Wetland Coffee Break

Civil engineer Dave Kraft will walk through the removal of the Seeley Lake Dam in Sauk County and the dynamic restoration of the former lake-bed to a fully functioning floodplain. Dave will touch on project design, permitting, construction, and restoration through the lens of wetland and floodplain function and benefits.

Dave Kraft is a licensed engineer with a passion for restoration design stemming from growing up in nature. He works to bring this passion to a wide range of complex projects focusing on ecosystem restoration.

This presentation will explore how land use, in particular agricultural land use, impacts soil and soil health in and around wetlands. We will discuss what is soil, what is soil health, and how implementing soil health principles protects and enhances wetlands.

Randy Zogbaum has worked as a soil scientist and educator in a variety of roles serving Wisconsin agriculture focusing on the connection of soil and water quality. He currently serves as the Soil Health Program Manager at DATCP.

Come learn about the plant communities and restoration efforts on the Minnesota side of the St. Louis River estuary, near Duluth, Minnesota–in both qualitative and quantitative detail. In partnership with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources through a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant, EOR ecologists Jimmy Marty and Drew Harry surveyed eleven sites on the estuary for invasive species and floristic quality. In his presentation, Drew aims to capture the spirit of those sites—near and dear to interstate supporters—and to detail plans and results from restoration actions.

Drew Harry is an ecologist for EOR in Madison. He spent nearly a decade with the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance working on prairie restoration, and he’s fascinated by plants, birds, and data. Follow some of those data dives here.

Join Keir Wefferling from the herbarium at UW Green Bay to get an introduction to the most common and abundant bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) of Wisconsin fens. Keir will cover bryophyte life history, then dive into a review of the most easily field-identifiable species that we commonly encounter in western Great Lakes minerotrophic peatlands, including Boreal Rich Fens and Northern Wet-mesic Forests. Keir will also provide a brief summary of the bryophyte and vascular plants floristic quality assessments that he and his team have been performing in Wisconsin wetlands over the last several years.

Dr. Keir Wefferling is Curator of the Gary A. Fewless Herbarium in the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity and Associate Professor of Biology at University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He studied phylogenetics, cytogeography, and phylogeography of flowering plants and ferns before (re)finding peatland bryophytes, such as Sphagnum, “brown mosses,” and liverworts. He now spends most of his research time in fens and swamps and at the microscope, collaborating with students, the public, and regional conservation partners.