Spring 2025 Friday Ecology Seminars

Spring flowers on forest floor covered with oak leaves from previous year

Ecology Seminars hosted by the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research are held on most Fridays during the spring and fall semesters at 12:15 p.m. During the spring 2025 semester, unless otherwise noted, talks will held in Room 152 of the Smissman Labs building, next to Takeru Higuchi Hall on KU's West Campus (KU parking permits are required; see parking information below).

Most talks will be hybrid and recorded for our YouTube channel. Schedule changes are sometimes made, and some seminars may move to Higuchi Hall; please check the schedule each week.

Seminar information is emailed weekly on Wednesdays to two lists:

  • The current "KBS" list (our research center's current and retired faculty scientists, researchers, staff and students); if you are on this list, you will receive an email reminder to your email ending in ku.edu.
  • A special mailing list created specifically to announce these seminars and open to the public; if you would like to join this mailing list for notifications and reminders of upcoming seminars, share your name and email address using our quick webform. Note: If you use Gmail and do not receive an email within a week of requesting to join, please check your Promotions tab and move any emails from us to your Primary tab.

To attend on Zoom:
https://kansas.zoom.us/j/89986366958

Passcode: 655835

Recordings of seminars will be posted on our YouTube channel during the week following each talk. (The first Friday of each month is set aside for graduate students and early-career ecologists in our labs only.)

Our seminars are hosted by Sara Baer, director of our research center and professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, and others at our research center. The host will coordinate introductions at the beginning of each talk as well as the question-and-answer session at the end of the talk. Other researchers may introduce speakers.

Seminars cover a wide range of topics related to ecology or conservation issues. Most presentations are research-oriented and given by KU researchers, staff and students, but some talks are presented by people at nearby colleges and universities and outside the region, as well as state agencies and environmental organizations.

The Friday Ecology Seminar series was created by Helen Alexander, KU professor emerita of ecology & evolutionary biology and a close associate of the KU Field Station, which is managed by our research center.

Parking information

Please consult the KU Parking online information and map regarding parking and the online transit information. If you need to park near the building and do not have a KU parking permit, you have a several online options for parking in nearby Yellow lots (224, 214, 215) and purchasing a one-day $3 permit:

  • Payment using your mobile phone — Come to campus and park in lot 224 (mobile zone 3922), 214 (mobile zone 3921) or 215 (mobile zone 3951) and use a parking app such as ParkMobile to give your license plate number and pay. You also may go to the ParkingApp.com websiteand enter the mobile zone of the lot where you have parked; the website then asks you to choose one of two mobile phone apps—ParkMobile or Passport Parking—to give your plate number and pay. Note that whichever app you choose must be installed on your phone and that you must create an account; it's recommended that you do this before coming to campus.
  • Payment using your desktop — Create a visitor parking account ahead of time using KU's online parking portal and buy a one-day Yellow parking pass for your chosen date.

Schedule

All speakers are from the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research unless otherwise noted.

Jan. 31 — Lisa Castle, researcher and botanist — "Problems with prairie turnips: Benefits and complications of long-term population monitoring, harvest sustainability, and how these inform other ethnobotanical and conservation intiatives." 

Feb. 7 — Maggie Wagner, associate scientist and associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology (EEB) — "Ecosystems to molecules: Historical precipitation shapes the soil microbiota's effect on plant drought tolerance."  

Feb. 14 — Nico Franz, Krishtalka Director of the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and professor of EEB — Symbiota open-source software for managing and mobilizing biodiversity data.

Feb. 21 — Kelly Kindscher, senior scientist and professor in the Environmental Studies Program

Feb. 28 — Haley Burrill, KU alum and postdoctoral researcher, University of Oregon, via Zoom

March 7 — Joel Swift, postdoctoral researcher, Wagner Lab

March 14 — Friday before spring break; open

March 21 — Spring break; no seminar

March 28 — 2024 Student Research Award recipients: Annalise Guthrie, Lydia Regier, Yufan Zhou (Talks will not be posted to YouTube)

April 4 — Jennifer Moody and Jennifer Delisle, researchers, research and new ArcGIS StoryMap on Douglas County, Kansas, Prairie Pastures

April 11 — 2024 Student Research Award recipients: Sarah Flynn, Zhenghao Lin (Talks will not be posted to YouTube)

April 18 — Debbie Baker, aquatic researcher

April 25 — Armitage Lecture; speaker TBA

May 2 — David Weiss, Kansas Applied Remote Sensing program