Seed germination is a prominent issue in forestry and ecology, playing a critical role in forest generation. Yet the large appetites of little critters give seeds a narrow time window to sprout. Traditional deterrence methods like fencing and trapping are not reliable, inspiring research into chemical defenses.
Peter Guiden
Associate Professor of Biology
Lanni worked with Associate Professor of Biology Peter Guiden on her thesis project and initially expressed interest in the College’s green spaces.
“A few days after that first meeting, I got an email from Professor Guiden. Funny enough, he had made a pizza the night before and had added chili flakes on top, a topping that might deter spice-averse people from eating the pizza,” Lanni recalls. “And if that was true for humans, then couldn’t that maybe also be true for other mammals? Like the mice and voles of the Hamilton campus?”
“He had made a pizza the night before and had added chili flakes on top, a topping that might deter spice-averse people from eating the pizza ... if that was true for humans, then couldn’t that maybe also be true for other mammals?”
That idea bloomed into a full-blown project. Native plant chemical defenses for seeds had been studied before, but never in Northeastern forests. Lanni focused on testing the novel capsaicin defense to American beech seeds — and it worked. In her two trials, she found that spicy seeds were eaten at a lower rate than control seeds over fall, winter, and spring.
After graduation, Lanni and Guiden collaborated with John Orrock of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Brian Connolly of Gonzaga University to synthesize Lanni’s results with Connolly and Orrock’s similar study. The resulting paper, “Seed coatings containing capsaicin reduce seed removal in temperate woody species,” was published recently in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research.
“Together, the studies provide the first evidence that coating seeds in capsaicin protects seeds in our ecosystem,” Guiden says. “This work provides land managers interested in reforestation with a new tool to bolster forest regeneration, which continues to be our most important approach to fighting the climate crisis.”
On her publication, Lanni says, “To know that I have contributed to the body of knowledge for others, with a first author paper coming out of undergrad, is a very surreal feeling for me.”
As she prepares to take the MCAT exam, Lanni expressed gratitude for the skills she learned at Hamilton and hope for her future, where she aims to combine her dual interests in scholarship and service.
