Co-sponsored by Madeline Island Museum

Wednesday, August 22, 7:00pm
Madeline Island Museum
Free and Open to the Public

Speaker: Dr. Sarah Johnson, Associate Professor of Natural Resources and Biology at Northland College.

Conifers are iconic members of the Northwood’s and boreal forests.

• Why are conifers so successful up North?
• What are helpful tricks for identifying the tree families and 13 native species of conifers in the Great Lakes region?
• Where can you find them growing?
• How are your favorite northern conifers responding to ecological change?
• Also, what’s flavoring your gin?

Ms. Johnson will have us touch, taste and smell conifers.

Sarah Johnson, Associate Professor of Natural Resources & Biology, Northland College

I am a plant ecologist/botanist who studies long-term dynamics and patterns of diversity and composition in plant communities spanning the continuum of habitat types from wet to dry, forests to sandscapes.  To interpret these patterns, I study the roles of multiple interacting drivers of ecosystem changes at local and landscape scales including succession, habitat fragmentation, invasions by pests and pathogens, changes in natural disturbance regimes, and climate change.  Much of my research has benefited from important long-term data sets, so in turn I have enjoyed collaborating with agencies to design new vegetation monitoring programs being implemented in the Great Lakes region.