On February 18, 2021, the University Libraries and the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries co-sponsored the event, Aquatic Invasive Species in Michigan, in partnership with the Clarke Historical Library. The two speakers, Anna Monfils and Chase Stevens, spoke about their experiences working with aquatic invasive species with a focus on European frogbit (EFB). This plant can form thick mats that choke out native species and negatively impact local recreational activities.
Dr. Monfils, a professor of biology and Director of the CMU Herbarium, opened the event with an overview of how the invasive escaped from a botanic garden in Canada and into the waterways of the Great Lakes, and then to inland waters in the state of Michigan and beyond. She then outlined the work she, her students, and the team from EFB Collaborative have done to study the distribution, lifecycle, and phenology of this plant. She shared that EFB can reproduce vegetatively through stolon buds and turions, which can remain dormant for a time until sprouting again.
Chase Stevens, Invasive Species Coordinator for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, spoke about his work with aquatic invasive species including EFB. Chase documented the different methods the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe has used to remove EFB chemically and manually. During one community event, where volunteers went out in boats and hip waders, they removed more than 500 pounds of the plant. Over the past few years, the Tribe and partners from the local Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA) have removed about 5,000 pounds, or over two tons, of European frogbit from the Saginaw Bay.
In honor of both speakers, CMU Libraries’ biology librarian, Rebecca Renirie, and Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Education Librarian, Anne Heidemann, selected ten books, five for each speaker, to add to the collections of both libraries. Each book contains a bookplate recognizing the speakers’ backgrounds and professional work. The books are written for a range of audiences.
Read more about this event from the Clarke Historical Library News and Notes.
View the event recording online at: https://chipcast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=c398d983-a5dd-4cea-b0f0-acd8015c9bb4
This event was co-sponsored by the University Libraries, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries, and the Clarke Historical Library and was made possible by a grant from the American Libraries Association’s Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change initiative.
Books in honor of Chase Stevens:
Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability
By Melissa K. Nelson and Dan Shilling, editors
Cambridge University Press, 2018
Readership: Academic
Biodiversity, Conservation and Environmental Management in the Great Lakes Basin
By Eric Freedman and Mark Neuzil, editors
Routledge, 2019
Readership: Academic
Plants Used by the Great Lakes Ojibwa
By James E. Meeker, Joan E. Elias, and John A. Heim
Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, 1994
Readership: Popular/Academic
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
By Dan Egan
WW Norton, 2017
Readership: Popular
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese
Penguin/Random House, 2019
Readership: Juvenile to Adult
Books in Honor of Anna Monfils:
Plant Invasions: The Role of Biotic Interactions
by Anna Traveset
Cambridge University Press, 2020
Readership: Academic
Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology: The Evolvability of the Phenotype
By Alessandro Minelli
Cambridge University Press, 2018
Readership: Academic
Herbarium: The Quest to Preserve and Classify the World’s Plants
By Barbara M. Thiers
Timber Press, 2020
Readership: Popular
The Field Guide to Citizen Science: How You Can Contribute to Scientific Research and Make a Difference
By Darlene Cavalier, Catherine Hoffman, and Caren Cooper
Timber Press, 2020
Readership: Popular
The Monarchs Are Missing: A Butterfly Mystery
By Rebecca E. Hirsch
Lerner Publishing Group, 2018
Readership: Juvenile
