Note that both September and December meetings are on the second Friday of the month

9 Sept. 2016  
Jim Furnish:  Toward a Natural Forest

Furnish is a consulting forester following a 34-year career with the USDA Forest Service. He served as the agency’s Deputy Chief and Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor in Corvallis, Oregon. He was a leader in creating the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (2001), as well as in reforming management of the Siuslaw National Forest from timber production to restoration principles. In his book Toward a Natural Forest, which will be the basis of his presentation to us, Furnish talks about our twin drives to live off of and to protect the Earth. He believes we can do both. He uses his experience in and knowledge of the USFS to make the case that the agency has the potential to be a leader in global conservation efforts. His story will interest a broad audience: environmentalists, natural resource professionals, academics, and historians.

21 Oct 2016  Author Readings, Photography, Music:

Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest is published by University of Washington Press and edited by Nathaniel Brodie, Charles Goodrich, and Frederick J. Swanson. The book is a compilation of writings that arose from creative writers participating in the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program at H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest northeast of Blue River Reservoir. Reflections is a humanities analog to the scientific research in Andrews, a part of NSF’s Long-Term Ecological Research Network. Of the book’s many contributing authors we have had more than a few as speakers: Goodrich, Kathleen Dean Moore, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Robert Michael Pyle, and Tom Titus. The presentation on 21 October will consist of readings by several of the over 30 authors, photography by Bob Keefer, and live music.

18 Nov 2016
Celeste Mazzacano:  More than Monarchs: Migration in Dragonflies & Other Insects

Mazzacano is a Gopher, with both BS and PhD degrees from the University of Minnesota. She is Principal Scientist / Owner at CASM Environmental, LLC, and Aquatic Conservation Director at the Xerces Society. In her presentation she will tell us about a little-known aspect of dragonfly life: lots of dragonfly species migrate. A prime example is the Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens). Its flights in the vicinity of the Indian Ocean are mind-boggling. One generation island-hops from India to east and southern Africa, and their offspring come back to India following the continental coastline, a round trip of more than 11,000 miles, nearly twice what Monarch butterflies do.  Clearly we will be enthralled in November!

9 Dec 2016  
Claudio Mello: Of Bird Genes and Bird Brains: What Science Can Teach Us About Avian Singing and Seasonality

Mello is a neuroscientist at the Oregon Health Sciences University. Besides his medical work he is part of a large group of scientists looking at avian evolution after the extinction event 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. Their work is revealing new details about how birds came to have feathers, flight, and song, all in a relatively short time. Mello points out that the group’s efforts have resulted in a better understanding of how bird traits arose from changes in the genomes of their dinosaur ancestors.

 20 Jan. 2017
 Kelly Sutherland: Sea Jellies

Sutherland is a marine scientist in the Institute of Ecology and Evolution, and a faculty member of the U of O’s Clark Honors College. Her students work either in IEE or at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston. Her interests span the disciplines of physics and biology. She got her PhD at MIT and has postdoctoral experience from Cal Tech. Among other things she studies how sea creatures such as jellies move through their environment. Her dual citizenship in physics and biology lead to fascinating concepts. She points out that some of the propulsion systems she documents in her marine critters could generate new ideas for machines humans construct for moving around in water and on land.

17 Feb 2017
Terry Hunt: Easter Island Archaeology

Hunt is Dean of Clark Honors College and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. He has carried out archaeological research for over 30 years at sites on many Pacific islands, including those in the Hawaiian chain, Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui). This is from his U of O bio: “Dr. Hunt’s recent book The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the mystery of Easter Island, Free Press, New York, 2011, co-authored with Carl Lipo, revisits the dramatic story of Rapa Nui’s prehistory. The book won the Society for American Archaeology’s book of the year award, 2011, in the public audience category. Dr. Hunt’s research was the focus of a National Geographic Magazine cover story (July, 2012) and a full-length Nova-National Geographic TV documentary that aired on PBS in November 2012.” No more need be said to convince you this will be an interesting talk.

17 Mar 2017
William Cresko: Sea Horses and Sea Dragons

Cresko is a Professor in the Institute of Ecology and Evolution and Department of Biology, and he runs a laboratory focused on understanding the genes that are behind the evolution of diverse organismal traits. His lab is asking whether the genes and developmental pathways that are important for threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) fish evolution over short time periods are also involved in the longer scale, macroevolutionary changes leading to the diverse traits seen in leafy sea dragons, pipefish and seahorses. Cresko will tell us about his lab’s latest discoveries that come from producing the first complete genome sequence from any member of this incredibly diverse family. These discoveries relate to such novelties as an elongated body similar to a snake, head and jaws that look like a horse, and amazingly true male pregnancy that occurs in brood pouches on some of the species in this family of beautiful fish.

21 Apr 2017   
Svetlana Maslakova: Pythons of the Sea: Natural History of the Nemertean Worm

Originally from Russia and with a PhD from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Maslakova is an Assistant Professor at the U of O. Her lab is in the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston. In her U of O bio she says: “The focus of research in [my lab] is the evolution of development in marine invertebrates, in particular, the phylum Nemertea, commonly known as ribbon worms. Historically, nemerteans received little attention, despite the fact that these graceful marine predators occur at all depths in all of the world’s oceans.” The larvae are so different from the adult worms that develop from them that knowing what came from what has traditionally been really hard. Only in a handful of cases has a larval stage developed into an adult in a lab setting. But Maslakova has devised molecular techniques that allow this hitherto almost impossible connection to be made routinely. Her method has implications for diversity studies in general, since in many cases larval stages are easier to find than adults. She has wonderful photos of both larval and adult stages of ribbon worms. Wouldn’t you love to see a worm that’s 30 meters long?

19 May 2017
Ed Alverson: Southern Willamette Valley Natural Areas through the Seasons

Alverson is a Beaver, with a botany degree from Oregon State University. He has done field botany in the Pacific Northwest for over 30 years. He is also a writer and an accomplished photographer. He’s a member of the steering committee of the Cascadia Prairie-Oak Partnership and he works with The Nature Conservancy. Some of you may have heard him speak in March 2015 at the Emerald Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon. He visits natural areas several times a year, taking photos of each landscape and then compiling them to show developmental stages at each site. He ends up with a time series for each site and thus a record of seasonal changes at each site throughout that year. We’ll be treated to great pictures of our area as well as thoughtful commentary.