Melissa Romigh carrying wood to construct boardwalk in mangrove forest, Shark River Slough

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.

Left to right: Dan Bond and Melissa Romigh. Setting up a flume panel to measure nutrient / sediment fluxed in a mangrove forest at SRS-6, Shark River Slough

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.

Left to right: Gustavo Rubio and Melissa Romigh measuring diameter at breast height (DBH) of mangrove trees at SRS-6, Shark River Slough

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.

Evaluating Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaeides Melissa Samuelis Nabokov) Habitat Selection in the State of Wisconsin, USA

The federally endangered Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis Nabokov) persists in rare oak/pine grassland communities spanning across the Great Lakes region, relying on host plant wild blue lupine (Lupinus perennis). Conservation efforts since 1992 have led to the development of several programs that restore and monitor habitat. This study aims to evaluate Karner blue habitat selection in the state of Wisconsin and develop high-resolution tools for use in conservation efforts. Spatial predictive models developed during this study accurately predicted potential habitat across state properties based on soils and canopy cover, and identified ~51-100% of Karner blue occurrences based on lupine and shrub/tree cover, and focal nectar plant abundance. When evaluated relative to American bison (Bison bison), Karner blues and lupine were more likely to occur in areas of low disturbance, but aggregated where bison were recently present in areas of moderate/high disturbance. Lupine C:N ratio increased relative to cover of shrubs/trees and focal nectar plant abundance and decreased relative to cover of groundlitter. Karner blue density increased with lupine C:N ratio, decreased with nitrogen content, and was not related to phenolic levels. We strongly suggest that areas of different soil textures must be managed differently and that maintenance techniques should generate a mix of shrubs/tree cover (10-45%), groundlitter cover (~10-40%), >5% cover of lupine, and establish an abundance of focal nectar plants. This study provides unique tools for use in conservation and should aid in focusing management efforts and recovery of this species.

Lecture by Melissa Chiu, given at Florida International University, March 4, 2015

Melissa Chiu's talk focuses on the making of a museum in the 21st century. Comments by Jordana Pomeroy. Introduction by Richard Kurin.

‘“Glossary Islands” as sites of the “Abroad” in post-colonial literature: towards a new methodology for language and knowledge relations in Keri Hulme’s The Bone People and Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby.’

The publication of Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby in 2013 drew attention once more to the issue of how post-colonial scholars might best engage with English-language literary texts also containing a glossary of Indigenous words. This issue emerged first with the publication of Keri Hulme’s The Bone People in 1984. This article argues that, to date, scholars like Simon During and Eve Vincent have perpetuated a binary either/or approach to the interpretation of these glossaries. The result of this approach has been that either the pre-colonial Indigenous language or the colonial/post-colonizing English language has been privileged as the locus of linguistic power in the text. One problem with this approach is that it does not adequately represent the complex historical, cultural and political circumstances of post-colonial and multi-cultural nations like Australia (setting of Mullumbimby) and New Zealand (setting of The Bone People) as these link to matters of language. Another problem is that this binary approach restrains a close reading of the differences between different types of such glossaries, and of the nuanced relationship of a glossary to the text it accompanies. In place of this approach, this article proposes a new methodology that works with Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey’s notion of “tidalectics” as a way of reading island literatures. The neologism “glossary islands” allows another way into considering the function of glossaries in islandic literary texts like Lucashenko’s and Hulme’s. The post-colonial connection between islands and glossaries lies in the fact that they are each an intensified site of knowledge.