29th Annual Conference

Florida Native Plant Society

2009 Annual Conference

Wake Up and Plant the Natives:  Planting Today to Preserve Florida's Tomorrow
May 21-24, 2009

West Palm Beach Marriott
10001 Okeechobee Boulevard, West Palm Beach, FL  33401

Reservations:  (800) 376-2292 - FNPS Rate: $117.07  - Please Mention the FNPS Conference

Keynote Speaker

Doug Tallamy, Ph.D., Doug Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, where he has authored over 68 research articles and has taught Insect Taxonomy, Behavioral Ecology, and other courses for 27 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 new book “Bringing Nature Home; How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens” was published by Timber Press in 2007.
With as many as 33,000 species imperiled in the U.S., it is clear that we must change our approach to landscaping if we hope to create homes and food for our local biodiversity. Native plants will play a key role in the restoration of our living spaces because only natives provide the coevolved relationships required by 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.
You will learn:

• Why we need biodiversity;
• Why we need to change landscaping paradigms to save biodiversity;
• Why animal diversity depends on native plants;
• What a sustainable suburban ecosystem might look like.

Doug Tallamy, Ph.D.

Keynote Address, Sat. May 23, 2009

Daniel F. Austin, Ph.D. Daniel F. Austin is a Research Associate at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, and of the Fairchild Tropical Garden, Miami, Florida. He is also Adjunct Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson; Research Associate at the Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami; Research Associate at the Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix; and Emeritus Professor at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton. He attended graduate school at Washington University and Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri. He received his M.A. in 1969 and his Ph.D. in 1970, and then spent 31 years teaching in the Florida State University System. He has received four awards from the Florida Native Plant Society, the Outstanding Member Award from the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, and was named Environmental Champion by NatureScaping at the Earth Day Celebration in 2001. He is technical advisor to several organizations, and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He has 324 publications, including eight books and 45 book chapters. His current research focuses on the ethnobotany of plant species shared between the Caribbean and northwestern Mexico and adjacent United States, and on the evolution of the Convolvulaceae.

Plants and People – From Swamps to Deserts An introduction to the plants shared between Florida and the Southwestern United States will be presented. Although it seems counter-intuitive these two distant and climatically different regions share several species and even more genera. After an overview of Spanish arrival in these areas, the indigenous people will be summarized to show similarities and distinctions between their livelihoods. Then, a few plants growing in both regions will be compared and contrasted by presenting their places in the lives of native people in the late 1400s and early 1500s. Some perceptions of the plants and their uses are similar; others are not.

Daniel F. Austin, Ph.D.

Plenary Speaker

Harold Wanless, Ph.D. Harold R. Wanless (B.A. Princeton University; M.S. University of Miami; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University) is professor and Chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami. He and his students have been studying the dynamics and evolution of tropical shallow marine and coastal environments of south Florida and the Bahamas since the mid 1960s. Especially important to this research has been documenting the influence of changing sea level and catastrophic events, such as hurricanes. They are now using this understanding to better predict the future of our coastal environments in the face of global warming.

Dr. Wanless is actively interacting with policy and legislative groups to guide necessary decisions, including speaking at the Everglades Coalition annual meeting and various Florida Legislative committees.

Harold Wanless, Ph.D.

Purpose of Conference: To provide educational programs to FNPS members and the general public about the planting, preservation, conservation and restoration of Florida native plants and their associated plant communities.