Wetland Coffee Break

Histories of the fur trade typically focus on the economic rise and fall of the European fur market, intercultural connections forged between Indigenous people and Euro-Americans, or the wars between Native Nations due to economic participation and alliances. However, an important yet understudied aspect underlying all of those is the fur trade environment. Between 1630 and 1830, fur hunters exterminated more than 95 percent of the region’s beaver population. In this talk, Hayden Nelson will share how the historical overhunting of beavers substantially altered the forested wetlands around Lake Superior. He’ll also discuss the interconnected ways in which other animals responded to the decline of beaver.

Hayden L. Nelson is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Kansas, where he specializes in environmental and Indigenous history in the North American West. His dissertation, “The North Woods: An Environmental History from the Pleistocene to the Pyrocene,” investigates how both human and non-human actors interacted with and transformed the transnational forested region of the western Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi watersheds from the end of the Wisconsin glaciation to the beginnings of industrial logging. His work has been supported by the American Society for Environmental History, the Newberry Library, the United States Forest Service, and more.

The Hine’s emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora hineana, HED) is one of the most imperiled species of dragonflies in the Great Lakes region. Understanding the species distribution, and by extension, habitat requirements is critical to designing effective monitoring and conservation strategies for this federally endangered species. Dr. Toczydlowski will talk about how she and her collaborators are leveraging genetic tools, including environmental DNA (eDNA), to build our knowledge of HED.

Dr. Rachel Toczydlowski is a Research Scientist with the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station. She uses a suite of genetic tools to understand where species are on the landscape and how the landscape influences levels and spatial patterns of genetic diversity. Dr. Toczydlowski works on a diversity of species in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater aquatic systems.