Boston Flora

Tag: Jesse Bellemare

  • Friday, October 3 – Saturday, October 4 – Plant Migration in a Changing Climate

    This fall, New England Botanical Society, along with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, will be hosting a conference, Plant Migration in a Changing Climate. The conference will be held October 3-4, 2025 at The Gardens in Boothbay, ME. Our featured plenary speakers will be Jesse Bellemare, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College; Bethany Bradley, Professor of Environmental Conservation at University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Jay Wason, Associate Professor of Forest Ecosystem Physiology at The University of Maine.

    General conference details are below and will be updated as we get closer to the conference. If you are not a NEBS member and are interested in receiving conference updates, including application forms to give an oral presentation or submit a poster, please complete this brief form. Register and Pay here. Standard $100, NEBS member $75, Student $30, NEBS Student Member $15.

  • Grow Native Massachusetts Online Videos

    Grow Native Massachusetts videotapes many of their Evenings with Experts lectures so that they are readily available to you whenever you wish, and to reach a large audience across Massachusetts and beyond. The speakers are some of the best experts in the country. These recordings are professionally video-edited (so you can really see the speakers’ slides). Learn and enjoy! Programs include Nature’s Best Hope with Douglas Tallamy, Climate Change, Conservation, and the Role of Native Plant Horticulture with Jesse Bellemare, and more, dating back to 2015. To watch and access, visit www.grownativemass.org.

  • Wednesday, March 4, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Climate Change, Conservation, and the Role of Native Plant Horticulture

    Grow Native Massachusetts is proud to present our 2020 Evenings with Experts lecture series. These talks are free at The Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge, and open to all.

    Join us at 7 pm on March 4 for this talk with Jesse Bellemare, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College.

    As our world warms, the distributions of many native plant species are shifting with the climate. But not all species will keep pace with modern climate change, and some could face extinction.

    This poses a dilemma: what role should we take in helping native plant populations migrate? How do we balance our instinct for preservation with the risk of a relocated plant species disrupting the ecology of its new region?

    Jesse Bellemare will explore these questions in the context of the constant evolution of plant ranges over time, and the current insights we can gain from native plant horticulture.

    Jesse Bellemare’s research focuses on the ecology and biogeography of forest plants in the eastern United States. He has authored numerous scientific articles about the impacts of climate change, invasive insects, and land-use history on plant populations. He is currently the president of the New England Botanical Club.

    Thank you to our community partners: the Cambridge Public Library, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects — for their support of this series.

  • Friday, November 6, 7:30 pm – Horticultural Insights into Plant Conservation and Climate Change

    Climate change is predicted to be a major threat to biodiversity in coming years. It is unclear how plant species will respond to this challenge: if they will be able to tolerate new climatic conditions in their native ranges, or if their dispersal and migration capacities will be sufficient to keep up as their preferred climate zones shift northward.

    Native plant horticulture in the eastern U.S. provides a largely untapped trove of data on these pressing questions, as many species have been grown outside their native ranges for decades and, in some cases, have even escaped to colonize new geographic areas. These data are helping to recalibrate ecological models and guide the development of new conservation approaches, including controversial steps like “assisted migration”.

    Dr. Jesse Bellemare is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Smith College. His research focuses on plant ecology, biogeography, and conservation in relation to climate change, as well as ecosystem changes caused by exotic species. He will speak on Friday, November 6 at 7:30 pm in the Campus Center Carroll Room as the Fall Chrysanthemum Show Opening Lecture.

    A reception and preview of the Fall Chrysanthemum Show at the Lyman Plant House will follow. For more information visit https://www.smith.edu/garden/Home/events.html The Chrysanthemum Show, featuring ikebana by Smith College Students, runs from Saturday, November 7 – Sunday, November 22, 10 – 4 daily. Friday extended hours 10 – 8. Suggested donation $5.

  • Monday, December 15, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Climate Change and Plant Conservation: Is Managed Relocation an Option?

    Join Jesse Bellemare, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Smith College, on Monday, December 15, from 7 – 8:30 pm at the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, as he discusses Climate Change and Plant Conservation: Is Managed Relocation an Option? Climate change is projected to be one of the top threats to biodiversity in coming decades. Species with small geographic ranges, often called “endemics”, may be at especially high risk of extinction because unsuitable climatic conditions could develop rapidly across the entirety of their ranges. If such species are unable to disperse long distances on their own to follow suitable climatic conditions, it has been proposed that human-assisted colonization or “managed relocation” might be an option of last resort to avoid extinctions. With this approach, climate-threatened species would be intentionally translocated to new regions as conditions deteriorated within their native ranges. Dr. Bellemare will speak about his research to better understand how the distribution and diversity of these rare species is related to past climate change, such as the Ice Ages, and to predict how the species might respond to the threat of modern anthropogenic climate change. Will managed relocation of species be a viable solution to prevent rare species extinction? Register at https://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?DayPlanner=1386&DayPlannerDate=12/15/2014. $5 for Arboretum members, $10 for nonmembers.  Image of New England Blazing Star from www.nantucketconservation.org.