By Daniel Davis
BYU’s conference center is hosting the 11th Wildland Shrub Symposium on June 13-15.
The symposium will help celebrate the 25th anniversary of Provo’s shrub sciences laboratory and the 100th anniversary of genetic studies, said E. Durant McArthur, project leader for the Rocky Mountain Research Station and co-chair of the symposium organizing committee.
“The symposium will also honor two leading men who helped establish the lab,” he said.
Howard C. Stutz, an emeritus professor of botany and range sciences, and the late A. Perry Plumber, the first research director of the lab, will be honored at the celebration.
“I’m embarrassed and humbled to be honored at such an event,” Stutz said. “You definitely don’t seek this sort of recognition.”
Stutz said he remembers when the lab was first opened.
“It was very unusual for the federal government to place a lab on private property,” he said.
The lab is located on the BYU campus, but the government leases the use of its facilities to the public.
Stutz said interfacing government-sponsored science and religion is an interesting application of the lab.
Honoring individuals and celebrating anniversaries is not the only reason for the symposium.
The motivation behind establishing the lab in Provo was because of Utah’s great array of wildland shrubs, Stutz said.
“Eastern Utah houses ancient vegetation, and Western Utah houses fairly young and new vegetation,” he said. “Seeing the different plants evolve helps us accommodate environmentally-challenged areas.”
The symposium will provide classes and lectures on shrubland ecosystem genetics and biodiversity.
Daniel Fairbanks, co-chair of the symposium organizing committee, said such conferences allow scientists to share and present the latest research.
“Much of what we do is based on what other people are doing,” he said. “Conferences like these help us to know where we are going with our research and help us avoid duplication.”
The proceedings from each symposium are published so the work can be disseminated, McArthur said.
“People are not always of one mind with these things (scientific matters),” he said. “We don’t disagree, but there are different opinions.”
Stutz said the symposium brings scientists together.
“We become catalysts for each other,” he said.
The conference will also sponsor a field trip to tour the Utah deserts midway through the symposium.
The field trip will allow the researchers to witness first hand evolution of the shrubs, Stutz said.
