Eagle Point, Ore. resident and Illinois College student, Ellen Radcliffe, selected for research project

2012 Dec 3

Illinois College's internationally known orchid specialist has been called to the rescue again.

This time, biology professor Lawrence Zettler and a small team of IC staff and students are helping the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England; attempt to save "critically endangered" orchids in Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean off southeast Africa.

"I was approached by the Royal Botanic Gardens about a year ago because they said my experience and knowledge of growing similar orchids in North America could be applied to orchid conservation in Madagascar," Zettler said.

Zettler is recognized for using orchid fungi to grow rare orchids from seeds.

He and the IC biology department have been working for 10 years to propagate a rare Hawaiian orchid.

"We took 85 plants back to Hawaii in 2011 and 20 percent of those seedlings have survived, which is twice the number we expected to live," Zettler said.

Still, getting permission to bring orchid seeds from Madagascar to Illinois College involved a lot of paperwork.

"It took several months to get permits from Madagascar to bring orchid material here that we could grow in the lab," he said. "You just can't go to a foreign country and bring back a root of a plant, an endangered one at that, without proper certification."

That was just one step in a long process.

"Doing this research involves a lot of little battles you have to fight to get seedlings," Zettler said.

An essential step in the orchid rescue process required a trip to Madagascar by Andy Stice, laboratory manager for IC's departments of biology and chemistry.

In June, Stice traveled to Madagascar, which is halfway around the world, to collect seed and root samples of about 25 different endangered orchid species.

"I worked with two Kew botanists and three specialists from Madagascar to collect the orchid seeds and root samples over an eight-day period," Stice said.

"The colors in Madagascar were so vibrant - from the intense blue skies to the reddish-orange clay soil," he said. "The people from Kew were wonderful and knowledgeable and the local specialists were amazing in their ability to identify and find the orchids."

Since the start of the first semester, IC sophomore Korrie Edwards of Glasford has been among three second-year students working on the Madagascar orchid project.

"I was selected by Dr. Zettler to help work with the seeds," Edwards said. "We are trying to find a fungus that will germinate the seeds. Originally, I planned to study microbiology, but now I want to focus on wildlife biology and botany."

Edwards said thus far many of the Madagascar orchid seeds look healthy.

"We had some petri dishes on which the seeds didn't grow," Edwards said. "We expected it once we started cleaning the seeds. We have to clean the seeds with a bleach/water solution in order to remove any unwanted fungi."

The other two IC students working on the Madagascar orchid project are Hana Thixton of Riverton and Ellen Radcliffe of Eagle Point, Ore..

"Madagascar is one of the most unique places in the world to study biology," Zettler said. "It is a remote island where species have evolved differently, but today many of these unique plant and animal species are threatened with extinction because of deforestation. There is a biological crisis in Madagascar. I want my 10-year-old daughter to be able to see these same species in her lifetime."

Zettler said it is important to rescue the Madagascar orchids because they could hold the key to new medicines. "A quarter of all medicines originated from plants," he said.

Zettler will travel to Madagascar in April with Stice and possibly with fellow IC biology professor Laura Corey.

Funds from the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation are making it possible for IC faculty, staff and students to go to the Indian Ocean island.

"This is a five-year project to propagate and reintroduce these orchids to Madagascar," Zettler said. "During the next four years we plan to involve IC students and faculty in the project.

"I think it is pretty special that some of the rarest orchids in the world are being grown in a small research lab tucked away in the Midwest."

Professor called to rescue more orchids, BY GREG OLSON, Jacksonville Journal-Courier