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.
We are now able to provide attendance verification to Wetland Coffee Break audience members who attend the live sessions and request this service. We created this mechanism in response to requests from members of the Wetland Coffee Break audience who would like to apply their Wetland Coffee Break learning to their continuing education or certification requirements. Learn more about how to receive attendance verification here.
Register for a Wetland Coffee Break
How do beavers impact water?
Cortney Dean, Conservation Biologist
Friday, September 26, 2025
10:30 am CT
Description
Do beaver dams actually increase water temperatures? How do beaver ponds impact water quality, pollutants, and sediments? Conservation Biologist Cortney Dean takes a look at the data, challenges, and unexpected findings of beaver-water research in northwestern Wisconsin.
Cortney Dean is a conservation biologist located in Eau Claire, WI. She studies beaver impacts to the biotic and physical components of ecosystems. Her research focuses on water quality, food webs, and biodiversity impacts to avian and bat species.
Watch previous presentations
Click “Older Entries” below to see more past presentations, or view our Google Sheet index of past presentations here.
Wetland Coffee Break: All-female salamanders “rule” an ephemeral pond
Gregory T. Burns discusses his multi-year citizen science amphibian-focused research of vernal pools (ephemeral ponds) in east central Wisconsin, including the first definitive discovery of the all-female salamander biotype in southern Wisconsin.
Wetland Coffee Break: Starhead Topminnow: The rare star of the backwaters of the Lower Wisconsin Riverway
Young ichthyologist Madeline Cleveland shares her knowledge of this state endangered species’ natural history, the threats it faces, and conservation efforts being made to preserve it.
Wetland Coffee Break: Dibaginjigaadeg Anishinaabe Ezhitwaad: A tribal climate adaptation menu for indigenous-led adaptation planning
Learn about the Tribal Adaptation Menu which provides a framework to integrate indigenous and traditional knowledge, culture, language, and history into the climate adaptation planning process.
Wetland Coffee Break: Wetland monitoring and protection on the Red Cliff reservation
Take a tour of the wetlands in Red Cliff and learn about efforts to monitor and manage the Tribe’s wetlands.
Wetland Coffee Break: Implications of the Sackett decision for Wisconsin: Early takes from the front lines
Watch the recording of our special one-hour edition of the Wetland Coffee Break series to explore the ecological, legal, and political implications for Wisconsin wetlands of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett vs EPA.
Wetland Coffee Break: Discovering historic Wisconsin geospatial data
A photo of speaker Howard Veregin over a map that shows one landscape with several different maps. Starting on the right with 1939 aerial imagery, then a survey map (the Bordner Survey) ca. 1933-1945, then into the colorful Digital Bordner Data from 2014 and onward with ‘wetlands’ pointed out.