ACONS WEBINAR
Endangered Beauty: Wildflowers & Wildlife of Our Coastal Grasslands
Thursday, March 19 at 6pm
Click here to register for free; hosted on Zoom.
Join Dr. Sarah Bois, Director of Research and Conservation at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation, for a deep dive into the botanical and biological wonders of the coastal grassland ecosystems of Nantucket. These maritime sandplain grasslands are a globally imperiled habitat host to numerous rare and endangered flora and fauna. Sarah will guide us through why these grasslands and heathlands are so special, how the maritime climate, including wind and salt spray shape these habitats, and what we are doing to protect them into the future.
A Q&A session, moderated by Alliance president and CEO Audra Parker, will follow the presentation. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask Sarah questions during the Q&A.
Sarah is the Director of Research and Conservation for the Linda Loring Nature Foundation (LLNF). As a plant ecologist, her research has focused on a myriad of conservation and biodiversity topics including native shrub phenological response to climate change, coastal vulnerability and resiliency, non-native invasive species, management of sandplain grasslands, and rare species conservation. Her position at LLNF marries her interests in research, stewardship, and outreach where she leverages research experiences into educational opportunities. Sarah received her PhD in 2012 from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut where her dissertation research focused on invasive plant distributions in New England and efforts to prioritize species management in light of climate change.
Sarah is currently the Vice-chair for the Town of Nantucket’s Coastal Resiliency Advisory Committee and is the Chair of the Nantucket Invasive Plant Species Committee. Sarah is also on the leadership team for Northeast RISCC, the Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change project for the northeastern US. Sarah has been teaching a Coastal Ecology Class on Nantucket since 2020 and is the co-founder of the annual Nantucket Climate Change Summit.