Susana Wadgymar🌿🔬
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smwadgymar.bsky.social
Susana Wadgymar🌿🔬
@smwadgymar.bsky.social
3.5K followers 1.1K following 1.1K posts
Evolutionary ecologist, Botanist, Associate Professor at Davidson College (PUI 💪🏼), she/her

🔗smwadgymar.weebly.com
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smwadgymar.bsky.social
It is dichotomous key construction day today in my Plant Adaptations course!

ht to Lynn Clark for creating and publicly sharing these images of a fictional plant family
Two students constructing a dichotomous key using pictures of fictional plants. They have drawn a decision tree on the table in front of them to help organize the steps of their key. Two students constructing a dichotomous key using pictures of fictional plants. They have drawn a decision tree on the table in front of them to help organize the steps of their key.
October 23, 2025 at 7:00 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
I'm having some fun with the Seek app @inaturalist.bsky.social 😂
A picture of a window sticker in the shape of a haunted tree. It is black, leafless, and has orange eyes and a creepy orange mouth. The Seek app identified it as the species Papilio bianor (a butterfly). The species Papilio bianor, a butterfly. It is a burnt orange color with spots and swaths of other colors along the outer half of its wings, including yellow, white, and teal. I will know that when I search for images of this species, I get a wide diversity of images of butterflies.
October 10, 2025 at 10:58 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Bucket list ✅

I got to see a corpse flower in full bloom! It smelled like cooked broccoli to me - not that bad, but my friends thought it was awful. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Totally worth the 2.5 hr wait with friends and really fun to see so many people excited about plants!
A corpse flower. The Corpse Flower is not a single flower, but a huge cluster of flowers on a central spike called a spadix. This one was 7 feet tall. The colorful "flower" consists of a large, vase-shaped, ruffled spathe (a modified leaf) that encloses the spadix. A corpse flower. The Corpse Flower is not a single flower, but a huge cluster of flowers on a central spike called a spadix. This one was 7 feet tall. The colorful "flower" consists of a large, vase-shaped, ruffled spathe (a modified leaf) that encloses the spadix. This picture shows the flowers up close. A corpse flower. The Corpse Flower is not a single flower, but a huge cluster of flowers on a central spike called a spadix. This one was 7 feet tall. The colorful "flower" consists of a large, vase-shaped, ruffled spathe (a modified leaf) that encloses the spadix.
October 2, 2025 at 11:10 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
GPT prompt: I am designing an experiment where I need to plant plants in a haxagonal design, with each plant having six neighbors with 20 cm distances between plants. Like a honeycomb design. Make me a diagram showing how many plants I can fit into a 2m x 2m area with this spacing.

GPT response:
A diagram with boxes labeled A1, A2, B1, B2, etc. The boxes are connected with curvy lines of unequal distances and random directions. There is a legend at the top that just says the word "plant" in a box.
September 24, 2025 at 9:49 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Newest Hallmark romcom

I hope they consulted with birders because I imagine that any biological discrepancies in the movie are going to cause a riot.

#Birds #Birding
A movie poster for a Hallmark original movie called " adventures in love and birding". The image is of a woman and a man sitting and smiling at each other. Each of them is holding up a hand with a bird resting on it. The movie slogan is " birds of a feather are better together".
September 23, 2025 at 9:01 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
"For our scientists" 🧪

By ellecordova on Instagram
September 6, 2025 at 12:36 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
If I ever have to wear an extravagant ball gown, this thistle dress is the vibe I'd go for. Perfection. #Botany

Art by J. J. Grandville, 1847, Les Fleurs Animées
A black and white drawing depicting a man slightly bowing forward to a woman. The man is dressed in a suit with a cane and top hat in his hands and he has the head of a donkey or similar creature. The woman is dressed in a gown that appears to be made of thistle leaves, including the spikes. She has a hat on her head with spikes and a thistle flower on top. She appears to be holding a long spine and is pointing it at the donkey man.
August 1, 2025 at 4:19 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Responses to artificial selection for kernel color in a very multicolored maize population after just one generation!

We selected for white kernels (left) & red kernels (right) in separate fields. The ears in each photo are a random subset of the those produced in each field.
#Botany #Evolution 🧪
Approximately 50 ears of corn lined up next to each other on a green background. The corn is multicolored, with some ears entirely red, others white with purple kernels, and a few that are more yellow or with red striped kernels. The majority of ears have white kernels. Approximately 50 ears of corn lined up next to each other on a green background. The corn is multicolored, with some ears entirely red, others white with purple kernels, and a few that are more yellow or with red striped kernels. The majority of ears have red kernels.
June 30, 2025 at 6:32 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Now THIS was a beautiful, fun, and memorable super social! Absolutely stunning garden and conservatory - worth dealing with the heat. 🥵 What a great way to close out a great conference. #Evol2025
The Georgia State Botanical garden, viewed from higher up, showing a courtyard with an aquatic plant habitat. A woodland view with the sun shining through. A snapshot of a few of the plants they have growing inside the botanic garden conservatory. A pathway through semi-circle wooden archways.
June 25, 2025 at 3:09 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
I know I'm biased, but Jill Anderson is a hugely impressive and innovative scientist who contributes a lot to our understanding of plant responses to climate change. #Evol2025

Here, she presents evidence of an elevational gradient in plasticity, from maladaptive (low elev) to adaptive (high elev).
A scientist named Jill Anderson presenting at a conference. The slide she is pointing to is titled "plasticity varies across the landscape" and depicts an elevational gradient in reaction norms such that plasticity is maladaptive at low elevations and adaptive at high elevations.
June 24, 2025 at 6:55 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Perennial frustration:

per @marbilly.bsky.social #Evol2035
June 23, 2025 at 3:19 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Ok hear me, Megan DeMarche is BRILLIANT and you all should be paying close attention to everything she says 🧐🔍🧪

#Evol2025
Dr. Megan DeMarche presenting at a conference. The slide behind her says "How much does environmental variation matter first local adaptation?"
June 23, 2025 at 3:13 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
CORRIE 🎤💧⬇️

@corriemoreau.bsky.social
#Evol2025
A scientist named Corrie Moreau giving the presidential address at the Evolution conference. The slide in the background summarizes her talk and says "Evolution has a lot to teach us" with bullet points about ant evolution and science communication.
June 22, 2025 at 1:45 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
-Margaret Mead

Very inspired by @evophd.bsky.social's talk at #Evol2025 today! @ncse.bsky.social
A woman standing in front of a podium at a conference. The slide behind her has a quote by Margaret Mead that says "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
June 22, 2025 at 1:46 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
"Science depends on K-12 education."

Kenneth Miller #Evol2025

The Scopes Symposium was excellent and timely.
A man at a podium delivering a talk during a conference. The slide behind him reads "Science depends on K-12 education", "we need to make ourselves available as resources to science educators", and "And we need to fight publicity to defend scince education at all levels".
June 22, 2025 at 1:42 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Charlotte, NC, USA
#ShowYourStripes
A graph depicting temperature changes in Charlotte, NC from 1850 to present day. Relative to average temperatures from 1961 to 2010, it's very obvious that temperatures from approximately 1850-1920 were lower while temperatures from approximately 1990 onward are much higher. Temperatures are increasing over time.
June 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
I brought my six year old son to a talk that I gave today.

I think he got a lot out of it!
A room full of people sitting and looking up at a screen. In the front row is a young boy, laying down on his back across several chairs, and with his head hanging off the last chair where the aisle is. He is clearly not paying any attention to anything happening in the room and looks very bored.
June 11, 2025 at 7:22 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
RuPaul as the judge of RuPaul's drag race. At the end of each episode, two contestants typically compete in a lip sync. On occasion, if both contestants have a poor performance, they will both be eliminated. This image shows RuPaul with an unhappy expression and it says " the double elimination glare".
June 6, 2025 at 11:10 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
A small victory in the lab: we have successfully observed pollen tubes growing down a pistil in our study organism for the first time!

This involves entirely new methodology for us. We need to work on higher quality images, but in any case, this will help us address our research question. 🥳 🧪 #PUI
An image of a stigma and upper portion of a style from a flower of Chamaecrista fasciculata. The stigma has many trichomes protruding from it. The same image of a stigma and upper portion of a style from a flower of Chamaecrista fasciculata shown previously, except now pollen grains can be seen within the trichomes of the stigma and pollen tubes can be seen growing down the style.
June 5, 2025 at 3:35 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
#Botany folks, what do you call the "compartments" within a fruit like this that house and separate the seeds? I'm referring to the spaces between the sutures. Is there a term for them? 🌱🧪
A chamaecrista fasciculata fruit where each seed is sequestered between two sutures that hold the two sides of the fruit together.
May 30, 2025 at 6:07 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
A gift from a student 😂
A white T-shirt with an image of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana on it. Underneath it says " America's next top model"
May 22, 2025 at 12:52 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
One of my new favorite common plant names: Mountain Doghobble

Ridiculous sounding, beautiful flowers. The species is Leucothoe fontanesiana.
white flowers that are almost fluorescent appear in the leaf axils (where the leaf joins the stem), usually towards the tips of the branches. These flowering clusters can be quite showy and fragrant. white flowers that are almost fluorescent appear in the leaf axils (where the leaf joins the stem), usually towards the tips of the branches. These flowering clusters can be quite showy and fragrant. white flowers that are almost fluorescent appear in the leaf axils (where the leaf joins the stem), usually towards the tips of the branches. These flowering clusters can be quite showy and fragrant.
April 18, 2025 at 12:28 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Reminds me of diagrams used to describe the arrangement of flowers in inflorescences (flowering stalks).
A diagram showing determinate inflorescences in plants.
March 30, 2025 at 5:01 PM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Future scientist, future voter, current rabble-rouser 🧪
A five year old boy holding up a sign at the Stand Up for Science rally in Raleigh that reads "future scientist" and has drawings of "science stuff" and his dog
March 8, 2025 at 12:37 AM
smwadgymar.bsky.social
Loved this lab coat that I spotted in Raleigh
A woman wearing a lab coat. Written on the back in various colors of glitter it says "SCIENCE because figuring things out is better than making stuff up!"
March 8, 2025 at 12:18 AM