2026 Appleton-Whittell Research Fellow Lunchtime Webinars

Summer season on the Appleton-Whittell Analysis Ranch of the Nationwide Audubon Society is a particular time. Monsoon storms born within the Huachuca Mountains break the warmth and encourage a collective sigh of reduction throughout the Sonoita Plain. Birds and different wildlife reply virtually instantly with an virtually unbelievable growth of productiveness, and researchers excitedly embark on the season’s fieldwork.  

Are you interested by what these researchers are learning? Join us on September 11, 18, and 25 from noon to 1 p.m. (Mountain Standard Time) for this year’s round of Appleton-Whittell Research Fellow Webinars! Annually, we award three early profession scientists with free Analysis Ranch lodging and monetary help to help their research, and in return they assist us additional Frank and Ariel Appleton’s founding mission for the property – to depart it higher than we discovered it.  

Learn on to be taught extra about every Analysis Fellow and their work and sign up for each presentation today! 

• September 11, 2026: midday – 1 p.m.  

Alexia Markoutsis: Flame to Sprout: Understanding fireplace and Emory Oak dynamics in Madrean oak woodlands 

The Emory oak (Qucerus emoryi) is a dominant, culturally essential, and ecologically keystone tree of Madrean oak woodlands throughout Mexico and the southwestern United States. By a century of land administration modifications, overgrazing, and fireplace suppression, Emory oaks South of the Huachuca Mountains, the Sky Island dominating the horizon to the southeast of the Analysis Ranch, have skilled immense change. Throughout this presentation, Alexia will discover her efforts learning prescribed burns to perceive how administration historical past, fireplace, and a fungal pathogen work together to have an effect on the well being of this emblematic tree. 

In regards to the speaker: Alexia is a grasp’s scholar in Northern Arizona College’s Lab of Conservation Ecology. Having visited the Analysis Ranch many instances via her analysis and that of her fellow college students, Alexia has developed a deep appreciation for our work of defending habitat for birds and different wildlife, and she or he intends for her analysis to contribute to our mission and the broader ecology of southeastern Arizona.  

• September 18, 2026: midday – 1 p.m.  

Max Roberts: The Biology and Conservation of the Chiricahua Leopard Frog within the Madrean Sky Islands of Southeast Arizona 
 
Going through threats together with habitat loss, invasive species, and illness, Chiricahua Leopard Frogs (Lithobates chiricahuensis) have been listed as a threatened species beneath the Endangered Species Act in 2002. Whereas these frogs have skilled inhabitants declines all through their vary, collaborative conservation efforts have helped the species get well in a number of areas. Throughout this webinar, Max will talk about the biology of Chiricahua Leopard Frogs, dive into ongoing conservation to preserve the species, and his personal work gathering the knowledge wanted to advance its restoration in southeast Arizona. 
 
In regards to the Speaker: Max is a first-year Ph.D. scholar working with the College of Arizona Frog Undertaking out of the College of Pure Sources and the Surroundings. Smitten by ecological restoration and contributing to the restoration of imperiled species, Max is hopeful that his work will inform Chiricahua Leopard Frog conservation efforts throughout southeastern Arizona.  
 

• September 25, 2026; midday – 1 p.m. 

Cameron Tescher: Grassland Birds and Mesquite Encroachment: Literature Evaluation and Avian Response to Mesquite Removing within the Santa Rita Experimental Vary 
 
Grassland birds are the quickest declining chicken guild in North America, and one driver of those losses is the encroachment of timber and shrubs into previously grass dominated habitats. Throughout this presentation, Cameron will discover what is understood concerning the results of woody species removing efforts and what he’s realized from his personal efforts conducting breeding and wintering chicken surveys earlier than and after mesquite (Neltuma spp.) removing on the College of Arizona’s Santa Rita Experimental Vary, a university-run organic subject station simply twenty miles northwest of the Analysis Ranch. 
 
In regards to the speaker: Cameron is a grasp’s scholar from the College of Arizona. He’s as captivated with birds as he’s about making birding and biology accessible, inclusive, and welcoming areas. As a part of his work, he’s working with the Sonoran Joint Enterprise, Arizona Sport and Fish Division, and Tucson Chicken Alliance to recruit and practice subject technicians to assist him together with his surveys.