Wetland Coffee Break

The Wetland Coffee Break series helps keep our community of wetland lovers connected and learning about wetlands throughout the year, from anywhere! Bring your coffee and learn about wetlands, the plants and animals that call them home, and the many natural benefits they provide to our communities. Sessions are held on Zoom and feature time for audience Q&A.

See below for a list of upcoming presentations and to register. Once you register, you’ll receive an automatic email including the URL link and password you’ll need to access the meeting. We record and post each presentation so you can watch any that you missed live. You’ll find links to these recordings below, and you can also find them on our Facebook page.

We are grateful to all of the presenters for sharing their knowledge and expertise and to everyone interested in learning more about wetlands! If you are interested in giving a Wetland Coffee Break presentation, or if you have a wetland topic you’d like to see covered, please contact Katie.Beilfuss@wisconsinwetlands.org.

Beginning November 1st, 2024, certification of attendance to Wetland Coffee Break presentations will be available to people seeking continuing education credits. Learn more about how to receive a certification of attendance here.

Register for a Wetland Coffee Break

Reed canarygrass: A comprehensive literature review for wetland managers

Craig Annen, Integrated Restorations, LLC
Friday, November 15, 2024
10:30 am CT

Description

Reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) is widely considered to be one of the most problematic invasive species of North American wetlands, and reversing a reed canarygrass invasion is generally considered an unrealistic management goal, even on a local scale. In point of fact, sufficient data have been published to understand how and why reed canarygrass invasions occur and also to design and implement effective management strategies for wetlands under threat from this species. However, this information is fragmentary and scattered throughout the relevant scientific literature (more than 1,000 studies from over 300 journals in ten different languages). To address this issue, beginning in 2002, restoration practitioner Craig Annen set out collecting and examining the extensive body of reed canarygrass literature in detail. In this presentation, Craig will summarize this literature review project and introduce an indexed literature compendium that will be made available to the wetland conservation community.

Craig Annen is Operations Manager and Research Director with the firm Integrated Restorations, LLC. Craig is passionate about wetland management and conservation. He is also a gourmet chef and enjoys baseball and waterfowl hunting.

Aerial herbicide application on invasive wetland plants: Planning, process and lessons learned

Jason Fleener, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Friday, December 6, 2024
10:30 am CT

Description

Wisconsin DNR has contracted aerial herbicide application services for several years to combat invasive phragmites, cattail, and other wetland invasive plant species. Jason Fleener, wetland habitat specialist with WDNR, will outline the various steps to plan out and implement a successful spraying project, discuss how to choose the best method for application (helicopter or drone), and how to choose the right chemicals for a project. He will also share the results of treatments and lessons learned.

Jason Fleener is the statewide Wetland Habitat Specialist in Wisconsin DNR’s Bureau of Wildlife Management. He has 13 years of experience in this program overseeing wetland habitat program delivery on DNR managed lands, including hydrologic restorations, wetland infrastructure management, habitat prioritization, wild rice conservation, and wetland grant program support.

Purple loosestrife biocontrol model in Wisconsin

Jeanne Scherer, UW-Extension and UW-Madison
Friday, December 13, 2024
10:30 am CT
Description
Purple loosestrife has been largely managed through biocontrol for almost 30 years in Wisconsin. Join Jeanne Scherer from the UW Division of Extension and UW-Madison to learn about the biocontrol process and how it is sometimes integrated with other invasive plant management. She’ll review expectations for biocontrol and share a couple success stories.
 
Jeanne Scherer is the AIS Outreach Specialist and Purple Loosestrife Biocontrol Coordinator for the University of Wisconsin-Extension & University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a few years working in education, Jeanne’s interest in water resources and plants led her to work with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to do aquatic invasive species (AIS) monitoring and prevention outreach. In 2017, she joined UW Madison Division of Extension, where she continues AIS prevention outreach support statewide and coordinates the Purple Loosestrife Biocontrol Program.
 

The fur trade and the north woods environment

Hayden L. Nelson, University of Kansas
Friday, March 14, 2025
10:30 am CT

Description

Histories of the fur trade typically focus on the economic rise and fall of the European fur market, intercultural connections forged between Indigenous people and Euro-Americans, or the wars between Native Nations due to economic participation and alliances. However, an important yet understudied aspect underlying all of those is the fur trade environment. Between 1630 and 1830, fur hunters exterminated more than 95 percent of the region’s beaver population. In this talk, Hayden Nelson will share how the historical overhunting of beavers substantially altered the forested wetlands around Lake Superior. He’ll also discuss the interconnected ways in which other animals responded to the decline of beaver.

Hayden L. Nelson is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Kansas, where he specializes in environmental and Indigenous history in the North American West. His dissertation, “The North Woods: An Environmental History from the Pleistocene to the Pyrocene,” investigates how both human and non-human actors interacted with and transformed the transnational forested region of the western Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi watersheds from the end of the Wisconsin glaciation to the beginnings of industrial logging. His work has been supported by the American Society for Environmental History, the Newberry Library, the United States Forest Service, and more.

Watch previous presentations

Click “Older Entries” below to see more past presentations, or view our Google Sheet index of past presentations here.