March Monthly Meeting – Speaker: Chris Cargill “Case study of a cryptogam group. Bryophytes of Australian Mediterranean Climate Areas”

Case study of a cryptogam group.

Bryophytes of Australian Mediterranean Climate Areas: Species diversity, adaptation, distribution and conservation.

Dr D. Christine Cargill

Abstract

The label ‘cryptogam’ has been around since the time of Linnaeus who coined the term to cover a group of disparate organisms of which they knew very little of at the time. Dr Cargill will explain what cryptogams are but will concentrate on and define the group that she spent most of her working life studying – the bryophytes. In particular she will talk about bryophytes that are found in a particular environment of Australia – the Mediterranean biome and how these plants have adapted to this relatively harsh environment.

Bryophytes that occur in the Australian Mediterranean biome have been the subject of many studies: regional checklists, family and genus revisions, ecological studies of biocrust species and flora surveys of various locations across the biome. However, no cohesive study of the bryophyte taxa which occur in this biome as a whole has ever been attempted.

Here Dr Cargill is presenting the discoveries of observations and studies of targeted groups of liverworts and mosses which are particularly diverse and/or particularly adapted to this biome as a first step to address this broader knowledge gap.

 While studies are continuing for these plants, progress is slow, and due to the decline in the number of active Australian bryologists, conservation of rare, threatened, or vulnerable species is well behind that for other plant groups. Dr Cargill will conclude by summarising the conservation efforts and the lack thereof that are currently being undertaken in Australia.

 Bio

Born in the Gippsland town of Bairnsdale in rural Victoria, Dr Cargill’s family moved several times due to her father’s job as an air-traffic controller in the RAAF.

She gained her BSc (Hons) from Monash University, majoring in Botany and Zoology, completing her Honours year on a project with Dr George Scott, comparing two moss species growing in Sherbrooke Forest within the Dandenong Ranges National Park. She later worked for Scott as his technician and was then introduced to liverworts, working on the genus Fossombronia, which is a quite diverse group in southern Australia. After taking time off to have a family and later re-entering the workforce as a teaching technician, Dr Cargill was offered the opportunity to extend her qualifications, so relocated to the USA to accept a research stipend and continue her research on the liverwort Fossombronia to obtain her PhD. Upon finishing her PhD, she came back to Melbourne and was lucky enough to obtain the position of curator of the cryptogam collections at the Australian National Herbarium in Canberra shortly afterwards in 2001. Her research on bryophytes continued and she picked up her third study group within the bryophytes, the hornworts, collaborating with colleagues in the USA and revising the taxonomy of the phylum.

She continued her research with liverworts and has been working almost exclusively on the diverse liverwort genus Riccia over the last 13 years. Now recently retired, Dr Cargill will continue part-time with the many projects she still has on bryophytes.

Dr Cargill’s talk will be held in the Slatyer Seminar Room, on the first floor of the R N Robertson Building, 46 Sullivans Creek Road at the ANU. Head up the stepped ramp on the right as you enter the building. Lifts are also available. The Slatyer room will be on your left at the front of the building.

Refreshments available from 7pm. Mugs or keep-cups encouraged. Non-members welcomed. Meeting starts at 7:30pm.