Eureka moment changed her
A pupil’s encounter with an extra-mural school environmental club resulted in a lifetime passion for research, writes Liz Clarke
SIMANGELE Msweli is eternally grateful that school sport was never her thing. If it had been, she says, she may never have learnt about the wonders of nature and the destructive pressures that planet Earth is confronting on a daily basis.
“In Mtubutuba, where I grew up, there was very little awareness of the threats that the environment faces.
“Quite honestly, I never knew what an environmental club was except that my school, Masibonisane High, offered it to learners that were not sports-minded like myself.”
She admits that at first the knowledge she was gaining through the extra-mural programme didn’t make that much sense to her.
“I didn’t see the relevance to my life as I thought the planet’s problems were far removed from the problems my family were having to deal with, like money for education and rising food prices. I thought it was something I could put on the back-burner and I would probably forget.”
However, she was shocked when her teacher explained that the reason the wetlands were disappearing was that commercial alien trees were being planted that sucked up all the water, indigenous plants were being removed, and pollutants were driving away the creatures that looked after the wetlands.
“Since I was a child, we ate fruits from trees locally, played in these wetlands, had watched different types of buck and wading birds. It was something we thought would never go. But it did. And on this particular day, I understood why.”
It was this eureka moment in the young learner’s life that changed everything.
“I knew exactly what I wanted to do after I left school – go to university and study biological sciences. It became a mission to understand the issues around sustainability.
“My family were a bit shocked. They thought I would be better off being a doctor, engineer or a lawyer. The only way to prove to them that plants are important, was to study how they evolved, their dynamics, their habitat and their characteristics.”
With this in mind, Msweli decided to focus her post-graduate research at UKZN in pollination and its place and importance in the plant cycle and in evolution itself.
Her journey of investigation, she says, has been “mind blowing” in every way.
“We are fortunate to have internationally renowned evolutionary biologist Steven Johnson to guide us through the minefields of investigation. But, believe me, once you are on this path you cannot get off. There’s still so much that needs to be understood about the plants that grow around us. We are only at the beginning.”
Msweli has completed her master’s thesis on two species of indigenous flowering primulas. “Our prediction is that the species Exochaenium grande appears to be adapting its floral traits to come into line with Thunbergia atriplicifolia. Is it trying to mimic the one that is more successful at attracting pollinators?
“We don’t know yet, but we have managed to confirm that they are both pollinated by solitary bees and that they look strikingly similar in colour, size and shape, so the search for answers must go on.”
It’s these tiny strands of knowledge, she believes, that will ultimately predict our future on Earth and the way we work with it. In her lexicon of questions is whether plants are able to understand the characteristics of other plants, and what are the mechanisms used to do these subtle adaptions?
“We know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But does that also apply to plants?”
While achieving a doctorate is her ultimate goal, there is another aspect to her life and career that is equally important.
“I come from a very humble background where things like research and higher learning were never part of the family discussion,” she says.
“That is why reaching out to learners is such a big thing for me. Wherever I can, I try and encourage young school leavers to think about a career in science. There is so much happening right on our doorstep that we know so little about.”
If she had her way, environmental clubs, like hers at Mtubatuba that changed her life, should be set up in every school in the province.
“In fact, I will go one step further. Environmental awareness studies that look at everything from plastic pollution to the degradation of indigenous flora and fauna should be incorporated in school subjects and taught from primary school level up to secondary school.” lizclarke4@gmail.com