Capacity Building
The field of Chemical Ecology is defined by a fundamental approach rather than a set of focused questions: the identification of biologically active chemical compounds through bioassay-guided fractionation and analytical chemistry. Because ecological chemistry is a bottomless well of complexity, the iterative approach of using bioassays to focus analytical strategy increases the feasibility and impact of such studies. The universal benefits of this approach are a) to provide safe alternatives to pesticide use in controlling disease vectors and crop pests, b) to identify “keystone molecules” that mediate complex trophic interactions in terrestrial, aquatic, or marine environments, and c) to discover novel compounds with medicinal or pharmacological promise.
The field of Chemical Ecology is defined by a fundamental approach rather than a set of focused questions: the identification of biologically active chemical compounds through bioassay-guided fractionation and analytical chemistry. Because ecological chemistry is a bottomless well of complexity, the iterative approach of using bioassays to focus analytical strategy increases the feasibility and impact of such studies. The universal benefits of this approach are a) to provide safe alternatives to pesticide use in controlling disease vectors and crop pests, b) to identify “keystone molecules” that mediate complex trophic interactions in terrestrial, aquatic, or marine environments, and c) to discover novel compounds with medicinal or pharmacological promise.
Although the International Society for Chemical Ecology (ISCE) and its regional sister organizations (ALAEQ, APACE) have a global reach, Chemical Ecology remains a small field, linking researchers through a shared journal and a rich heritage of scientific exchange between key centers of research, including the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, the Rothamsted Research Centre in the UK, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya, the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, India, Cinvestav in Irapuato, Mexico, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands, and Cornell, among many others. In the face of rapid global change, much of which jeopardizes public health, food security, sustainable agriculture and the conservation of biological diversity, there is an urgent need to recruit and train new chemical ecologists to work locally in their own countries or regions. There is no shortage of human capital in terms of intellect, curiosity and motivation concerning the challenges outlined above, nor is there a lack of analytical chemical equipment in most educational centers globally. The key issue is to empower students and colleagues globally, by connecting them to key resources, supportive partners and best practices. Below, I describe how I have addressed this challenge throughout my career.
Creation of a new Gordon Research Conference
As a postdoc, I realized that there were no professional conferences in which the biological importance of floral scent was deemed a relevant theme. Elsewhere on these pages (see “Professional Path”) I have described the creation (in 1998) of a new Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Biology, Chemistry and Evolution of Floral Scent. The first few iterations of this GRC accomplished the key goals of connecting researchers from different fields, united by common interests but formerly unknown to each other, providing access to key literature to reduce redundant studies and claims of primacy, and nucleating interdisciplinary collaborations to jump-start new initiatives. This energy translated into several major reviews and special features in the 2000s.
As a postdoc, I realized that there were no professional conferences in which the biological importance of floral scent was deemed a relevant theme. Elsewhere on these pages (see “Professional Path”) I have described the creation (in 1998) of a new Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Biology, Chemistry and Evolution of Floral Scent. The first few iterations of this GRC accomplished the key goals of connecting researchers from different fields, united by common interests but formerly unknown to each other, providing access to key literature to reduce redundant studies and claims of primacy, and nucleating interdisciplinary collaborations to jump-start new initiatives. This energy translated into several major reviews and special features in the 2000s.
After organizing and chairing the first conference in 1999, I remained active in planning subsequent meetings, serving as section chair or discussion leader. In time, our GRC expanded to include all plant volatiles (fruits, vegetative responses, atmospheric chemistry), a fusion that offered conceptual and analytical benefits and helped to integrate the study of floral scent into larger fields of pollination ecology, plant physiology and insect olfaction. Recent meta-analyses indicate a leap in publications and citations on floral scent as this field reaches maturity. The GRC on plant volatiles was discontinued 20 years after it was established, a booster rocket that helped to launch the integrative study of floral scent into scientific orbit. [Above, Afrodite Kantsa presents her thesis poster in Magdalen College, Oxford, 2009]
Personalized Training at Home and Abroad
When I opened my own lab at the University of South Carolina, I began training visitors in methods for analyzing floral volatiles, manipulating floral phenotypes, and measuring pollinator behavioral responses. These visitors included students, postdocs and faculty colleagues from my own campus as well as those from neighboring or distant institutions. Many of these training visits resulted in proof-of-concept data needed for grant proposals, additional (and published!) thesis chapters for doctoral students, and opportunities for sabbatical visitors (e.g. Ann Fraser, Diane Campbell) to expand their own research programs.
When I opened my own lab at the University of South Carolina, I began training visitors in methods for analyzing floral volatiles, manipulating floral phenotypes, and measuring pollinator behavioral responses. These visitors included students, postdocs and faculty colleagues from my own campus as well as those from neighboring or distant institutions. Many of these training visits resulted in proof-of-concept data needed for grant proposals, additional (and published!) thesis chapters for doctoral students, and opportunities for sabbatical visitors (e.g. Ann Fraser, Diane Campbell) to expand their own research programs.
In addition to welcoming visitors to my lab, I tapped into two generous programs that allowed me to visit the labs of my colleagues across the world and train their students. The first was a National Geographic grant (2003) shared with Steve Johnson (Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) and Andrea Cocucci & Alicia Sersic (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina), focused on the parallel assembly of subtropical grassland plant communities pollinated by large hawkmoths near 30 degrees S latitude on different continents. During visits to each country, I connected my hosts with chemists responsible for maintaining GC-MS facilities in their respective institutions. In addition to fieldwork at both sites, this grant brought two talented students, Sandy-Lynn Steenhuisen (SA) and Marcela Moré (Arg) to my lab to train in volatile analysis and wind tunnel / field trapping bioassays using floral manipulation, leading to several publications, shared initiatives and ongoing collaborations.
[Above, L-R: Marcela Moré, Alicia Sersic and Andrea Cocucci inspect moths at to a light trap in Cuesta Blanca, Córdoba, Argentina, Jan. 2005]
[Above, L-R: Marcela Moré, Alicia Sersic and Andrea Cocucci inspect moths at to a light trap in Cuesta Blanca, Córdoba, Argentina, Jan. 2005]
My second opportunity came through the US Fulbright Program, through a 6-month return (2006) to Steve Johnson's lab in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. In addition to giving lectures and participating in field courses, my primary charge was to train Steve and his lab group to utilize their own GC-MS through protocol optimization and identification of unknown floral volatiles. Through interactions with other chemical ecologists (Andreas Jürgens, Stefan Dötterl, Florian Schiestl) and chemists (Roman Kaiser), and through the maturation of his own students (e.g. Sandy Steenhuisen, Adam Shuttleworth), Steve’s lab has become a force multiplier, both as a major contributor to the study of floral scent in a region of extraordinary botanical and ecological diversity, and as a place where others now come to learn appropriate methods.
[Above, training Sandy-Lynn Steenhuisen in dynamic floral headspace collection from Protea caffra, 2006]
[Above, training Sandy-Lynn Steenhuisen in dynamic floral headspace collection from Protea caffra, 2006]
Bringing GC-MS to Biological Field Stations
Another universal challenge in plant volatile analysis is the need to make analytical technology accessible in the wild places where plants occur and pollination is studied. One of the premier locations for such research is the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), near Crested Butte, Colorado, USA. Many of the most iconic, long-term studies of plant-pollinator interactions, blooming phenology and responses to climate change have been done at RMBL over the last half century, thanks to James Thomson, Nick Waser, Mary Price, David Inouye, Diane Campbell, Alison Brody, Becky Irwin, and other ecologists. Until recently, the chemical dimensions of floral biology represented an alarming gap in the otherwise canonical literature resulting from work at RMBL.
Another universal challenge in plant volatile analysis is the need to make analytical technology accessible in the wild places where plants occur and pollination is studied. One of the premier locations for such research is the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), near Crested Butte, Colorado, USA. Many of the most iconic, long-term studies of plant-pollinator interactions, blooming phenology and responses to climate change have been done at RMBL over the last half century, thanks to James Thomson, Nick Waser, Mary Price, David Inouye, Diane Campbell, Alison Brody, Becky Irwin, and other ecologists. Until recently, the chemical dimensions of floral biology represented an alarming gap in the otherwise canonical literature resulting from work at RMBL.
Diane Campbell and I have begun to fill this gap by winning an NSF-MRI (shared equipment) grant with Ian Billick and Jennie Reithel, executive and scientific directors of RMBL, installing GC-MS, GC-FID and thermal desorption equipment in 2017. In 2018 and 2022, Diane and I taught intense, one-week workshops on plant volatile analysis at RMBL, guiding 12 students (RMBL grads, postdocs or faculty users) from first principles on day 1 to a closing day mini-symposium, via brief lectures, rapid field studies and group projects on site. Besides sending students home with new skills, technical competence and pilot data, our workshops led to the development of bouquet, an R package that provides a pipeline for volatile data analysis, resulting in a methods paper sharing best practices, thanks to major creative input from John Powers and Kate Eisen. Our hope is that this initiative can serve as a model for similar tech installations at other important biological field stations.
Eisen KE, Powers JM, Raguso RA and Campbell DR (2022) An analytical pipeline to support robust research on the ecology, evolution, and function of floral volatiles. Front. Ecol. Evol. 10:1006416.
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.1006416/full
[Below, summer GC-MS workshop at RMBL, 2018 and 2022. Clockwise from upper left; Gothic Mt. looms above the RMBL campus, Diane Campbell instructs participants in NIST webbook searches for mass spectra, dissected flower parts from Linaria vulgaris, an invasive species at RMBL, equilibrating for SPME-GC-MS analysis, L. vulgaris invading a meadow at the RMBL, Rob Whyle confers with Diane about his GC-FID temperature program, Haley Carter elutes trapped headspace samples with hexane.]
Eisen KE, Powers JM, Raguso RA and Campbell DR (2022) An analytical pipeline to support robust research on the ecology, evolution, and function of floral volatiles. Front. Ecol. Evol. 10:1006416.
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.1006416/full
[Below, summer GC-MS workshop at RMBL, 2018 and 2022. Clockwise from upper left; Gothic Mt. looms above the RMBL campus, Diane Campbell instructs participants in NIST webbook searches for mass spectra, dissected flower parts from Linaria vulgaris, an invasive species at RMBL, equilibrating for SPME-GC-MS analysis, L. vulgaris invading a meadow at the RMBL, Rob Whyle confers with Diane about his GC-FID temperature program, Haley Carter elutes trapped headspace samples with hexane.]