Welcome to #AGA2024!! Here we will share some bits, pieces, and anecdotes from this year’s presidential symposium! Our president Beth Shapiro put together a great list of speakers and we have many excellent poster presenters.
Day 2: Mid-AM Talks
Nevé Baker, Ancient sedimentary DNA shows 5000 years of continuous beaver occupancy in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Nevé is currently an NSF postdoctoral scholar at the University of Minnesota. Her talk was a selected abstract from this year’s poster submissions.
- Beavers are really important ecosystem engineers that were once widespread across North America (and Eurasia) and were almost wiped out by the fur trade.
- Preserved sedimentary DNA can help investigate the past presence of and ecological services by beavers, especially given the gaps in our historical knowledge of beavers largely attributed to extreme drought events.
- In low-elevation lakes the appearance of beavers corresponds with a decrease in conifers and an increase in aquatic plants
NOTE: Through the whims of internet autosaving and probably the ineptitude of our social media editor (yes, me), the snippets from the rest of Nevé’s and the following talks were not saved and appear to be lost 🙁
Teal Brown Zimring, Environmental biotechnology and scientific innovation at the intersection of critically-threatened ecosystem services and biological sciences
Rachel Meyer, What does eDNA tell us about how the wildfire shapes the environment?
Day 2: Forest management interpretive hike with Eli Ilano
Eli Ilano, Forests & wildfires
Eli served as supervisor for the Tahoe National Forest for 14 years before transitioning to serving as advisor to the Deputy Chief of the US Forest Service. He is a land manager/decision-maker who is now involved in policy and advocates for more interaction and collaboration between decision-makers and scientists.
- Forests in the Western US evolved adaptations to fires, which humans have actively suppressed for the past 150 or so years.
- Forests are now being managed to reduce the fire risk by such methods as hand thinning, mechanical removal of dead trees to reduce fuel, and prescribed fires.
We went on a walk with Eli and Teal to learn more about the Tahoe National Forest and appreciate the beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
