Rachel Burke presents: “Mapping nectarivorous bat habitat from the nectary up”

Posted on Jul 22, 2021

Rachel Burke – Mapping nectarivorous bat habitat from the nectary up; implications for Agave conservation in the southwestern U.S. From a Flagstaff chapter presentation in July, 2021.

The lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae), Mexican long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis), and the Mexican long-tongued bat (Choeronycteris mexicana) undertake long‐distance migrations from south‐central Mexico to the southwestern United States. Following a corridor of seasonal food availability, these bats play important ecological roles as pollinators and seed dispersers throughout their ranges. While these bats feed on many species of plants throughout their ranges, Palmer’s agave (Agave palmeri) is among one of the most important food sources in the summer portion of their range. As part of a landscape scale project to better understand summer habitat and inform management for these bat species, I mapped the distribution of Agave palmeri at multiple scales and assess summer habitat quality via plant density and potential nectar production. This information can help managers better protect important foraging grounds for these bats and identify potential restoration sites for Agave palmeri.

Rachel Burke is a biologist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She has a master’s in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Ecology, as well as in Applied Geography, both from New Mexico State University. She currently works as a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and has spent several years conducting botanical surveys and ecological monitoring across the Chihuahuan Desert. When not working, she can be found cultivating native plants in her garden, making pottery in her basement, or hiking with her dogs.

Flagstaff Chapter Video: “Yellow Bluestem: An Encroaching Invasive Grass” April 20, 2021 online webinar.

Posted on Apr 29, 2021

Our online meeting on April 20, 2021 included a talk by Ashley Hall: “Yellow Bluestem: An Encroaching Invasive Grass”. View it here.

https://fb.watch/5aKLSrQzxa/

Mark your calendar: Our meeting schedule is set for the season.

Posted on Apr 17, 2021

All talks are at 7pm on the third Tuesday of the month. Email FlagstaffAZNPS@gmail.com for the Zoom link and password. 

August 17: Kate Watters –Creating a Pollinator Garden: Backyard Beauty, Biodiversity, and Resilience

Kate is a farmer, floral designer, writer and visual artist who is wild about plants. She makes her livelihood from Wild Heart Farm, a one-acre oasis in Rimrock, next to Beaver Creek. She grows flowers, medicinal herbs, and pollinator habitat, and hosts plant gatherings. She worked in service to wild plant communities for 20 years in the Grand Canyon and across the Colorado Plateau, always aware and curious about plant/pollinator interactions. Kate has developed land-based artist
residencies and workshops and co-curated exhibits with scientists and artists to advocate for pollinators and public lands. To follow her entrepreneurial and artistic adventures arising from the soil visit: www.wildheartfarmaz.com and www.katewattersart.com.

September 21: Liza Holeski – Plant Defenses Against Herbivores 

Liza is an Associate Professor in Biology at Northern Arizona University.  Her research focuses on plant evolutionary ecology and genetics.  She is interested in plant adaptation to biotic and abiotic environmental factors, plant-herbivore interactions, and the evolutionary genetics of plant defense traits.  Much of her work is in monkeyflowers, but she also works with Populus species. Liza’s presentation will give a general overview of plant defenses against herbivory, describing the forms of defense as well as highlighting some particularly interesting examples.  She will also talk a bit about her research in plant defense in monkeyflowers as she works with a number of natural populations of monkeyflowers in Arizona.

October 19: Wynne Brown speaks about the subject of her new book – The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art 

Wynne Brown’s latest book is the account of an extraordinary woman who, in 1870, was driven by ill health to leave the East Coast for a new life in the West—alone. At thirty-three, Sara Plummer relocated to Santa Barbara, where she taught herself botany and established the town’s first library. Ten years later she married botanist John Gill Lemmon, and together the two discovered and collected hundreds of new plant species , many of them illustrated by Sara, an accomplished artist. Although she became an acknowledged botanical expert and lecturer, Sara’s considerable contributions to scientific knowledge were credited merely as “J.G. Lemmon & Wife.” 

Writer/editor/graphic designer Wynne Brown is the author of the award-winning books More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Arizona Women (Globe Pequot Press/Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, 2012) and The Falcon Guide to Trail Riding Arizona (Globe Pequot Press/Rowman & Littlefield, 2006) and the co-editor of Cave Creek Canyon: Revealing the Heart of Arizona’s Chiricahua Mountains (ECO Wear & Publishing 2014, 2019). Her most recent book, The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art, will be published in November 2021 by the University of Nebraska Press. She serves as president of the Chiricahua Regional Council and represents Pima County as a member of the Arizona Historical Society State Board of Directors.