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The mission of the greenhouse and its staff at Youngstown State University is to provide opportunities for teaching, community outreach and student-driven research. Its three-chambers, which adjoin Ward Beecher Science Hall, serve as sites for plant propagation, specimen maintenance and experimentation. This 21 year-old facility continues to support the educational and research needs of YSU’s student body. |
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Teaching: Hardy tropicals and species native to the Northeastern United States are grown as an integral part of several botany courses. Plants are also propagated for laboratories investigating plant ecology, floral morphology and plant physiological processes. |
Community Outreach: The staff of YSU’s greenhouse are dedicated to providing the community with botany and plant ecology education. Currently, we are propagating 430 specimens from 13 species native to Northeastern and Midwestern tallgrass prairie communities. These will be given away during the annual Summer Festival of the Arts on July 12th on the campus of YSU (plant give away). A similar event will take place at the Poland Village Gardener’s Club on June 26, 2008. Our goal is to provide education and generate interest on the importance of planting species native to our region. Not only do these species provide abundant pollen, nectar and seeds for many insects and birds, but some are crucial for the conservation of important pollinators (e.g., monarch butterfly larvae feed exclusively on butterfly weed Asclepias spp.). Moreover, plantings such as these may offset the negative economic and ecological consequences resulting from the recent decline in the honeybee (i.e., Colony Collapse Disorder) by supporting a vibrant population of native pollinators. Drs. Felicia Armstrong and Ian J. Renne plan to work with local middle schools in developing gardens of economically and ecologically important plants. The objective of this program is to generate interest and educate pre-college students about the cultivation and importance of these species. |
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Research: Greenhouses can be integral to plant ecology research. M.S. student Erin K. Pfeil, undergraduates Brandon T. Sinn, Bruce J. Ciccone and Jacob A. Saborse, and Dr. Ian J. Renne are currently germinating two species which invade pastures of northeast Ohio and will be transplanting seedlings of these into plots at the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology (Linesville, Pa.). This experiment is designed to assess the interactive effects of soil resource availability, grazing intensity and soil disturbance on grassland invasibility. Because pasture managers have control over these variables by adjusting cattle stocking densities, they can effectively control the invasibility of their system by unpalatable plants.  A velvetleaf seedling to
be transplanted.
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  Bruce J. Ciccone transplants a velvetleaf seedling into a large disturbance patch in a pasture. Future Direction: Ongoing and
future student-driven greenhouse projects include: 1) testing the
combined potential of fungal and phyto-remediation on contaminated
sediment from the nearby Mahoning River (Drs. Armstrong and Carl
Johnston), and 2) the quantitative assessment of community efforts to
reduce the invasion of the non-native garlic mustard Alliaria petiolata
via demographic analysis (Dr. Renne).
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