Interview with a tropical botanist
In Waikiki, money is wet. 'Mahalo,' a cashier with a flowery shirt tells you, 'here is your change.' Wet change. It's hard to avoid, when you have such a beach, people will take a dip. Money is wet because of all the surfers. Probably not just them, but surfing in Waikiki is a good excuse to let your money enjoy a dip with you.
Some people are not here for surfing. Neither are they here for tanning, snorkeling, hiking, golfing, nor looking at women in grass skirts and coconut bras. Well, maybe they are, but unlike most people, that's not what they told to the custom agent. Hawaii, with its tropical flora, its young geology, its underwater volcanoes, its high mountains far from light pollution, and its coral reefs, is a paradise for scientists.
Guylaine Poisson is, among other things, a tropical botanist. 'My father was a gold-seeker, ' she tells me, 'he never had a boss.' She was taught that no dream was too crazy to become true. Guylaine started her career as forest ranger in Abitibi. Later, she worked at LG-2, a hydro-electricity plant far up north. They treated workers really well there. They had great cafeterias, great apartments, and a janitor would even cleanup for them after parties. But no one would spend more than a few years in such a remote location.
When she came back to the city, she wanted to try something different. She studied cinema at Université de Montréal. The whole thing was too subjective for her and she switched to biology after one year. During her second year, she got a summer job as research assistant at the Montréal Botanical Garden.
'A botanist asked "Do you plan to do a master?" I said "No!" He told me "We have to pick up samples in Amazonia." I said "OK!"' She met her master degree adviser at the Botanical Garden. Three of them left for an epic journey searching for the Fibonacci sequence in the flowers of Dracontium polyphyllum.
They reached the Amazon rain forest through Cayenne, where the hot pepper is from. Before one reaches the jungle, he has to drive through the devastation of deforestation. 'It was a saddening sight.'
The jungle was humid. They slept in hammocks doubled with a mosquito nests. Guylaine once woke up with a mygale hung next to her face. One night, she could not sleep; she just fought the irresistibly urge to urinate. She didn't want to leave the safety of the hammock. 'Snakes comes out at night.' Night in the jungle was a concerto of scary sounds. Howler monkeys, as their name suggest, use a communication system not unlike banshee wails. They like to vocalize next to you, very early in the morning.
Anti-malaria pills were laden with side effects. It didn't seem to be such a bad idea to skip taking them for a few days. Until Guylaine got a strong fever and experienced memory lapses. There must be strong stuff in those pills because taking them after the fact can still put you back into shape in no time. 'I'm not appalled by mosquitoes. In Abitibi, we have mosquitoes. There are days when you can't talk without swallowing some.' The jungle was full of creepy insects. 'My advisor screamed "remove you pants!" and I did.' A legion of ants had found a chocolate bar in her pocket.
Hiking in the rain forest reminds you that sweat has to be rinsed off once in a while; it's a natural instinct. Despite the lack of proper facilities, Guylaine decided to take a bath. 'Watch out,' they were told earlier, 'there are caimans in the stream'. While bathing, she heard a plop. 'You've never seen a girl wash herself that fast.' It has to be true; I have yet to see a girl wash herself fast at all. Later, in a village, they saw huge stuffed piranhas, from the same stream apparently.
'We didn't carry antivenin. It's as dangerous to use the wrong one if you misidentify the snake than to be bitten in the first place.' They walked in line, the leader waving a machete to open the path. 'You are told not to move abruptly when you see a snake but I couldn't help it. I screamed and jumped and everything.' It was a huge orange, black, and white viper.
Picking up the samples wasn't the end of the story. A permit for plant samples was not a permit for dirt samples. 'I had to clean up every single root with a tooth brush. No one seemed to care about the mud on my jungle boots though.' Back in Montréal, half the samples were destroyed by mismanipulations. Her advisor was consoling, 'Don't worry Guylaine, we go there again next year.' They did find the Fibonacci sequence, after all, it's everywhere.
She worked briefly as an electron microscopy consultant. She first read about bioinformatics in a magazine while waiting between two runs of electron microscope. She learned much of bioinformatics, much about computers in fact, in the young bioinformatics lab at Université de Montréal. Then she worked as a bioinformatician in a biotech firm and decided to go for a PhD in cognitive computer science at Université du Québec à Montréal. What a coincidence that, at the same time, University of Hawaii started looking for a bioinformatician who knew something about tropical ecology. 'Someone asked jokingly "Your resume, is it real?"'
Guylaine Poisson is now assistant professor at University of Hawaii. She works on metagenomics, the nascent branch of bioinformatics that studies unannotated, uncultured, environmental samples. She lives with her husband Pascal and her son William near the marina in Kaneohe Bay. She has a wonderful dog, Ricky, who likes chasing doves around the house.
Where do I fit in all for this? Ricky was raised in Montréal; he understands only French. I was the lucky one who got to keep him while the family was out of town.
