If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. – E. O. Wilson
Marissa Ahlering is a prairie ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, North and South Dakota. Dr. Ahlering is monitoring the Conservancy’s prairie sites, gathering the data needed to guide their management. She knows these prairies well, having done research on the habitat needs of two grassland-nesting birds in the region. She’s also studied elephants – in East Africa – using methods that are valuable for studying prairie wildlife, too.
Kristen Blann is a freshwater ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, North and South Dakota. It’s a region of numerous lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands, and Dr. Blann is actively involved in the Conservancy’s aquatic conservation planning. That work can include “fishing” for endangered freshwater mussels (no mussels were harmed), or developing an ecological framework for managing water resources across regions as large as Minnesota’s entire Great Lakes Basin.
Meredith Cornett is Director of Conservation Science for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, North and South Dakota. Those are states with a wide variety of habitats that interest her research staff: arid badlands, tallgrass prairies, the North Woods of Minnesota’s canoe country and Mississippi River blufflands (to name only a few). Dr. Cornett is keenly interested in forests, and her field work is helping develop strategies for managing northern forests for the future’s changing and uncertain climate.
Mark White is a forest ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota and the Dakotas. White is seeking ways to conserve the biodiversity of the forests that extend from central Minnesota north to Canada. It’s a task that must take into account the forest’s own variability, human uses and other factors such as invasive species. Even deer can have a profound effect, and White is developing strategies to keep deer from altering the make-up of tomorrow’s forests.