Annual Meeting and Special Presentations
Thursday, October 13, 2022
6:30 – 8:00 pm (via Zoom)
View a Recording of the Annual Meeting and Special Presentations Here
6:30-7:00pm:
Welcome
Herbarium Update – Lawrence Janeway, Herbarium Curator
Kaylie DeLuca - Jokerst Field Botany Award Winner – “Evaluation of a restored wet meadow within a recently burned landscape matrix”
7:00pm-8:00pm
Presentation by Dr. Michael P. Williams
Flora of Adak Island, Alaska: a central stepping stone in the Aleutian Archipelago between Asia and North America
Michael P. Williams, Ph.D.
Research Associate and Instructor
Western Washington University Bellingham, WA
Dr. Williams will share his fondness for this island in the central Aleutian Islands, the site of his Masters in the late 1970’s and a recent visit in 2019 on a grant from the Shared Beringia Heritage Program of the National Park Service. Over 200 taxa of vascular plants occupied this island landscape of beaches, subarctic maritime tundra, ancient highlands, and active volcanoes. Having risen above the north Pacific for over 3.5 million years, and covered in ice in intervening cold periods, the last 6–7,000 years have allowed for colonization by biota, including vascular plants. While 600 miles from mainland Alaska to the east and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Asia to the west, the flora shows close ties with both continents and some unique endemic occurrences. Sea drift, birds, winds, and humans have brought about a mixing of those plants adapted to the cool wet climate of this ”Birthplace of the Winds”.