Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Assistant Botanist Aaron Marcus has been selected as a panelist to speak on  monitoring rare plants’ resilience in the face of climate change and other threats at an online Native Plant Trust symposium on October 29.

Following their recently released report, Conserving Plant Diversity in New England, the Native Plant Trust aims to bring diverse perspectives to the table and generate new best practices to respond to climate change with their forthcoming symposium.

Marcus will highlight the leading role that Vermont Fish and Wildlife biologists have played amassing 40 years of data on rare and endangered plants across the state—and empowering community scientist volunteers to do the same.  This collaborative, long-term monitoring is the foundation of Vermont’s contribution to the Native Plant Trust’s region-wide effort to conserve plant diversity under a changing climate.

“Thanks to our thriving community of volunteer and professional botanists, we know a lot more about Vermont’s flora, and how the populations have been doing over recent decades, than in much of the rest of the country,” says Marcus.  “The Native Plant Trust report draws directly from our department’s database of rare and endangered plant populations.”

The Native Plant Trust’s Climate Resilience Symposium will be held remotely from 1- 4 p.m. EST.  In addition to Marcus, the Symposium will feature botanists and educators from around the Northeast representing significant expertise and wide-ranging experience.

“I hope this symposium will help us as observers, as students, and as scientists continue to integrate between many different ways of understanding resilience,” says Marcus.

The event is open to the public with an admission fee.

For Immediate Release:  October 26, 2021

Media Contact:  Aaron Marcus 802-505-8099