Grand Rapids
Audubon Club
Special Event
Please print a copy of the
meeting flyer and post on
a public bulletin board
(work, school, church,
etc.) in order to help us
reach potential new club
members.
March 2010 Meeting
Date: Monday, March 29, 2010
Time: 6:30 PM social; 7:30 PM program
Location: Ladies Literary Club (map-click here)
61 Sheldon Blvd. SE, Grand Rapids
Speaker: Dr. Douglas Tallamy
Topic: Bringing Nature Home
With as many as 33,000 species imperiled in the U.S., it is clear that we must change our approach to gardening and landscaping if we hope to share the spaces in which we live and work with other living things. The first thing we must do is put more plants into our denuded landscapes, because plants provide the food that drives all food webs. Native plants will play a key role in the restoration of our landscapes because only natives provide the coevolved relationships required by most animals. By supporting a diversity of insect herbivores, native plants provide food for a large and healthy community of natural enemies that keep herbivores in balance and our gardens aesthetically pleasing. Gardening in this crowded world carries both moral and ecological responsibilities that we can no longer ignore.
Doug Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology and director of the Center for Managed Ecosystems at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, where he has authored 69 research articles and has taught Insect Taxonomy, Behavioral Ecology, and other courses for 28 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book Bringing Nature Home; How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens was published by Timber Press in 2007 and was awarded the 2008 silver medal by the Garden Writer’s Association.