In Bloom: WMU professor travels world studying endangered plant

By Josh Holderbaum
Western Herald

(Photo courtesy of Dr. Todd Barkman) Rafflesia is an endangered Southeast Asian plant that smells like rotten flesh.

There aren’t too many flowers in Kalamazoo that are bigger than a person’s torso and smell like dead animals.

Todd Barkman, Ph.D., biology professor, spent more than four years researching Rafflesia, an endangered Southeast Asian plant genus that can grow up to three feet in diameter on average and smells like rotting flesh.

“It’s arguably one of the most interesting plants in the world and the largest by far,” Barkman said. “It pushes the limits of what a plant is.”

In addition to size and smell, Rafflesia is also an endoparasite.

“Rafflesia is an internal parasite that bursts from its host in a very Alien-esque fashion,” Barkman said. “It starts out as strands growing inside the host plant’s vines, then becomes little buds on the vine and eventually blooms out of the host. It can take a year to grow and bloom.”

It was Rafflesia’s varying size that piqued Barkman’s curiosity.

“It seemed to us that it would have to come from small ancestors and would have taken some time to become larger,” Barkman said. “Our analogy is that giraffes have the longest neck in the world, yet they came from animals that had short necks: their necks were lengthened over time.”

Researching the plant meant going to Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to look for Rafflesia buds and getting samples for DNA tests. Around 15 species were studied.

“Two had remarkably similar DNA: one small, one large, so they could be related,” Barkman said. “So we used the DNA to determine how long it took for these kinds to change. Some species were created very recently, around one or two million years ago. Some become big in a very small amount of time. We suspect that the rate isn’t slowing down, so who knows how big they’ll be.”

The biweekly Current Biology published Barkman’s research, “Accelerated Rates of Floral Evolution at the Upper Size Limit for Flowers,” in its Oct. 14 issue.

Barkman authored the report with Seok-Hong Lim, 2006 Western graduate; Domingo Madulid, Philippine National Museum botany division, who Barkman met during his travels; Kararudin Mat Salleh, University Kebangsaan Malaysia School of Environmental and Natural Resources; Jamili Nais, Sabah Parks, Malaysia, both undergraduates with Barkman; and Mika Bendiksby and Trond Schumacher of the University of Oslo Department of Biology.

Barkman plans to spend some of his spring semester on sabbatical finding the genes responsible for Rafflesia’s growth, working in both Georgia and Asia.

Barkman also wants to know what chemicals cause Rafflesia’s smell.

“Usually I work with sweet-smelling plants, so this will be quite a change,” Barkman said.

Rafflesia’s odor may be to attract flies to help with pollination.

“The center of the flower looks like the opening of a body cavity and the flower itself looks like rotting flesh,” Barkman said. “So flies will go in there to lay their eggs. Usually insects get something out of pollination, but fly larvae won’t live in Rafflesia, so it’s parasitic to the insects in a way.”

Despite smelling like rotting flesh, Barkman said the smell isn’t that bad.

“It’s not like a skunk, not really a painful smell,” Barkman said. “Maybe like a week-old dead possum. It’s not that strong, but when you put your face down in it, it smells really bad. But it doesn’t make you want to throw up and it doesn’t dissuade people from going to see them.”

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=2173

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Nov 13 2008. Filed under Campus, News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com