Speakers
Doug Tallamy is our banquet speaker, and his presentation is titled “Keeping our Common Birds Common.”
Birds, along with other forms of biodiversity, are declining at an accelerating pace, and our common birds are declining the fastest. Which birds are declining? Which birds are decreasing? Those that rely on native larval host plants and the insects needed to raise their young. The best way to keep common birds common is to preserve the insects they depend on. Tallamy will explain which insects are most crucial for birds and how to create landscapes that make these insects more abundant.
Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He has authored 120 research publications and has taught insect-related courses for 45 years. His primary research goal is to better understand how insects interact with plants and how these interactions influence the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, Nature's Best Hope (a New York Times Best Seller), The Nature of Oaks (winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award), and his latest book, How Can I Help? Saving Nature with Your Yard. In 2021, he co-founded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari (HomegrownNationalPark.org).
Philip Connors will open this year’s conference with his presentation “Thinking Inside the Box: Using Haiku to See the World New.”
He will talk about how poetry can help us better understand our connection with wildfire, birds and bears, insects and flowers, and the entire spectrum of life in the Gila.
Connors has been a fire lookout in the Gila National Forest since 2002. He is the award-winning author of four memoirs: Fire Season, All the Wrong Places, A Song for the River, and his most recent, The Mountain Knows the Mountain. His essays have appeared in many periodicals, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous other national and international publications. He lives with his wife in the foothills of the Black Range.
Erika Rowe and Katie Kline will present “Stewardship in Action: Connecting People, Data and Rare Plants Across New Mexico.”
They will introduce the work of New Mexico’s State Botany Program and the launch of NM Rare Plant Watch, a new community science initiative designed to strengthen rare plant conservation across the state.
Rowe is the state botanist for the New Mexico Forestry Division. She leads the Endangered Plant Program, overseeing rare plant monitoring projects, coordinating federal grants, reviewing plant rarity statuses and listing, and contributing to recovery plans. She works closely with federal agencies, universities, local herbaria, and the Natural Heritage New Mexico program on a wide range of native plant conservation issues. She also manages the state’s permitting for endangered plant take, scientific collection, and propagation.
Kline is a botanist who works closely with Erika Rowe in the New Mexico Endangered Plants program. She also collaborates with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to update rare plant surveys and monitor species of conservation concern on BLM-managed lands throughout New Mexico. Katie is coordinating the development and pilot launch of the New Mexico Rare Plant Watch, a volunteer community science effort to improve our understanding of rare plant species in New Mexico, which is supported by special project funds from NPSNM.
Melanie Gisler's presentation, “Native Crop Tool Kit: Supporting Resilient Farming Practices, Pollinator Conservation, and Watershed Health.”
She will focus on an ongoing 3-year program at 16 small-farming operations along New Mexico’s Rio Grande to support watershed health.
Gisler is the Southwest Branch Director of the Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE) in Santa Fe, a non-profit organization dedicated to conserving native species and habitats through restoration, research, and education. Before her time at IAE, she worked at several natural resource agencies, including the Los Lunas Plant Materials Center. Her research focuses on developing native plant materials, habitat restoration, and the recovery of at-risk plant and animal species.
Dr. Carlos Martinez del Rio will present “Pollination, Fermentation, and Distillation: The Biocultural Coevolution of Mezcals, Bats, and Humans.”
He will focus on the interaction between bats and mezcales (agave plants), and the danger to both from the commercialization of agave (or mezcales) for producing strong distillates.
Martinez is a professor emeritus at the University of Wyoming. His research has focused on pollination and seed dispersal, including hummingbirds, nectar-feeding bats, hawkmoths, saguaros, mistletoes, and phainopeplas. He currently researches hummingbird migration in the Mimbres Valley and their ability to digest and metabolize sugars.
Dr. Kelly Kindscher’s presentation, “Why the NM Native Plant Society Should Support Foraging and Medicinal Plant Harvest.”
Kindscher's premise is based on the idea that more people need to engage with our native plants and that encouraging their use is a helpful tool. In the process of sustainable harvesting, people learn more about these plants and their habitats, which encourages greater engagement in caring for, managing, and advocating for them.
Kindscher is a Professor of Plant Ecology and Plant Ethnobiology at the University of Kansas. He also holds a joint appointment as a senior scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey. He is a passionate advocate for native plants, native landscapes, and wild places. His research focuses on ethnobotany, native prairies, prairie and wetland restoration, and regional plant communities. He has published numerous journal articles and is the author of Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie and coauthor of Field Guide to the Trees of the Gila Region of New Mexico, along with Richard Stephen Felger, James Thomas Verrier, and Xavier Raj Herbst Khera.
Dr. Craig D. Allen and Tom Zegler will present “Hotter Droughts Increase Forest Drought Stress and Tree Mortality—from New Mexico to Planet Earth,”
This slide-illustrated talk includes a review of the history of drought-induced stress on trees, an explanation of how hotter temperatures amplify ecological drivers of forest stress and tree mortality, and a description of forest die-off patterns since ca. 2000 from New Mexico to the emergence of similar trends continentally and globally.
Allen is a retired federal research ecologist and the founding leader of the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station for the U.S. Geological Survey. He currently serves as an adjunct research scholar in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of New Mexico, where he researches the ecology and environmental history of southwestern U.S. landscapes, as well as the responses of Western mountain ecosystems and forests to climate change globally.
Zegler is the Senior Forester at the Silver City Satellite Office, Socorro District. He conducts site visits on private land to assess natural resource concerns and management goals, writes treatment plans for land managers and property owners, and manages hazardous fuels reduction projects for a variety of assistance programs and collaborative agreements. Tom has a strong technical background in forest health and tree mortality, particularly concerning the insects and diseases that kill trees.
Photo credits: Gambel Oak, Quercus gambelii, and Mimbres Figwort, Scrophularia macrantha, by Russ Kleinman, Western New Mexico University Department of Natural Sciences and the Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium. Mexican Long-nosed Bat by Elroy Limmer. Dead Juniper by Margie Gibson.