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Abstract Detail



Ecological Section

Logies, Melissa [1].

An Illustrated Comparison of Morphological Characteristics of Native and Invasive Aquatic Plants of North America.

Certain invasive aquatic plants are causing great harm to ecosystems in North America and threatening native plants and animals with extinction. The first step to eradicating these invasive plants is identification, but some invasive plants closely resemble native plants, making identification difficult even for professional invasive plant managers. Current materials that exist to aid in identification of invasive aquatic plants lack an adequate level of detail. To solve this problem, I have designed, written, and illustrated a guide to differentiating between invasive and native aquatic plants. This guide goes into great detail describing visually and verbally the morphological characteristics of each plant and shows side-by-side comparisons between native and invasive plants. Using traditional pen and ink techniques, I created botanical plates of invasive species Hydrilla verticillata, Egeria densa, and Myriophyllum spicatum, and native species Elodea nuttallii, Elodea canadensis, and Myriophyllum sibiricum. All illustrations were drawn from direct observation of herbarium specimens at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. For certain drawings, photo references were also available for reference. Production of these pen and ink botanical plates began with research of each plant, to gain an understanding of the important morphological characteristics. After reviewing enough literature on each plant, I sketched the plants in pencil, and then refined those sketches to line drawings. The line drawings were then transferred to vellum and drawn in ink by stippling with a fine tip pen. This method results in accurate and informative, yet aesthetic illustrations that are ready for publication. This guide is currently being used by the Cleveland Metroparks and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History Center for Conservation and Biodiversity to aid in plant identification and invasive plant control. The guide will be expanded in the future to include more plants and be of greater use to identification and eradication of invasive plants across North America.


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1 - Cleveland Institute of Art, Biomedical Art, 11141 East Blvd., Cleveland, OH, 44106, United States

Keywords:
invasive plants
Conservation
aquatic plants.

Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for Sections
Session: P
Location: Eyrie/Boise Centre
Date: Monday, July 28th, 2014
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: PEC030
Abstract ID:867
Candidate for Awards:None


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