Jarmila Pittermann
2019; Wiley; Volume: 224; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Italiano
10.1111/nph.16073
ISSN1469-8137
Tópico(s)Ecology and Conservation Studies
ResumoNew PhytologistVolume 224, Issue 1 p. 19-20 ProfileFree Access Jarmila Pittermann First published: 27 August 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16073AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat What inspired your interest in plant science? I have always been drawn to plants. As a seven-year-old I would barter my drawings for flowers from neighbours’ yards, to my mother's embarrassment. When my parents gave me a toy microscope at the age of 11 they were hoping to ignite a life-long love affair with medicine but I started cutting up plants instead, marvelling at onion skin cells, then garlic, slowly working through the refrigerator contents. At university, my friends were vying for spots in medical and dental schools: I did not like the competition and so I easily convinced myself that working with plants, the silent entities that nourish us with oxygen and food, was a noble endeavour worthy of life-long pursuit or at least a graduate degree. This belief sustained me through years of hard work but now my reward is a much better microscope to peer through. Why did you decide to pursue a career in research? As much as I wanted to succeed, I did not think that I could stay in plant science. I am not a natural talent. But as a young woman I very much liked the lab atmosphere. I felt a sense of pride in knowing how to operate a transmission electron microscope, how to work with radioactive isotopes and how to run a gas-exchange system. There was an importance to what I was doing and my idealism about plant science blended well with the practicalities of lab work. It took years, however, to trust myself. Indeed, some of the most appealing elements of research – the creativity, independence, collaboration, lab work, discovery and communication – continue to dog me because I want to get it right. But I find such joy in it, research suits my nature, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute and to keep learning. What motivates you on a day-to-day basis? On a day-to-day basis I am motivated by the need to finish what I start, and by that I mean writing papers. All of the hard work means nothing if it is not shared in print, and given my embarrassing backlog of unpublished data, I face moments of existential crises almost daily. Thankfully I have great colleagues, as well as productive, grounded students in my lab that do not seem to have these problems! I get a kick from their data, their microscopy images and the good vibes in the lab. I also remind myself of the big picture, which is that all facets of what I do have meaning: I learn about the natural world, convey the story and hopefully inspire my students to appreciate plants for all they do for us. Box Jarmila Pittermann is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (USA). She received her undergraduate degree in Arts and Science at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON, Canada), followed by an MSc at the University of Toronto (ON, Canada) where she worked on C4 photosynthesis with Rowan Sage. She subsequently worked with John Sperry on conifer structure and function at the University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) and received her PhD in 2005. From 2006 to 2008, Jarmila was a Miller Fellow in Todd Dawson's lab at University of California, Berkeley (USA), where she investigated the evolutionary ecophysiology of the Cupressaceae conifers, bringing hydraulics, gas-exchange and anatomy to bear on the question of how physiology both constrained and facilitated the speciation of these plants since the Cretaceous. Students in Jarmila's lab work on a broad range of topics in plant hydraulics and xylem structure and function but her research over the past few years has focused on the water relations of seed-free vascular plants. Speciose and diverse, ferns and lycophytes are common entities across almost all ecosystems despite lacking secondary xylem. How do they manage? Along with her colleagues, Jarmila is trying to answer this question by investigating the ecophysiology of ferns from a broad range of habitats. However, it is often difficult to study hydraulics in ferns so Jarmila is slowly making her return to working with woody plants. Jarmila is an Associate Editor for New Phytologist, where she joined the board in 2019. For more information on Jarmila, visit http://pittermann.eeb.ucsc.edu, or contact her at jpitterm@ucsc.edu ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1880-1888. Is there anyone that you consider to be a role model? My four academic advisors cross my mind almost daily: John Lott (deceased), Rowan Sage, John Sperry and Todd Dawson. Enormously bright, imaginative, extraordinarily accomplished, good natured and fearless, they bring their best selves to their work. They did so much for me, more than I deserved. Each of them is uniquely and remarkably talented, and as junior faculty I tried hard to emulate them. That was not a successful experiment. I learned that I can only be myself and contribute in my own idiomatic way. It is easy to lose oneself in research and academics. Many years ago, my family and I were political refugees, leaving everything behind to flee oppression and start anew in the West. So my parents, my aunt and even those who stayed behind are my treasured teachers because they meet their challenges with hard work, generosity, curiosity and humour. They kindly remind me to lose the drama and get on with it – a rejected manuscript is not the end of the world. What are your favourite New Phytologist papers of recent years, and why? There are too many brilliant papers to list, but here are a few. The recent Venturas et al. (2018) study of stomatal optimization in aspen is an exemplar of how to build and test a complex model, and then write about it well. Oliveira et al.'s (2019) work on the role of embolism resistance in driving tree distributions in Brazilian forests beautifully illustrates the importance of understanding the physiological envelopes of plants, especially in critical habitats such as the Amazon where the impacts of climate change are especially dire. Water deficit and heatwaves are common in California but the 2012–2015 drought surpassed historic records of climate extremes. Jacobsen & Pratt's (2018) Tansley insight nicely examines the combined impacts of physiology, water deficit, fire and natural regeneration on change in California's chaparral communities but the thinking behind it will apply to many terrestrial systems. Finally, Larter et al.'s (2017) study of the evolution of Callitris is right up my alley. I like to think about how paleoclimates impacted the evolution of plant physiology – I learned this from Rowan Sage. What is your favourite plant, and why? I cannot choose just one. The first of three is Acer saccharum, or sugar maple, which is prevalent in eastern Canada and the source of maple syrup. It is a handsome tree even without its leaves, but after a long grey winter its late spring flush of foliage confirms the arrival of summer. Of course, its autumn colours are uplifting as well. The second is Bommeria hispida, a fern I worked with in southern Arizona. Even though it occupies a stressful habitat, it presents its hairy little leaves with confidence. Lastly, I will always pull the car over for sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata. It occupies the silent expanse of the Great Basin Desert and to me its leaves are the scent of freedom. References Jacobsen AL, Pratt RB. 2018. Extensive drought-associated plant mortality as an agent of type-conversion in chaparral shrublands. New Phytologist 219: 498– 504. Larter M, Pfautsch S, Domec JC, Trueba S, Nagalingum N, Delzon S. 2017. Aridity drove the evolution of extreme embolism resistance and the radiation of conifer genus Callitris. New Phytologist 215: 97– 112. Oliveira RS, Costa FR, van Baalen E, de Jonge A, Bittencourt PR, Almanza Y, Barros FDV, Cordoba EC, Fagundes MV, Garcia S et al. 2019. Embolism resistance drives the distribution of Amazonian rainforest tree species along hydro-topographic gradients. New Phytologist 221: 1457– 1465. Venturas MD, Sperry JS, Love DM, Frehner EH, Allred MG, Wang Y, Anderegg WR. 2018. A stomatal control model based on optimization of carbon gain versus hydraulic risk predicts aspen sapling responses to drought. New Phytologist 220: 836– 850. Volume224, Issue1October 2019Pages 19-20 ReferencesRelatedInformation
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