Boston Flora

Tag: University of Nevada

  • Monday, January 9, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern – Western Butterflies and Lost Species in the Anthropocene, Online

    Monitoring is essential to our understanding of insects in the modern era, the Anthropocene, and monitoring comes in many different forms and serves different purposes. Join Matt Forister, professor in the Biology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, on January 9 as he discusses working with North America’s longest-running butterfly monitoring project across Northern California, and presents major findings with respect to the impacts of climate change and pesticides on butterfly populations. He will also talk about data from projects supported by community scientists, which are going to be of increasing importance in the coming years. Finally, Matt will discuss new efforts to organize information on species that appear to be lost, but, with effort from scientists and the public, might be found again.

    Matt Forister is a professor of biology and insect ecology in the Biology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has studied butterflies and other insects in the western US for the last 20 years, and has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters on issues that include insects adapting to exotic plants and butterflies responding to a changing climate. One of the main concerns for Forister and his graduate students is the collection of data at sites in the Sierra Nevada that have been studied for almost 50 years, a project originally started by Art Shapiro of UC Davis.

    This webinar will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel. Closed Captioning will be available during this webinar.

    Learn more and register today!

  • Tuesday, February 14, 1:25 pm – 2:25 pm Eastern – How Pollinators are Affected by the Plants You Choose – and the Treatments You Choose for Emerald Ash Borer, Online

    The Xerces Society and University of Nevada researchers recently sampled milkweeds from 33 retail nurseries across 15 states, finding an average of 12 pesticides per plant. Milkweed is the primary food for the caterpillars of monarch butterflies, which have dramatically declined and are the focus of intensive restoration efforts. This study was the first to examine pesticide residues in commercially produced nursery plants from the perspective of monarchs. Meanwhile the Pacific Northwest is facing the establishment of the emerald ash borer, an insect that has devastated ash forests across the U.S. Yet the pesticides most often used to ensure the trees’ survival are toxic to Lepidopterans (butterflies and moths). Join Sharon Selvaggio and Aaron Anderson with the Xerces Society to learn why the milkweed study findings raise concerns, what you can do to increase your probability of buying pollinator-safe plants, the risks of the insecticides used to fight EAB, and some solutions that may slow the EAB spread while minimizing harm to butterflies and other insects that use ash trees.

    Click here for more information and to register. The webinar will take place February 14 from 1:25 – 2:25 and is sponsored by the Xerces Society.

    Trap Tree for Emerald Ash Borer