Sponsoring Organization: Plant It Wild
Description of the Event: Once among the most abundant plant communities in southwest Michigan, prairies, or native grasslands, have now all but disappeared. We will discuss prairie ecology before exploring how habitat loss, land use, and climate change have influenced the extinction of many prairie plant species. Human activities threaten thousands of species with extinction, but it remains difficult to predict extinction risk for many vulnerable species. Historical records can help us test for patterns in species losses and identify traits that influence vulnerability to local extinction. I use historical botanical data from Kalamazoo County, Michigan, to examine whether species characteristics or family relationships explain native species loss. Having identified at-risk species, I then address whether human-caused changes, including nitrogen fertilization, deer herbivory, and climate warming, influenced local extinctions by planting resurrected populations of extinct species back into local restored prairies.
Presenter: Dr. Meredith ZettlemoyerWebsite Link for Event: PlantItWild.net
To find out if an event you are interested in qualifies for educational or volunteer hours, please check with your local horticulture educator.
some or all of these events may be postponed or canceled due to unforseen circumstances like the weather. Please check each organization’s website for updates.
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Earlier Event: June 15
Dunes Blooms
