April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Organizations around the world have commemorated the occasion by participating in the global Earth Optimism movement — an initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian to “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”.

Throughout 2020, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our partners are joining the movement by sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection. Follow our blog for conservation stories — past and present — and visit our website for more information and to explore our Earth Optimism book collection.

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The solitary sea squirt Ascidiella aspersa is native to the Northeastern Atlantic, from the Mediterranean Sea to Norway. Living in shallow sheltered sites and harbors, this species has a fast growth rate and is able to produce a large number of larvae.

These attributes have helped make it a successful colonizer of non-native environments, such as the Southwestern Atlantic, where it has become an invasive species introduced likely via ships.

Dr. Evangelina Schwindt, Head of the Grupo de Ecología en Ambientes Costeros from CONICET in Argentina, studies Ascidiella aspersa as part of her research as a marine invasive ecologist. Her work involves researching the interactions between invasive and native species, the patterns and processes occurring in biological invasions from the historical and present-day perspectives, the impact caused by invasive species, and the management strategies that can be applied.

Much of her research focuses on fouling communities living in artificial habitats such as ports, harbors, and ships. Species like Ascidiella aspersa are having a major impact on these communities, outcompeting and displacing native species and disrupting the ecological balance of the habitats they invade. As such, the management of invasive species is of vital importance to the successful conservation of native biodiversity and ecosystems.

“Invasive species are one of the five major drivers of biodiversity change, affecting also ecosystem services, food, health and economy,” asserts Schwindt. “The protection of native species and ecosystems in general improves overall quality of life and is an indicator of wellbeing and health.”

Research to support the management of invasive species requires an understanding of the species’ taxonomy, genetics, global distribution and the earliest record of introduction in different regions worldwide. Studies on marine invasive species can be particularly challenging, as marine biodiversity is less well-understood compared to species living in terrestrial or freshwater environments.

Not surprisingly, research on invasive species can be time consuming, and tracking down their spatial and temporal patterns and history is labor intensive. Unfortunately, in the face of today’s biodiversity crisis, time is not on our side. To understand the impact of invasives and integrate their management as part of a successful conservation strategy for an ecosystem or threatened species, researchers need tools to help improve the efficiency of their work.

Fortunately, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is just such a tool, providing researchers with free and open access to critical data to support conservation work.

“BHL provides free access to literature for researchers around the world that don’t have good libraries in their institutions,” lauds Schwindt. “Research is much faster and better when the bibliography needed to work is freely available.”

Schwindt first discovered BHL over ten years ago while conducting online searches for historic literature. Since then, it has become an invaluable asset for her research.

“My work requires historical literature and records from scientific expeditions in different languages,” explains Schwindt. “BHL is the best place to find the bibliography I need to reconstruct the past and present of marine species.”

For example, BHL was a particularly useful resource for Schwindt and her colleagues during the production of their book Especies Exóticas Marino-Costeras de Argentina (2018), the first book on exotic marine coastal species of Argentina. The book, which has been made freely available in BHL, describes 45 marine-coastal exotic species, with exotic species being defined as “those owing their presence in a given region to various human actions, deliberate or not, that allowed them to overcome biogeographical barriers impossible to cross on their own” (Schwindt et al. 2018).

“The vast archives of BHL were particularly significant for us during the elaboration of this book because it provided us with the historical first records and accounts associated with several exotic species detailed some centuries ago by early explorers, naturalists and scientists traveling along the Southwestern Atlantic,” explains Schwindt.

BHL is also a valuable asset for Schwindt’s work as the coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (IPBES) Thematic Assessment of Invasive Alien Species and Their Control, which is intended to “assess the threat that invasive alien species pose to biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods and the global status of and trends in impacts of invasive alien species” (IPBES 2020).

“I found BHL extremely helpful for my work on the IPBES Thematic Assessment,” shares Schwindt. “All literature cited in the assessment should be open access, and the fact that BHL’s archives are extremely complete and open access made it a reliable tool to share and to use.”

BHL also provided important information for Schwindt’s most recent paper on marine bioinvasions—”Past and Future of the Marine Bioinvasions Along the Southwestern Atlantic” (Schwindt et al. 2020). The Library provided the first record of several relevant introduced species.

For example, Agardh’s Species genera et ordines algarum (1876) documents the introduced macroalgae Lomentaria clavellosa, probably native to the NE Atlantic Ocean and recorded in the SW Atlantic around 1876. Similarly, Giambiagi’s Cuatro nuevos isópodos de la Argentina (1922) records the introduced isopod Synidotea laevidorsalis, probably native to Japan and China and found in the SW Atlantic in 1902. Fauvel’s Annélides polychètes des Iles Falkland recueillies par M. Rupert Vallentin Esqre (1902-1910) (1916) likewise documents the cryptogenic polychaete Procerastea halleziana, recorded from the region in 1902.

In total, the paper documents 129 introduced and 72 cryptogenic marine species for the Southwestern Atlantic, with 33 new invasions occurring since 2002—translating to one new invasion every 178 days. Ships were identified as the most likely vector for these introductions. By documenting the historic and persistent introductions in the region, this paper underscores the need to establish long-term assessment programs to generate ongoing baseline data and support efficient environmental management.

This paper also illustrates how legacy literature, like that provided through BHL, is a valuable source of historic baseline data, which researchers can use to assess the patterns and evolution of invasions over time.

As the authors write:

“We cannot make progress in our understanding of the impact of invaders if the scale of invasion diversity remains poorly assessed, and if the abundance and distribution of already established invaders remain uncertain. The most direct consequences of delays in recognizing invasions are delays in early detection of and rapid response to new invasions, and the hampering of the design of strong, effective management strategies to prevent future introductions” (Schwindt et al. 2020, 15).

Clearly, successful conservation strategies require not just an understanding of a specific threatened species, but also of the forces—such as invasive species—that affect their well-being. Researchers like Dr. Schwindt are working to strengthen our understanding of these forces and improve our ability to address them. Open access to the vital literature provided through the Biodiversity Heritage Library helps make this work possible, ensuring that researchers around the globe have the data and tools they need to help save biodiversity—and that is a very good reason to be optimistic as we celebrate Earth Optimism.

References

IPBES. Thematic Assessment of Invasive Alien Species and Their Control. 2020. Work Programme. Accessed on 29 January 2020. https://ipbes.net/invasive-alien-species-assessment.

Schwindt et al. 2018 Especies Exóticas Marino-Costeras de Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Vazquez Mazzini Editores.

Schwindt et al. 2020. “Past and Future of the Marine Bioinvasions Along the Southwestern Atlantic.” Aquatic Invasions 15.

April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Organizations around the world have commemorated the occasion by participating in the global Earth Optimism movement — an initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian to “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”.

Throughout 2020, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our partners are joining the movement by sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection. Follow our blog for conservation stories — past and present — and visit our website for more information and to explore our Earth Optimism book collection.

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Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a man who believed all of nature was interconnected, and that by affecting one aspect of nature, other parts of nature would be affected, too—for good or ill. Humboldt believed that one’s own emotions and subjective views were necessary in order to completely experience nature. Simply taking measurements or classifying animals, plants, rocks and other forms of life would never allow one to fully experience the truth of nature.

Born to an aristocratic Prussian family in 1769, Humboldt grew up during the Age of Enlightenment, which emphasized intense observation paired with scientific information as the primary sources of knowledge. However, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), which outlined the interplay of inner subjectivity and knowledge of external things, greatly influenced Humboldt’s view of nature as he grew older. According to Kant, when you look at a rock, for example, you are influenced by your own subjective beliefs. Thus, you cannot truly see the rock as a rock-in-itself, as you will always see the external world through a filter of internal senses and emotions. Humboldt likewise claimed that the external world only existed as we perceived it “within ourselves” (Humboldt in Wulf, p. 40).

Humboldt became the scientist of the Romantics, who believed man was unified with nature and that nature could only be comprehended by inward feelings. Poetry, art, and emotions were viewed as the perfect vehicles through which to share one’s experience of nature. Humboldt’s infusion of emotion and prose into his observations of the natural world can be seen in one of his earlier works, Views of Nature. With this book, Humboldt created a new genre of nature writing, which was both pleasurable to read and filled with facts. He made sure that this work was poetic enough to inspire emotional fulfillment and a love of nature in the layperson while also appealing to scientists through the inclusion of annotations with scientific facts and measurements at the end of every chapter.

After receiving a rather large inheritance following his mother’s death in 1796, Humboldt’s scientific pursuits became more determined and ambitious. He decided to attempt a research expedition, and in 1799, asked permission of King Carlos IV of Spain to explore the Spanish colonies in South America and the Philippines. While he was granted a Spanish passport by the king, Humboldt had to fund the trip himself and send the king plants and animals for the royal cabinet and garden.

It was very rare for a foreigner to be allowed into the Spanish territories, and Humboldt made the most of his travels, bringing many scientific instruments with which to make observations and take measurements. He spent five years exploring different areas in South America. He compared the environments to those in different parts of Europe, noting that similar plants existed in similar climates.

Humboldt’s time in Cumana, the capital of New Andalusia (an area now part of Venezuela), had a particularly profound impact on his personal and scientific views. His observations of the treatment of enslaved people in the slave market near his lodgings impelled Humboldt to become an avid abolitionist for the rest of his life. It was also in Cumana that Humboldt saw how colonialism destroyed native ecosystems, as colonists had felled so many trees that the land became dry and farming yielded less crops.

While visiting Lake Valencia, Humboldt first recorded his observation that humans could induce climate change and destroy ecosystems. He noted that when forests are destroyed, springs and riverbeds dry up, the forest floor—no longer protected by tree foliage—becomes oversaturated with rain and soil is loosened, and different types of plants and animal life die. Humboldt observed that all aspects of nature are interconnected— when one part of a natural environment is drastically altered, such as with deforestation, the rest of that environment will be impacted in various drastic ways as a result. Humboldt gave many written warnings about the importance of understanding the many reciprocal interactions in nature in order to prevent the devastation of ecosystems and biodiversity caused by humans’ interference with nature.

Climbing the Chimborazo volcano in what is now Ecuador was one of the most exciting events for Humboldt in South America. By pushing through altitude sickness, desertion by his porters at 15,600 feet, narrow and dangerous pathways that required crawling, and increasingly falling temperatures, Humboldt eventually made it to 19,413 feet—marking the first documented time that anyone had ever reached that height.

It was here that Humboldt came up with a name and a visual for his theory that all of nature was connected—not just as a living entity, but as a composite of ecosystems all over the world at different locations containing similar flora and fauna at similar geological heights and climates. The different vegetation zones of the volcano reminded Humboldt of the different vegetation zones in the wider world, going from hotter equatorial zones to colder polar zones, just as one went from the warmer base of the mountain toward its freezing summit.

Humboldt depicted his “Naturgemälde”, which in German means “painting of nature” but also “unification”, through a visualization published within Essai sur la géographie des plantes (1805). This illustration, with the unique name he gave it, showed Chimborazo as a cross-section in which different plants grew at different altitudes and temperatures. Next to the illustration was information about other mountains around the world and a description of how their plant and climate zones could be compared to those on Chimborazo at similar heights. The idea that one could visually illustrate and describe plant life based on climate and location was a completely unprecedented idea at the time, and one which still influences our scientific views today.

In 1827 in Berlin, Humboldt gave many lectures on his observations of the natural world during his travels. Humboldt’s ability to find an interconnection between the smallest bit of moss to the tallest mountain and beyond to the heavens captivated people, as did his observations on connections between similar climates, plants and animals in different geographic locations. Listeners were dazzled by this new way of thinking and lecturing in which Humboldt connected, and made meaning out of, so many seemingly disparate ideas.

Humboldt had only one other trip to a distant land in his life. Invited by Tsar Nicholas I to gather research on platinum, which had been found in the Ural Mountains, he traveled to Russia in 1829, hoping to gather more information on different climates and plant life. While disappointed by the trip and its focus on finding platinum as a source of possible Russian currency, Humboldt nevertheless returned to Berlin filled with ideas for his next, and most popular, work—a multi-volume opus called Cosmos (Kosmos in German).

Cosmos was an embodiment of Humboldt’s ideas on the interconnectedness of nature and being. It discussed celestial matters, earthly matters, and the inner, organic life of plants, animals and humans. Humboldt enlisted the help of experts in varying fields, including classicists and historians, once again unifying seemingly separate fields by creating a work connecting ideas from these fields to one another and to science.

In 1845, the first volume of Cosmos was published in Germany. It was an instant success and was translated into various other languages. The introduction explained Humboldt’s view that all of nature was connected and formed a living whole. Humboldt was the first to describe the climate as an interaction between landmasses, the oceans and the atmosphere. He described a breath of life that came from the earth—not from divinity—and was intrinsic in all living things. Humboldt became one of the most celebrated scientists in the world after the distribution of this work not only throughout Europe, but in America as well.

Even though Humboldt expressed many dire warnings about human-induced climate change, his belief that nature was a unified whole meant that if destroying one part of an ecosystem destroyed the rest of it, then rebuilding different parts of an ecosystem could aid in its complete restoration. He encouraged everyone to experience nature by immersing themselves within it, by taking walks and going outdoors. Humboldt also believed in sharing scientific information, both within scientific circles and across other disciplines. By using this method of information sharing, we have a chance, as a world community—as a part of that living organism called “nature”—to combat climate change, to counter humans’ negative impact on nature, and to rebuild and restore different habitats and the biodiversity contained within them.

Humboldt at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

You can learn more about Humboldt’s legacy and his impact on American perceptions of nature and the environment through the exhibit Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM).

As the SAAM website articulates, “This exhibition will be the first to examine Humboldt’s impact on five spheres of American cultural development: the visual arts, sciences, literature, politics, and exploration, between 1804 and 1903. It centers on the fine arts as a lens through which to understand how deeply intertwined Humboldt’s ideas were with America’s emerging identity. The exhibition includes more than 100 paintings, sculptures, maps, and artifacts as well as a video introduction to Humboldt and his connections to the Smithsonian through an array of current projects and initiatives.”

The exhibit is on display from 18 September 2020 – 3 January 2021. Learn more.

Interesting Facts

Humboldt had an intense fear of ghosts, and especially feared the ghost of his mother after she died. It was rumored that he participated in several seances after her death in hopes of contacting her.

In 1804, Thomas Jefferson, then-President of the United States, invited Humboldt to the capital to discuss Humboldt’s scientific findings in the Spanish colonies. Humboldt even let Jefferson have a sizable number of pages of his research to translate, not knowing that Jefferson considered all of this information to be valuable intelligence about the Spanish territories that bordered Jefferson’s recently acquired Louisiana Purchase.

Charles Darwin, who determined that all animals evolve through natural selection, was a huge admirer of Humboldt and kept a copy of Humboldt’s Views of Nature onboard the Beagle as he sailed around the world observing animal and plant life. Humboldt did not get involved in the debate over how certain plants and animals seemed to be present only in some climates and geographies but not always in other similar ones, writing that his study of plants and animals was not about “the investigation of the origin of beings” (Wulf, p. 275)—a phrase which Darwin underlined. Darwin took up the challenge in his Origin of the Species (1859).

Humboldt called black coffee “concentrated sunshine” (Wulf, p. 283).

References

Berg, A., & Humboldt, A. (1854). Physiognomy of tropical vegetation in South America; a series of views illustrating the primeval forests on the river Magdalena, and in the Andes of New Grenada. London: Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Co., Publishers to Her Majesty. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.119819

Bonpland, A., & Humboldt, A. (1805). Essai sur la géographie des plantes: Accompagné d’un tableau physique des régions équinoxiales, fondé sur des mesures exécutées, depuis le dixième degré de latitude boréale jusqu’au dixième degré de latitude australe, pendant les années 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802 et 1803. Paris: Levrault, Schoell et Compagnie, Libraires. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.9309

Bonpland, A., & Humboldt, A. (1833). Monographie des melastomacées, comprenant toutes les plantes de cet ordre récueillies jusqu’à ce jour, et notamment au Mèxique, dans l’Ile de Cuba, dans les provinces de Caracas, de Cumana, et de Barcèlone, aux Andes de la Nouvelle-Grenade, de Quito et du Pérou, et sur les bords du Rio-Negro, de l’Orénoque et de la rivière des Amazones. London: Gide. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.162868

Bonpland, A. & Humboldt, A. (1826). Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent, during the years 1799-1804, by Alexander de Humboldt, and Aimé Bonpland. Vol. 6. (H.M. Williams, Trans.). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.87622

Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.68064

Humboldt, A. (1849). Aspects of nature, in different lands and climates; with scientific elucidations. Vol. 1. (E.J. Sabine, Trans). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.151955

Humboldt, A. (1871). Cosmos: A sketch of a physical description of the universe. Vol. 3. (E.C. Otté, Trans.). London: Bell & Daldy. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.27525

Humboldt, A. (1893). Cosmos: A sketch of a physical description of the universe. Vol. 1. (E.C. Otté, Trans.). London: George Bell & Sons. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.29831

Humboldt, A. (1849). Cosmos: Sketch of a physical description of the universe. Vol. 2. (E. Sabine & E. Sabine, Trans.). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.29892

Humboldt, A. (1850). Views of nature, or, Contemplations on the sublime phenomena of creation: With scientific illustrations. (E.C. Otté, & H.G. Bohn, Trans.). London: Henry G. Bohn. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.4802

Magee, J. (2019). Alexander von Humboldt: A vision of the unity of Nature. In R. Huxley (Ed.), The Great Naturalists, (n.p., Kindle edition). London: Thames & Hudson.

Meinhardt, M. (2019). Alexander von Humboldt: How the most famous scientist of the Romantic Age found the soul of nature. Katonah, N.Y.: BlueBridge.

Wulf, A. (2015). The invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s new world. New York: Vintage Books.

Notable Women in Natural History in iTunes U. Illustration by Maria Sibylla Merian from Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium

March is Women’s History Month, and BHL is celebrating by highlighting women that have made valuable contributions to biodiversity science.

All this week, we’re publishing tweets and Facebook posts honoring notable women in natural history. We’ve also created a special collection in BHL featuring books written or illustrated by, or relating the contributions of, incredible female botanists, zoologist, explorers, and illustrators. We’ve made a selection of these titles available for free download in iTunes via our thirteenth iTunes U Collection: Notable Women in Natural History. Finally, we’ve gathered some of our favorite images illustrated by these illustrious women, or from publications written by them, and made them freely available for download and reuse in Flickr.

Today, we want to highlight an exceptional woman from natural history’s chronicles: Jeanne Baret, or, as she was known during the time she spent as a man, Jean Baret. We’ve asked Baret expert, and former Life and Literature speaker, Dr. Sandra Knapp, to share this woman’s fantastic experiences and contributions to scientific exploration and discovery.

Jeanne Baret: Around the World 250 Years Ago, Dressed as a Boy!

By Dr. Sandra Knapp

Voyage autour du monde, par la frégate du roi La Boudeuse, et la flûte L’Étoile; en 1766, 1767, 1768 and 1769

‘Yesterday I checked on board the Étoile a rather peculiar event. For some time, a rumour had been circulating on the two ships that Mr de Commerçon’s [sic] servant, named Baré, was a woman. His structure, his caution in never changing his clothes or carrying out any natural function in the presence of anyone, the sound of his voice, his beardless chin, and several other indications had given rise to this suspicion and reinforced it.’ (De Bougainville’s Journal, 28–29 May 1768).

Image of Jeanne Baret. ‘MAD LLA BARÉ’, Engraving, artist unknown. From Navigazioni de Cook pel grande oceano e itorno al globo, Volume 2, 1816, Sonzogono e Comp, Milano.

Cross-dressing seems to have been a botanical fad in the 18th century – the great Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (responsible for the system by which we name animals and plants today) famously posed in an authentic Sami costume from Lapland, not realising it was a woman’s outfit. Jeanne Baret (or Baré or Barrett – spelling was not as fixed and consistent in the 18th century as it is now) dressed as a boy to accompany the voyage of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in circumnavigating the globe; the voyage itself was an exercise in saving face after the disastrous French defeat to the British during the Seven Years War (when Britain gained control of Quebec). The intrepid Baret certainly saw more of the world than the notoriously stay-at-home Linnaeus, even though her name today is not well-known.

The world of exploration in the 18th century was an overwhelmingly male one, so the story of the young woman who dressed as a man to explore the world has immense appeal. De Bougainville set off on the voyage in 1766 – this was the first French circumnavigation and the first of any nation to have on board professional naturalists to observe and record the plants and animals of new lands. The “professional” naturalist accompanying the voyage was Philibert Commerson (often spelled Commerçon); a friend of Voltaire’s and a correspondent of the great Linnaeus himself. Jeanne Baret, of peasant stock from the countryside in Burgundy, was Commerson’s housekeeper and lover–what we today would call his common-law wife. Jeanne was an “herb-woman” with knowledge of plants and their properties useful to Commerson –his teacher rather than only his assistant. She was obviously adventurous and had considerable determination and sticking power – it had to be difficult to overcome not only gender but class barriers in order to stow away on the ship and even trickier to survive once her secret was out. The collaborative partnership between Baret and Commerson in the discovery of the botanical and zoological wonders is unique in the history of science.

The route of the Bougainville voyage around the world. From Voyage autour du monde, par la frégate du roi La Boudeuse, et la flûte L’Étoile; en 1766, 1767, 1768 and; 1769,

Women’s disguising themselves as men was not unknown – Hannah Snell dressed as a man and enlisted in the British Marines in 1745, serving for 5 years including tours of India; her book The Female Soldier, published in 1750, was immensely popular. Just how Jeanne Baret came to dress as a young man and accompany Commerson as his assistant Jean Baret on the voyage is not known – De Bougainville’s official accounts of the voyage rather coyly place her “unmasking” in Tahiti. It does slightly beggar belief that a woman, however skilled at disguise, could conceal her gender on a ship for many months, where everyone lives cheek by jowl – but look at Hannah Snell! The journal kept by the ship’s surgeon François Vivès is the source for Glynis Ridley’s (1) contention that Baret was alone, unprotected by Commerson and sexually violated by the sailors from the Bondeuse and Étoile. That his diary is dripping with sexual innuendo is without doubt; he sounds a thoroughly unpleasant sort. Rather than on Tahiti, which the ships passed in April and May of 1767, Vivès puts the site of Baret’s unmasking and violation in June on the shores of New Guinea. De Bougainville’s story may have had more to do with his linking the discovery of Jeanne’s gender to the open society of the island; he was one of the first to romanticise Tahitian ways of life and love.

Bougainvillea species, from Climbing Plants

Collecting plants is great fun, both Commerson and Baret must have been amazed at the wealth of diversity they encountered. Commerson wrote of Madagascar “I can announce to naturalists that this is the true Promised Land. Here nature created a special sanctuary where she seems to have withdrawn to experiment with designs different from those used anywhere else. At every step one finds more remarkable and marvellous forms of life.” In notes on specimens Commerson honoured high-ranking members of the expedition – the leader is commemorated in the lovely tropical vine Bougainvillea, Nassau-Siegen in Nassauvia, but Commerson himself did not publish any of these; he never made it back to France to write up the fruits of the teams’ labours. Bougainvillea was not formally described until 1789, and then only by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, a French botanist who used Commerson’s specimens and his notes (2). It is interesting to see that early on in the voyage, in Brazil, many plants are “named” for members of the expedition, but later collections have more cursory notes, although he did propose Baretia for a Malagasy tree. Commerson’s Baretia was never published, not because someone wanted to do Jeanne Baret down, but that by the time the specimen made it back to Paris and into the hands of botanists, it was found that the genus already had a name; the principle of proirity had become the modus operandi for naming. After Commerson’s death, Jeanne married on Mauritius and returned to France in 1774. She was awarded a state pension from 1785 in recognition of her bravery and contributions, not really completely forgotten and lost in total obscurity, although she never did botany again.

Tepe E, Ridley G, Bohs L (2012) A new species of Solanum named for Jeanne Baret, an overlooked contributor to the history of botany. PhytoKeys 8: 37–47

She was more recently, however, commemorated in the specific name of a new species of Solanum from Ecuador – far from where she travelled and collected plants (3). Solanum baretiae Tepe et al. is a relative of the potato and tomato from the cloud forests of the Andes – its link to Baret is its highly variable leaves. Many species of Solanum have simple leaves, just an elliptical shape with no lobing, while others, like the potato, have divided leaves with several pairs of leaflets. Solanum baretiae has all kinds of leaves – simple and divided with varying numbers of leaflets – the authors decided to commemorate this by naming the species after Jeanne Baret – herself a master of disguise!

That we remember single men (and it is usually men) as the “heroes” of expeditions or of discoveries is not necessarily to denigrate the contributions of others; who, after all, refers to Captain Cook’s voyage of the Endeavour as “Banks’ voyage” or knows the names of the crew – the single-person reference is a sort of shorthand. Science was as collaborative then as it is now, without the efforts of the many little would be achieved. Jeanne Baret and other overlooked contributors to science like her deserve recognition and celebration, but she does not need to be a victim (as she was portrayed in Ridley’s book) to be seen as a success (4).

Jeanne Baret deserves our admiration not only for being the first woman known to have circumnavigated the world (although it took her quite a long time!), but for her significant botanical contributions in partnership with Commerson, even if they are not written down in quite the way we would record them now. You also have to respect the guts and determination of a woman who wanted to discover the world and just went ahead and did so – at a time when the hearthside was considered a woman’s place.

Explore the chronicles of Jeanne’s adventures in Voyage autour du monde, par la frégate du roi La Boudeuse, et la flûte L’Étoile; en 1766, 1767, 1768 and; 1769, the publication relating the Bougainville voyage!

References and further reading

(1)    Ridley, G. (2010) The discovery of Jeanne Baret: a story of science, the high seas, and the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Crown Publishers, New York, 1–288.

(2)    Lack, H.W. (2012) The discovery, naming and typification of Bougainvillea spectabilis (Nyctaginaceae). Willdenowia 42: 117-126.

(3)    Tepe, E.J., G. Ridley & L. Bohs (2012) A new species of Solanum named for Jeanne Baret, an overlooked contributor to botany. PhytoKeys 8: 37-47 doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.8.2101

(4)    Knapp, S. (2011) The planstswoman who dressed as a boy (review of Ridley’s “The discovery of Jeanne Baret”). Nature 470: 36-37.

Book of the Week: The Malay Archipelago, by Alfred Russel Wallace

Portrait of Wallace at NHM. Restored to celebrate Wallace100.

In 1858, Journal and Proceedings of the Linnean Society: Zoology published a paper proposing what would later be recognized as a revolutionary scientific concept: the theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection. If we were to ask you who penned this publication, chances are your response would be Charles Darwin.

You would, however, only be half right.

While it is true that this 1858 publication represented 20 years of Darwin’s contemplation and conclusions on the process of natural selection (which culminated in the monumental work On the Origin of Species published just one year later in 1859), the Linnean Society piece was actually co-authored by Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently conceived of the theory of natural selection.

While Wallace, an avid explorer, collector, and natural historian, had long been seeking the cause of speciation during his 14 years of exploration in South America, Malaysia and Indonesia, it was in the midst of a fever in 1858, during his expedition to the Malay Archipelago, that inspiration struck: in the form of the theory of natural selection. Wallace expanded on this idea in a detailed article which he subsequently sent to Charles Darwin for review, unaware that Darwin himself had come to the same conclusion, though had yet to publish his theory.

At the suggestion of Darwin’s friends Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker, Wallace’s article, together with unpublished writing by Darwin on the subject of natural selection and evolution, were presented to the Linnean Society in 1858 and subsequently published in the Society’s journal as “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.”

2013 marks the 100th anniversary of Wallace’s death (in November, 1913). The Natural History Museum, London, has organized Wallace100, with a year’s worth of events and writings on the life and legacy of this great man.  This week, we explore the significant contribution Wallace made to natural history, with particular attention to Wallace’s account of his Malay expedition – the adventure that triggered a fever that fanned the flames of genius.

Great Things from Small Beginnings

Illustration from A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Wallace’s account of his expedition to South America.

Alfred Russel Wallace was born in 1823 in Usk, England, the seventh of nine children. While in his twenties, Wallace took a job as a schoolteacher in Leicester, during which time he met and befriended Henry Bates, a promising young entomologist. The two were invigorated by Darwin’s account of his voyage on the Beagle, and in 1848 set out on an expedition of their own to South America. The duo hoped to determine the mechanism driving the transmutation of species, the precursor to the theory of Natural Selection.

Over the four years of this exploration, Wallace gathered thousands of specimens, largely insects. The untimely death of his younger brother, however, who had traveled to South America to join the expedition, prompted Wallace, together with his entire collection of specimens and notebooks, to return to England. It was a fateful voyage. The ship caught fire and sank, along with most of Wallace’s collections and notebooks.

Undaunted, Wallace used the insurance money he collected from his specimens to organize a new expedition to the Malay Archipelago (today Malaysia and Indonesia). Wallace departed from England in 1854 to embark on his eight year journey through the exotic East Indies.

The Malay Archipelago and the Fever that Changed Science

Birds of Paradise from Malay Archipelago

Over the course of the Malay Expedition, Wallace gathered 125,660 specimens, more than a thousand of which were new to science. Six years after returning from the expedition, Wallace began writing an account of his adventure, which was published in 1869 in the two-volume masterpiece, The Malay Archipelago. The work, which provided readers (scientists and laymen alike) a rare window into the exotic depths of the “wild East,” became one of the most popular books on scientific exploration in the 1800s. Wallace dedicated the work, which has never been out of print, to Charles Darwin, “not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship but also to express…deep admiration for his genius and his works.”

The work was particularly note-worthy for its descriptions of birds of paradise, orang-utans, and native peoples. During the course of the expedition, Wallace obtained the distinction of being the first European to study apes in the wild. He shot and skinned several for the British Museum, and even raised an orphan orang-utan in his field camp. Apparently, his interaction with the orang-utans was particularly troubling to the natives, who viewed them as the “men of the woods.” Alarmed by Wallace’s collection of the apes, they feared that they, too, would be shot and skinned.

Despite this tension, Wallace made a point of understanding local customs and respecting the native people’s beliefs. Before the expedition, Wallace learned Malay and other tribal languages, expressing an interest in the “manners, customs, and modes of thought of people so far removed from European races and European civilization.” His work constituted pioneering efforts in ethnology and linguistics.

Long-armed Chafer Beetle from The Malay Archipelago. View the images from The Malay Archipelago in the BHL Flickr.

The expedition was a critical period for Wallace’s conceptualization of natural selection. Taking his first step towards the realization of this theory, Wallace published “On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species” in 1855, in which he hypothesized about when and where species originate. In what would later become known as the Sarawak Law, he observed that “every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing, closely-allied species,” which “clearly pointed to some kind of evolution.” The “how” was still a mystery.

In the midst of a fever in 1858, the mystery was solved. While contemplating Malthus’ “Essay on Population,” which described how factors such as disease, accidents, and war keep human population in check, Wallace conceived of the idea of survival of the fittest, leading him to the conclusion that “in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain.” Bingo. Natural Selection. It was this epiphany that Wallace communicated to Darwin via letter. This letter, together with some of Darwin’s unpublished works on the subject, was presented to the Linnean Society in 1858.

The Truth Behind Evolution

“Ejecting an Intruder” from The Malay Archipelago

Darwin and Wallace’s co-attributed theory of evolution by means of Natural Selection published in 1858, and a year later, prompted by Wallace’s letter, Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Throughout his lifetime, Wallace expressed only extreme gratitude at being given recognition for the theory along with Darwin. When Wallace sent his letter to Darwin in 1858, he did so without expectation of publication, and indeed, Darwin approved of the publication without consent from Wallace, as the delay in sending and receiving postage from the Malay Archipelago was considerable. When informed of the publication, Wallace wrote that he “happily and graciously approved.” According to Wallace biographer Richard Milner, Wallace “maintained that even if his only contribution was getting Darwin to write his book, he would be content.”

During the time of Darwin, Wallace was widely-acknowledged as the co-discoverer of the evolutionary theory. Today, most do not even know Wallace’s name, let alone associate him with Evolution. Why is this? According to George Beccaloni, public favor in the early twentieth century holds the key. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, natural selection as a theory became unpopular as other theories like neo-Lamarckism, orthogenesis, and the mutation theory took root. The generation of scientists that understood natural selection and recognized Wallace and Darwin died out. In the 1930s and 40s, natural selection again gained favor as a new generation of scientists rediscovered On the Origin of Species. Embracing natural selection through that avenue, the name of Wallace faded from scientific recognition.

Remembering Wallace

Darwin-Wallace Medal

Today, we recognize the contribution Wallace made to science, evolution, and natural selection. Wallace was awarded a multitude of medals, including the Darwin-Wallace and Linnean Gold Medals of the Linnean Society of London, the Copley, Darwin and Royal Medals of the Royal Society, and the Order of Merit. As we remember the 100th anniversary of Wallace’s death this year, let us remember that the great advances in science are often the work of many more men and women that are given general acclaim for the accomplishment.

Here’s to you, Alfred Russel Wallace. We have not forgotten you.

Links of Interest

• See Darwin’s annotated copy of our Book of the Week, The Malay Archipelago, contributed by the Natural History Museum, London.
• See Alfred Russel Wallace’s publications in BHL.
• Wallace100: Explore 100 years of Alfred Russel Wallace on the Natural History Museum website.
• View the images from this week’s book of the week, The Malay Archipelago, in Flickr.
• Learn more about Alfred Russel Wallace in Richard Milner’s biography.
• Debunk Wallace Myths and Misconceptions.

We hope you enjoyed this post. Interested in guest-blogging for BHL? We’d love that! Natural history, biodiversity and conservation topics are especially welcomed. Email us your ideas at [email protected].

cordiller (cor·dil·le·ra); a noun.

Definition of cordillera : a system or group of parallel mountain ranges together with the intervening plateaus and other features, especially in the Andes or the Rockies.

Origin: early 18th century: from Spanish, from cordilla, diminutive of cuerda ‘cord’, from Latin chorda (see cord). (Oxford English Dictionary)

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Cordilleras!

We saved something special for you for our final Hispanic Heritage Month blog installment. Today, we would like to bring your attention specifically to two Cordilleras found in Ecuador: the Cordillera Occidental and Cordillera Oriental which were extensively investigated by Alexander von Humboldt on his six-year expedition through Meso and South America. In this week’s Book of the Week, Humboldt provides us with the very first eye-witness account of some of the highest peaks found in the Andes and minutely describes their geology in: “Researches concerning the institutions & monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America : with descriptions & views of some of the most striking scenes in the Cordilleras!” Despite the long title, this two volume tome is actually just an excerpt from Humboldt’s much more voluminous 30 volume work, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent that he produced after his expedition.

Routing Humboldt and Bonpland’s S. America Expedition

A young Humboldt

Having the fortune of receiving a substantial inheritance following the sad event of his mother’s death, Humboldt quickly opted for a career change. Seemingly overnight, he leapt from Government Mines Inspector to Greatest Explorer the World had ever seen! Leaving the Old World behind for the very first time, he was accompanied Aimé Bonpland, a botanist who over the course of the next six years, from 1799-1805, would collect over 60,000 plants on their expedition to a largely unobserved continent and the species that they brought back were mostly unknown to Europe at the time. While Aimé focused on his field of expertise, Alexander preferred to dabble. Remembered as one of the last great scientific generalists, he believed “that no organism or phenomenon could be fully understood in isolation. Living things, the objects of biological study, had to be considered in conjunction with data from other fields of research such as meteorology and geology.”  Therefore, Humboldt bounces along through his text touching on a myriad of topics, admitting no attempt at organization in his book. And remarkably the lack of organization and vacillations between linguistics, mythology, botany, oceanography, archeology, climatology and comparative religion all somehow come together. However, it should be noted that as much as Humboldt meanders about in this week’s book of the week he always comes back to his most beloved subject– geology. At the time, geology was an emerging field of science and he should be remembered as a primary contributor to its development into a modern field of study.

Throughout what might be best called a travel narrative or informal conversation with the reader, written largely in first person, Humboldt conducts a comparative analysis on his eclectic mix of chosen topics. He seems to be in constant search for the connecting thread that will illuminate an underlying unity in nature. While some critics find this propensity for long-winded unification theories unscientific, one must remember that during the backdrop of the time providing analogues to known phenomena would certainly help the reader to better understand the natural phenomena in this new and largely undiscovered world. Such is the case with these hieroglyphic paintings which Humboldt provides the reader a lengthy analysis, a treatise almost, on comparative mythology and linguistics:

Fig. 1: Days in the Mexican Almanac

Fig 2: The Epochs of Nature According to Aztec Mythology

Humboldt compares these paintings with the writing systems of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hebrews and many other ancient languages. Of the content in fig 2., he compares the epochs of natural destructive cycles in Aztec mythology with the notions of a Kalpa and Yuga found in Hinduism which are described at length here. A seriously fascinating read! The Aztec culture was clearly one very imbued with the sanctity of nature. These were a people who were impatiently awaiting the return of their god Quetzalcoatl because he brought with him a time in which  “all animals, and even men, lived in peace; the earth brought forth, without culture, the most fruitful harvests ; and the air was filled with a multitude of birds, which were admired for their song, and the beauty of their plumage.” One might see why Montezuma would easily mistake Cortez for Quetzalcoatl. It was simply a case of wishful thinking.

Moving on to the crux of this book, interested in reading some of the very first observances of the best known peaks in the Andes? Humboldt delivers:

The Two Mightiest Peaks of Humboldt’s Cordilleras! Okay Three?

Volcano of Cotopaxi:  This volcano towers at 19,347 feet. Since 1738, Cotopaxi has erupted more than 50 times. It is the second most active volcano in the world. Humboldt, the first European to climb Cotopaxi is lucky to have observed it and lived to tell the tale and he seemed to be clearly aware of this fact for, at the time of this sketching of Cotopaxi, Humboldt wrote this: “The colossal volcano of Cotopaxi, the pyramidal peaks of Ilinissa, and the Nevado de Quelendanna, open here at once on the spectator, and in dreadful proximity. This is one of the most majestic and most awful views I ever beheld in either hemisphere.”

Pyramid of Cholula: Not necessarily a natural “peak” per se, the pyramid that sits at the site of the holy city of Cholula is home to the greatest, most ancient monuments of the Aztec people. The pyramid is referred to by locals as the mountain made by the hand of man (monte hecho a manos). From a distance it looks like a natural hill covered with vegetation. One can see why Humboldt would be intrigued.

Mount Chimborazo: At 20,564 ft, Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador, the highest peak in close proximity to the equator and it is the furthest point from the Earth’s center. (This is due to the oblate spheroid shape of the Earth.) Bonpland and Humboldt attempted to reach the peak of Chimborazo but, did not reach the summit. Atop Chimborazo sits a layer of permafrost which adds to its majestic beauty. Spotting the behemoth in the distance, Humboldt writes “we see Chimborazo appear like a cloud at the horizon; it detaches itself from the neighbouring summits, and towers over the whole chain of the Andes, like that majestic dome, produced by the genius of Michael Angelo, over the antique monuments, which surround the Capitol.”

The wealth of knowledge, historical importance, and richness of travel description in this book should not be overlooked. Everyone with any curiosity about our natural world should read Humboldt. Geologists especially, should not miss today’s book of the week. It’s a true gem.

All these magnificent plates from Humboldt’s expedition are available on Flickr, plus more. Also,make sure to check the Twitter, Facebook and Flickr for more content celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month!

We hope you enjoyed this post. Interested in guest-blogging for BHL? We’d love that! Natural history, biodiversity and conservation topics are especially welcomed. Email us your ideas at [email protected].