Unseen & Underfoot: The Hidden Diversity of the Plains
The beauty and diversity of the Great Plains is well known—at least above ground. Tom Powers, a Nebraska nematologist from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, believes most people only know half of the story. Unseen and Underfoot was conceived by Powers and others in UNL's Nematology Lab to "show the other half.”
The Nematology lab routinely samples soil to collect nematodes—microscopic worms that are present in all habitats on the planet. They are the most abundant multicellular animals on earth but are overlooked and under-appreciated due to their small size and subterranean habitat. This exhibit seeks to change that by showcasing the variety and strange beauty of these creatures, alongside the habitats in which they were collected.
Featured sites include the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie and Willa Cather's Childhood Home in Red Cloud, as well as several other prairie sites, photographed by several regional conservation photographers.
The focus on nematodes of the prairie expands the sense of place in landscapes. The diversity in the prairie nematode communities reflects the aboveground diversity of the plants and geologic events that shaped the land. Thousands of years of records contained within the nematode community are lost when land is plowed. Conversely, an unplowed prairie soil community will change incrementally in concert with other members of the community. Each species carries its own genealogical history within its DNA.
Despite existing in relative obscurity, nematode research dips into dozens of fields of study. The discovery of a 26,000 year-old nematode revived from Siberian frozen tundra stimulated discussion of the limits of life. Caenorhabditis elegans, the first multicellular animal to have its entire genome sequenced and a model organism for developmental biology, is actively used in aging studies for humans. Nematodes that feed on plants can cause severe crop losses, and scientists work to control those effects. Nematodes that parasitize humans, like the giant intestinal roundworm, Ascaris lumbricoides, infect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Entomopathogenic nematodes are replacing chemical insecticides throughout Europe as a preferred biological control of insects. Scientists have only begun to scratch the surface in our understanding of nematode biology and biodiversity.
Contributors to This Exhibit
Dr. Tom Powers was introduced to nematodes as an undergraduate Entomology student at Purdue University. The dissection of a Bess beetle and the observation of nematodes that lived within the guts was the spark that led to forty-seven years of nematode discovery. As a Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Dr. Powers seeks to encourage others, young and old, to engage in nematode investigations.
Dr. Peter Mullin from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is the co-author of Plant Parasitic Nematodes: A Pictorial Key to Genera. He is Lincoln's premier concertina-playing nematologist and the drummer for the Star City Kochavim klezmer band. Dr. Mullin is a Massachusetts native who loves teaching about plant pathology, mycology, and nematology.
Byron Adams grew up in California, earned his BS at Brigham Young University, and completed his PhD with Dr. Powers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Now a Professor of Biology at BYU, he teaches classes on various aspects of evolutionary biology and runs a research program that focuses on nematode evolution and ecology.
Ethan Freese was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2018 with degrees in Fisheries and Wildlife and Grassland Ecology and Management; he completed a Master's of Applied Science at UNL in 2020. He currently works for the Platte Basin Timelapse project in the School of Natural Resources at UNL and has developed a deep appreciation for the prairies of Nebraska.
Michael Farrell is an accomplished still photographer, filmmaker, writer, and assemblage artist. He has had his photography work appear in numerous one-person museum and gallery exhibitions regionally and locally as well as in Nebraska History, NEBRASKAland Magazine, and Prairie Schooner. He has authored and published four photo books with accompanying essays. Farrell practices the traditional craft of photography using large format cameras and lenses, developing his own black and white negatives. He is the co-founder of the Platte Basin Timelapse project and is a 51-year veteran of public media, many of which have been spent in the production and management of documentaries about the culture, history, and environment of Nebraska and the Great Plains for Nebraska Public Television.
Becky Higgins has been part of the Tom Powers lab for more than twenty years, primarily working with the micrograph images. Many of the nematode "portraits" in this show involve the painstaking layering of thirty or more photographs from the microscope to create a single image of the entire animal. Becky's interests outside of the lab include tending gardens at home, traveling, and playing in the Lincoln Civic Orchestra.
Michael Werner is originally from Florida and received a BS in molecular biology from Stetson University. He later attended the University of Chicago for a PhD in molecular genetics and cell biology. During a postdoc appointment at the Max Planck Institute in Tuebingen, German, he worked on the molecular mechanisms of developmental plasticity using the mouth-form dimorphism of Pristionchus pacificus. Michael started his own lab at the University of Utah in 2020 to continue his research, as well as starting a new research program investigating extremophile nematodes in Great Salt Lake.
Kris Powers is a technologist in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Nebraska, now semi-retired. She coordinates the Nemalab field trips, organizes the sampling and carries out the diagnostic testing on lab specimens requiring molecular identification. "The collaboration required o artists, gallery curators, microscopists, nematologists, printers, scientists, and wildlife photographers involved in the Unseen and Underfoot project represents two years of an extraordinary educational and exciting journey. I'm enormously grateful for the opportunity to work with so many wonderful accomplished peopleand very proud of what we produced."
Tracy Sanford Tucker joined the staff of the National Willa Cather Center in 2012, after completing her MA at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in English and Great Plains Studies. A certified archivist, Tucker oversees the management of the National Willa Cather Center's museum collections and archives, as well as caring for the largest number of nationally-designated historic sites dedicated to an American author. Her research, essays, and photography have been published in Willa Cather Review, The New Territory, Old Northwest Quarterly, Whirlwind, and Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest (forthcoming 2025).
David Kihoro Sirengo is an emerging figure in the field of nematology. Growing upsurrounded by Kenya's rich agricultural terrain, David formed a deep bond with the land, which sparked his interest in crop science. He completed his BS in Crop Improvement and Protection in 2017 and went on to get his MS in Nematology at Ghent University in 2020; he continues his PhD studies in the Powers lab, working on the multifaceted associations between Xiphinema, nepoviruses, and bacterial endosymbionts.