Hughes Mentor:  Antonio DiTommaso

Department: Crop and Soil Sciences

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Faculty Profile: Professor Antonio DiTommaso

Most people hate weeds; Professor Antonio DiTommaso, Associate Professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, loves them. Well, actually it is more of a love-hate relationship. Professor DiTommaso, while greatly interested in weed biology, has dedicated his career to the control and elimination of ecologically and agriculturally harmful weeds. Currently, several projects in the DiTommaso lab are focused around a particular weed called the swallowwort. One project focusing on the ecological impact of the weed has shown that, due to its similarity to milkweed, monarch butterflies often mistake swallowwort for milkweed, which is a primary food and breeding source for the butterfly. As a result of the decreased nutrient value of swallowwort compared to milkweed, butterflies attracted to swallowwort are unable to survive. This problem poses a significant threat the monarch butterfly population and is one the DiTommaso group is trying to solve through an understanding of swallowwort seed biology. In addition, the lab also investigates agricultural-related issues, such as how organic growers can control weeds like swallowwort without resorting to chemical treatments.

Professor DiTommaso has been interested in agriculture all his life. Born outside of Naples, Italy, he grew up on a dairy farm owned by his family. Although the family left Italy and their farm to migrate to Canada when Professor DiTommaso was nine years old, the family retained their passion for agriculture and Professor DiTommaso’s father remains an avid gardener to this day. It is from this upbringing that Professor DiTommaso gained a respect for the land and the environment, which lead him to major in Environmental Biology at McGill University as an undergraduate. Encouraged by enthusiastic professors, Professor DiTommaso worked on research projects involving turtle basking behavior and horse and deer fly breeding. Professor DiTommaso was also able to work on a project that took him far into the Canadian north, well past a latitude at which trees are no longer able to growl. There he worked along side several NASA scientists. Professor DiTommaso recalls learning about the fragile habitat of lichens, which represent some of the only plant life that can grow in the desolate environment, and how they could take more than 50 years to recover if stepped on, quite a literal ecological footprint. Spurred on by his undergraduate experience, Professor DiTommaso went on to get a Masters degree from Queen’s College, and a PhD degree in Weed Sciences from McGill University, where he remained for several years thereafter as a faculty member.

After completing his faculty position at McGill, Professor DiTommaso was offered several positions at various institutions, all of which he turned down in order to work at Cornell. The offer from Cornell was the most appealing to him because it was the only one that would allow him to devote as much time to teaching as he would to research. The opportunity to teach undergraduates is very important to Professor DiTommaso. He knows from his own experience that the encouragement and guidance of mentors is what inspires many students to delve deeper into subjects and consider careers in scientific research. Professor DiTommaso is constantly trying to find ways to guide and motivate students and, quite literally, to “seed” their interests. This is a task Professor DiTommaso takes very seriously as he understands that his students are the future scientists, doctors, and professionals of the world.
However, Professor DiTommaso’s passion for teaching students is not limited to the classroom. In fact, he spends equal, if not more, time with students in the lab. To Professor DiTommaso, undergraduates are an integral part of his research and he strives to involve students in all aspects of science, from designing experiments, to presenting work and writing manuscripts. In fact, many of Professor DiTommaso’s undergraduate students have been coauthors on published papers, some even the primary author. No one is stuck dishwashing in this lab.

In addition to the previously described projects, which are mainly done in campus greenhouse facilities, many students work on projects that extend past Cornell’s borders. Currently, the DiTommaso lab is also working on a project based in Manaus, Brazil, in the Amazon. There, they conduct cross-disciplinary research with anthropologists on a markedly fertile soil known as terra preta in Portuguese, or “black soil.” Unexpected in a place like the rainforest, this soil is believed to be the result of agricultural activities of vast and previously unknown ancient societies of the Amazon. Currently, several lab members, including undergraduates, are involved in researching how weeds have adapted to this special soil. In addition exotic locations like the Amazon, Professor DiTommaso also conducts research all over New York State, aimed at helping agricultural farmers deal with weed control issues.

Through his own personal experience, Professor Antonio DiTommaso has developed a great appreciation for the importance of a good undergraduate education. As a result, encouraging and mentoring undergraduates is as important to him and his career as is the pursuit of research. Whether it is in the rainforests of South America or in a laboratory in Bradfield Hall, Professor DiTommaso is dedicated to exposing his students to all aspects of the scientific process and, hopefully, inspiring them to pursue careers in science, in whatever discipline they might choose.

A Day in the Life of an Undergraduate in the Weed Ecology Lab

I discovered Professor Toni DiTommaso’s Weed Ecology lab while browsing Cornell’s Undergraduate biology research webpage. I have a strong interest in both Plant Biology and Ecology, and was also excited by the idea of working to increase the body of knowledge about an invasive species that’s threatening this area. So I thought that this would be a great combination. Getting into the lab was actually fairly easy; I think that the most important criteria for Prof. DiTommaso are enthusiasm and ambition.

During the planning of my experiment, I was helped by knowledge from Intro Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and the Environment, and basic Botany courses.

Every day in the Weed Ecology lab begins with a lab meeting at 8:30. This is used for updates on projects and to assign work to the undergraduates working in the lab. One of the most important functions of the meeting is actually to distribute vehicles so that everyone can get where they need to go and transport any equipment or plant matter.

Because I’m working on my own project I generally decide upon my own schedule, unless I happen to be going out into the field to help out someone else in the lab. On days that I am collecting data I try to get in before the lab meeting and get together data sheets and equipment so that I can take my group of helpers and start work as soon as possible. During the course of the project this work involved measuring plants in the Plant Science greenhouse, and harvesting plants at Muenscher greenhouse. On days that I am not collecting data I spend most of the day at the computer either entering data or, now, beginning to analyze my data. I also spend some time writing my paper and reading related scientific articles.

I work primarily with Pale Swallow-wort, Cynanchum rossicum, and also with Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, and Canada Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis. The main set of challenges that PSW presents are due to its twining nature. When measuring it in the greenhouse, it takes time to trace a particular plant up the stake as it twines with all of the others. Also, it is difficult to contain PSW and to keep it from tangling with nearby plants and interfering. In the field this presents an even greater challenge in measuring as it twines with surrounding plants. Measuring without disturbing the plant is often difficult to impossible. And determining plant growth rates has special time management challenges, as data must be taken on all plants within a short period of time so that some plants have not had longer to grow.

My work in this lab is not heavily focused on any special techniques or technical skills. I measured the plants using meter sticks, and will be weighing the plant matter. The method of germination of PSW and for tracking germination was interesting, but also not highly technical.

I have, however, learned quite a bit about how to plan a research project and how to deal with issues that arise. I’ve been given great freedom and responsibility with my project. I was amazed at how much thinking goes into an experiment before it can begin, and how difficult it is to sort out every little detail. I’ve learned to consider any little factors that may confound your results and interfere with your experiment, as well as how to look ahead and envision problems that might arise with taking data. I now know the importance of considering feasibility and being realistic with how much data you would like to take, and how precise you would like to be versus how much time doing these things will take. I learned to choose between multiple methods and sets of data and to decide which was most important and which had to be sacrificed due to time. I now have a long list of things that I should have done differently, and I will certainly put these lessons to use in the future.

I also learned about how to delegate responsibility and to manage people who are working on a project. It was an interesting experience to work with people of all different levels within the lab. The graduate students and lab techs have different input than the undergraduates, yet all has been valuable.

The most important thing that I learned about myself from this experience is that I enjoy doing research. I had thought that I wanted to do research as my career, but until doing it full-time this summer I didn’t know for sure. Doing research during the year was fairly stressful for me because I had a heavy course-load and I was often in the lab doing work during times when I knew that I should have been doing school-work. However, during the summer, having the time to devote to research allowed me to be much more productive and to really enjoy the experience. I also learned that I definitely want to do field research, as I got to help out graduate students with their fieldwork.

This lab should attract students who like doing research with practical applications, who are interested in plants and ecology, and who don’t mind going out into the field and getting dirty.