{"id":8752,"date":"2020-04-20T21:31:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T21:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2020\/05\/01\/when-these-plants-contain-metal-haley-disinger-20-wants-to-know-why\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:32:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:32:53","slug":"when-these-plants-contain-metal-haley-disinger-20-wants-to-know-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/when-these-plants-contain-metal-haley-disinger-20-wants-to-know-why\/","title":{"rendered":"When plants contain metal, Haley Disinger ’20 wants to know why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haley Disinger \u201920 hardly noticed the tropical heat of Izabal, Guatemala, in July \u2013 so immersed was she in botanical questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in another country and you\u2019re there to do research, things like heat, humidity and bugs just seem less bad,\u201d said the biology and sustainability science major.<\/p>\n

In July, Disinger was a research student in Guatemala for Furman Professor of Biology Joseph Pollard. The field research followed a survey she conducted at the herbarium at the Missouri Botanic Garden in St. Louis, where Disinger was able to screen specimens before searching for them in the field in Guatemala. Disinger’s work\u00a0is among more 145 digital presentations of students’ engaged learning experiences highlighted during the virtual\u00a012th annual Furman Engaged<\/a>. Student presentations will be available for public viewing beginning May 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really fascinated by plants,\u201d she said. \u201cI was looking forward to an intensive research experience, and I\u2019d had Dr. (Joe) Pollard for a class before. It\u2019s been fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does it mean when plants \u2013 and in Disinger\u2019s case, those in the coffee, olive and violet families \u2013 have an especially high concentration of the metal nickel, known as \u00a0hyperaccumulation, levels that would ordinarily be toxic to other plants?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do some have this ability but others do not?\u201d she wondered. Disinger\u2019s research is related to other questions that scientists are asking, such as how to use plants to remove metals from the soil, and whether extracting nickel from the plants can offset the need for more environmentally harmful ways of collecting nickel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way you extract nickel (from plants) is by incineration,\u201d she said. \u201cSo there are environmental concerns with that. But when you compare it to the environmental concerns associated with a strip mine or pit mine, suddenly incineration doesn\u2019t look as bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Professor Guillaume Echevarria (University of Lorraine, France), Dulce Navarrete (Ph.D. student from University of Chapingo, Mexico), and Haley Disinger ’20 at a cloud-forest reserve called the Biotopo del Quetzal, in the mountains of central Guatemala.<\/p><\/div>\n

As for what\u2019s next, Disinger will explore a very different environment as an intern for the United States Geological Survey Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, based out of the Snake River Field Station.<\/p>\n

She will be in Idaho looking at revegetation after a wildfire, along with fire ecology, restoration ecology, adaptive management and other areas of research.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different kind of project, but I\u2019ll be excited to be looking at plants,\u201d said Disinger.<\/p>\n

Furman Engaged, a\u00a0celebration of undergraduate research, internships, study away, creative projects, service learning and other immersive learning experiences, gives students the opportunity to share their work with peers, faculty, staff and the community. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the daylong campus event has been adapted to an online-only event this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Professor of Biology Joe Pollard and Haley Disinger ’20 (back row) on a boat in Guatemala in July.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haley Disinger \u201920 hardly noticed the tropical heat of Izabal, Guatemala, in July \u2013 so immersed was she in botanical questions. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in another country and you\u2019re there to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":18501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-biology","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}