feel like I was connected with plants just stems from my childhood. And that would be in the winter time, right before winter would come. So like late fall, early, early winter when the trees were still had some leaves on them and they were starting to fall off.

[00:28:00] My dad and I would go outside and we would shake the trees. Trying to get the leaves to fall off because we want winter to come faster. And that was our little tradition of, of shaking trees. And because we’re my whole family’s a very avid skiers. My, my parents met skiing and everything, so we would try to get winter to hurry along and shake the trees.

[00:28:21] And that kind of, I think just that experience of shaking trees and, really thinking about how the leaves were falling and that seasonal change. I feel like that really just instilled this love of nature and really looking at I. Just basically how the world responds to this, the different seasons and how life continues.

[00:28:42] And then I started asking questions like, well, are the trees dead because the leaves are gone? Or, but they’re actually very alive and just like learning more about that. And then I’d be running around with my little kid microscope looking at all of the grass blades under the microscope. So yeah, it was one of those moments where I look back and I go, oh yeah I was supposed to be a botanist.

[00:29:02] I think.

[00:29:04] Michael Hawk: that’s really interesting that you had such a deep connection so early. And then if you could magically impart one ecological concept, or maybe it’s plant physiological, or something in that realm that would help the general public see the world as you see it, what would that be?

[00:29:23] Allasandra Valdez: I would really just want everyone to really just think about how. They are interacting with their environment. We as humans have almost, in a sense domesticated ourselves and we think of ourselves almost in a sense where it’s separate. We are separate than nature, but we are actually a huge part of nature.

[00:29:45] And really just thinking about, I. And maybe this isn’t exactly the concept that you’re looking for but just thinking about ways, like how we were talking about before with invasive species and just the causes and effects that we have on our environment in our day-to-Day.

[00:30:01] And that could be something as simple as just having more plants native plants in your backyard, or just taking some time to really appreciate and protect our natural spaces as something that I really find, extremely useful in the sense of not only keeping our environment alive and thriving and having tons of biodiversity but just also to have us as people just become happy, botanist.

[00:30:27] And even if you’re not a botanist per se, I always say you can be, always be a casual botanist going out, identifying some trees thinking about how they relate to you and. And how plants are part of the environment that we all just love and live in.

[00:30:43] Michael Hawk: So many things there, at least in a good way, press my buttons. Like I couldn’t agree more. I very often I just want people to start looking and what’s the way to start? Because there are a lot of these big organizations and their messaging is more about, we wanna convert you to be an environmentalist and people don’t.

[00:31:05] Run a marathon in one step and we need them to take the first step and the next step, and that’s what you’re talking about there. So yeah. Very cool. I’m super excited to see where your journey goes and hopefully we can continue to collaborate and support each other and get more people reconnected to nature,

[00:31:26] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah. I’m so excited. This is gonna be so wonderful. And thanks everyone for listening in. I hope you enjoy the Happy Hour with Dr. Dan Katz. And thank you so much for inviting me to do this. This is wonderful.

[00:31:39] Michael Hawk: All right. Thank you. I I appreciate you and, and your work

[00:31:41] And without additional delay here is episode seven of the happy botanist with Dr. Daniel Katz.

[00:31:47] Allasandra Valdez: Hello, my fellow plant people. I am very excited to introduce you today’s happy hour guest, Dr. Dan Katz. He is an assistant professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science here at Cornell, and his lab is focused around addressing questions about plant related public health issues. Welcome, Dr.

[00:32:05] Katz.

[00:32:06] Dan Katz: Hey, thanks for having me.

[00:32:15] Allasandra Valdez: I brought in the botanical drink we’re enjoying today. We have a Hendrix-based drink. Hendrix is made from juniper berries ’cause it is a gin. Um, but would you like to tell us a little bit more about your experience with gin? Maybe why you chose this happy yard drink of today.

[00:32:32] Dan Katz: Alright. I’m not gonna tell you too much about my experiences with gin, but I will tell you a little bit about Junipers.

[00:32:38] Uh, and so, um, Juniper berries, well they’re actually cones, but they look like berries, so we’ll call ’em berries. They, oh, I did

[00:32:48] Allasandra Valdez: never realize that they’re actually. Technically cones. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:52] Dan Katz: Oh, okay. They’re from gymnosperms, so it is technically, um, a cone. Mm-Hmm. But it looks like a berry. So we call it a berry.

[00:33:01] Mm-Hmm. Uh, and so that is the source of, of gin. And it turns out that even the, the name gin comes from the, the word for juniper, and I think it’s Dutch. Hmm. So, uh, so here we are, uh, drinking Juniper products, uh, happily. And the reason that I, uh, was excited to have some gin is that is, um, I’m working a lot with a Juniper species right now, and on the wall behind me, you can see all of these, uh.

[00:33:36] Photos of some of these, uh, juniper, uh, cones. And so that is why I thought you might as well have the tie in with some gin. Gotta, you might as well drink some of your study species, right? I think think you have, or at least a closely

[00:33:52] Allasandra Valdez: related one, I think if it’s drinkable, I think you have to at that point.

[00:33:56] But, um, let the, let the listeners know these. Pictures are absolutely stunning. And if I could post them, um, on my web page or have a link to them, I would love to to share them.

[00:34:07] Dan Katz: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I will say that it’s a lot easier to, you know, be eating or drinking your study organism when it’s something like Juniper a little harder if you’re working with, I don’t know, frogs or mosquitoes or whatever it is.

[00:34:19] I

[00:34:19] Allasandra Valdez: mean, they do make the like. Fried frog legs, like down in Louisiana, but I, I wouldn’t try ’em. I don’t know.

[00:34:27] Dan Katz: Oh, well, hey, um, maybe if you ever move beyond Botanies, maybe.

[00:34:33] Allasandra Valdez: I think if, I think if I wasn’t a botanist, I, I would be a herpetologist. I’ve got a, a turtle at home in a, in a soft spot for the herbs, but I still think plants are cooler.

[00:34:43] Sorry, herpetologist out there.

[00:34:45] Dan Katz: Well, hey, same. There’s a reason I study

[00:34:47] Allasandra Valdez: plants too. Awesome. Well, we’re gonna go ahead and get right into some questions. Um. Okay. And I always like to start off these, uh, happy hours with talking a little bit about how you classify yourself, the, in the broad realm of botany and plant scientists.

[00:35:04] How do you classify yourself?

[00:35:07] Dan Katz: Yeah, I usually call myself a plant ecologist, but honestly, I’ll call myself three or four different things. Sometimes I call myself an aerobiologist because I work a lot with, um, things that are in the air, including, um, pollen grains. And then sometimes I also dabble a little bit in health sciences, so I also am a little bit of an environmental health researcher too, but.

[00:35:35] My roots are in plant ecology

[00:35:38] Allasandra Valdez: roots. Very good pun.

[00:35:40] Dan Katz: I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to get used to it. There’s gonna be a lot of that today.

[00:35:44] Allasandra Valdez: Oh, that’s wonderful. Um, so you work a lot with allergenic pollen. Um, would you be able to explain what allergenic pollen is and how that’s different than regular pollen?

[00:35:55] Or is it the same thing?

[00:35:57] Dan Katz: Yeah, so Pollen, it’s the, uh, the male gamete of plants, the reproductive, uh, part of, of it, and. So a lot of, uh, so plants have all sorts of different strategies for getting, um, of that male gamete around. And, and so pollen can be distributed by everything from bees to, um, bats to all sorts of different things.

[00:36:27] Ants, there’s a ton of different mechanisms out there, but one of the common ones is being blown around by the wind now. Pollen itself isn’t harmful to people. However, some people end up having immune systems which attack pollen. And what can then happen is, uh, uh, if somebody is exposed to pollen, uh, that they’re allergic to.

[00:36:55] Their immune system mounts this vigorous, uh, uh, defense, uh, which ends up making that person miserable. And so all of those symptoms, itchy eyes, running nose, post-nasal drip, and even really important things too, like, um, uh, pollen can trigger asthma attacks, which have the potential to be fatal. And so.

[00:37:21] Even though the pollen itself is really no big deal on its own, the body’s response for somebody who’s sensitized, it can be, it can be downright dangerous. And so, um, so that’s kind of the, the gist of allergenic pollen. Now some people are allergic to, um, just a couple of types of pollen and some people are allergic to a variety.

[00:37:47] And then, um. There’s a lot of people who aren’t allergic to any at all. Uh, luckily I fall in that camp myself. It would be

[00:37:55] Allasandra Valdez: lucky you that would be so hard.

[00:37:58] Dan Katz: Study poll. It would be miserable. Can you imagine like walking around, interacting with these plants as they’re releasing pollen if you were allergic?

[00:38:06] I have had colleagues who did that and. I would not wish that on anyone. Yes,

[00:38:11] Allasandra Valdez: it is definitely very tough. I couldn’t imagine it. I worked with Johnson Grass in my masters and I had never been exposed to Johnson Grass beforehand, and I get in there and I start clipping it all up and, and getting in there and my arms are covered in highs.

[00:38:26] I like ended up having to like. Buy special gear ’cause I was allergic to my study species, so no more Johnson grass for me. But yeah, that’s terrible. That

[00:38:35] Dan Katz: would’ve been tough. Now imagine if instead of just like being on your hands, it was just floating through the air, my gosh. And pervasive around, uh, certain times

[00:38:45] Allasandra Valdez: of year.

[00:38:45] That is crazy. Yes, I have some, some pretty nasty and pollen allergies myself, and I’ve always wondered why I’m allergic to certain types of pollen. Like ragweed is a big one for me. But when I moved out to Oklahoma, I wasn’t experiencing pollen allergies as much, even though that there is just as much pollen around there.

[00:39:05] I, I think, I guess, but

[00:39:07] Dan Katz: yeah, totally. And so what. Happens is it takes the body a little while to become sensitized to something. Mm. And so what people often find when they move to a new place is they get sometimes a couple of years before the body starts to cue in on the local. Allergens. And so it’s sometimes called the honeymoon.

[00:39:29] The honeymoon phase. Oh. So you move to someplace new and it’s great, and then after a little while you’re like, ah, uhoh, oh no. And start reacting to what’s in the air.

[00:39:38] Allasandra Valdez: Oh, that’s crazy. I didn’t know that. Um, so when you see the things on, maybe when you look at the web and look at the weather, they’ll have like a pollen counter online.

[00:39:50] Does that. Do you know anything about that? Does that take into account different types of pollen or just the most common, um, allergen

[00:39:57] Dan Katz: ones? Oh yeah. Um, let me tell you a little bit about that. So. First of all, uh, most websites just have, uh, that, uh, there’s maybe 10 different sources for this type of information out there on the internet.

[00:40:14] Uh, a lot of them break it down into broader categories, weeds, grasses, and trees. Now, of course, people can be allergic to specific types of trees. Mm-Hmm. Um, and, and so that’s kind of the. Or specific types of, or of weeds, which isn’t even a very good category. Um, but, so that’s the first layer of how what you see on the internet may not be relevant for you as an allergy sufferer.

[00:40:48] The other part, and. What is a little less widely known is that a lot of these predictions that are made are based on very little data and do not actually have much validation. Mm. And so these are generally proprietary forecasts. Mm-Hmm. That are, um, often based on things entirely different from, you know, oh.

[00:41:17] How you will react. So it might be, um, uh, derived from indices around allergy medication sales or something like that, which may not actually track airborne pollen, concentrations all that well. And so I actually have a project right now, uh, assessing the accuracy of these. Commercial pollen forecasts. Um, and hopefully sometime soon we’ll be able to, uh, give folks like you and your audience a quantitative answer to how good these predictions actually are.

[00:41:52] Um. From the preliminary data, I can tell you not very. And so there’s this big gap where we just, uh, people who have allergies, uh, to pollen would really like to know how much they’re exposed to and to know things like, Hey, is today a good day for me to go on a run? Or should I begin taking my allergy medication now so it reaches full efficacy before pollen concentrations increase.

[00:42:21] So there’s all of this need for good forecasts, but what we have instead is either these commercial forecasts, which, um. Which have unverified accuracy. Um, and then the other thing that we have is empirical measurements, uh, that are collected by a variety of, um, groups associated with the national Allergy Bureau Mm-Hmm.

[00:42:49] Which runs this, uh, kind of loose pollen monitoring network in the United States. They have about 80 stations. Mm-Hmm. Um, and. They are doing fantastic work. These are folks who go out, uh, at least several days a week and go up to the, uh, the rooftop or wherever this pollen monitoring, uh, site is. Um, then.

[00:43:13] Count a lot of pollen.

[00:43:15] Allasandra Valdez: Manually. Manually, yeah. Like under the microscope

[00:43:19] Dan Katz: or? Exactly. Wow. And go through all of these subtle diagnostic cues to distinguish between generally, uh, plant genera. Mm-Hmm. It’s a little bit of a tongue twister, isn’t it? Generally plant genera. Uh, and. But the problem is most people don’t live right next to one of these pollen monitoring stations.

[00:43:45] Mm-hmm. And also, when you’re taking, uh, empirical data like that, it’s uh, what they are reporting out to the media is what happened over the previous twenty-four hours. Oh, so

[00:43:58] Allasandra Valdez: maybe not as, it could be totally

[00:44:00] Dan Katz: different. Yeah, it could be totally different from one day to another. And so if you’re getting yesterday’s measurements from a spot that might be, uh, miles, if you’re lucky, more likely, tens or hundreds of miles away, it may not be very useful for you to make good decisions with.

[00:44:20] Mm-Hmm.

[00:44:21] Allasandra Valdez: Yeah, that, that’s, that’s really interesting to think about because we’ve talked a little bit on this podcast and in general about how physiology of a plant can change over time, um, especially with weather conditions. So I don’t know if you know of any research or anything that with certain weather conditions, is there more likely to be more pollen, like let’s say after a big rainstorm?

[00:44:45] Dan Katz: Yeah. And so there’s a ton of day-to-Day variation caused by weather. Uh, but there’s also systemic variation caused by things like differences in temperature. Mm-Hmm. And so cities often have something called an urban heat island, which means that there are these strong temperature gradients even within a city.

[00:45:07] And so, oh my goodness. Yeah. So it is really, uh, quite common for there to be, uh, differences of, uh, up to a few degrees Celsius between, uh, a city center and the outskirts. And so the difference of a few degrees Celsius, though, that’s enough to shift the timing of when plants reproduce substantially. Hmm.

[00:45:28] And so there could be differences of literally weeks in between when a plant is flowering at. Inside at the heart of a city where it’s very warm, where there’s all this impervious surface area versus on the outskirts of a city. And so there are these, so all of the, the physiology of these plants interacting with environment can lead to substantial variation, which means that what’s being measured in one place isn’t necessarily what’s going to be in the air someplace else, even within the same city.

[00:46:04] That is crazy

[00:46:05] Allasandra Valdez: to think about. I’ve talked a little bit before about how light can affect tree times. Uh, in this instance I discussed about how uh, artificial light can actually cause the tree to have leaf obsession at