Winter 1998

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED AUGUST 2001.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: WINTER 1998.]

Peter Crane: Scientist of Past and Future
By Debra Shore

Peter Crane spends some of his most passionate moments amid the dusty stone remains of ancient plants. He's not solely a paleobotanist, however. As Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Field Museum, Crane rides herd over 20 million specimens, ranging from the colossal to the microscopic, preserved in steel tanks, glass vials, beeswax, and photographs. Give him a fossil gingko leaf from, oh, 160 million years ago and he'll discourse freely about the herbivorous elements of a dinosaur's diet. But he was happy to be one of the crack team that brought the Field's proud new meat-eating Tyrannosaurus rex to Chicago. With his classy English accent, Crane never misses an opportunity to point out that Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore has more plant species than the whole of his native British Isles.

It should surprise no one that Crane is drawn to the dunes (as a botanist, or as a Brit). The classic studies on plant succession conducted there by the University of Chicago's Henry Chandler Cowles 100 years ago essentially led to the birth of ecology as an academic discipline. One of Crane's favorite places — Pinhook Bog — lies within Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. "You have floating sphagnum, larch trees, lizard tails, sundews, and pitcher plants. The flora of the British Isles is so depauperate compared to here. And yet," Crane cautions, "this beautiful, beautiful bog is a terribly fragile place because its whole existence depends on a particular water regime which depends on rainwater."

Thus here, as in much of Chicago Wilderness, the survival and health of a vital natural community — even though it is part of a national park — is linked to systems and actions far beyond its borders.

Crane is an apostle for the concept of interconnectedness as it applies to both natural habitats and human relationships. "The way we behave is directly linked to tangible effects on other people and to tangible effects on our environment," he says. "Chicago Wilderness has an immediate impact on people's lives, as contrasted to the Atlantic rain forest or Amazonia. Chicago Wilderness speaks to the fundamental question of 'why should I care? What relationship does this have to me?' "

Crane migrated to Chicago 15 years ago to become a curator in geology at the Field Museum. (He resides in Oak Park with his wife, Elinor, and two children.) Today Crane oversees all four academic departments at the Museum — botany, geology, zoology, and anthropology. He also oversees the Office of Environmental and Conservation Programs, established in 1995 to expand the Museum's research and education efforts in conservation biology. "All museums are local," Crane says, "and it's very important for museums like ours to connect with their local public. Chicago Wilderness connects us with other member organizations and gives us a role to play in conservation, restoration management, and environmental education locally."

Thus the Field Museum (in the person of scientist Gregory Mueller), has recently begun research on the fungi of this region, in addition to its globally-respected work on fungi in the neotropics and other far-flung places. Fungi may not be as well understood as birds, mammals, and plants, Crane says, but they are just as important — if not more important — ecologically. "They're crucial to the whole biology and ecology of soil," he adds. "They play a major role in the decomposition and the recycling of plant material in ecosystems. Are there differences in the fungi at sites being affected by pollution versus other sites?" he says.

Renewed attention to its own back yard has animated and invigorated the Field Museum and other Chicago Wilderness institutions, where sharing knowledge, expertise, and collections is becoming commonplace where it was rare. "This museum had very little interaction with most of these organizations prior to Chicago Wilderness," Crane confesses. "We have very large and historically well-documented collections and a strong group of working scientists who are internationally renowned, and an education dimension that teaches people from pre-kindergarten through adulthood. Chicago Wilderness has become a clearinghouse for the biological expertise in this region — we now know who to talk to — and it's brought together and connected scientists and educators and land managers in ways that were not previously possible.

"Through Chicago Wilderness we can be a model for other people around the world," says Crane, referring to worldwide environmental challenges, "because if we can't protect what we have on our own doorstep, how can we ask others around the world to do the same?"