Making Habitat at Home

Regardless of the size and scope of your garden, making habitat for wildlife means making layers—layers composed of root-filled soil, insulating leaves, rotting logs, and native plants. From the living and dead tissue of plants springs diverse above- and belowground food webs of decomposers, herbivores, predators, and parasitoids. This web of interacting species is more fascinating to watch, more resilient to change, and less likely to experience pest outbreaks than spaces like lawns with their simplified food webs.

This presentation will describe the fundamentals of making habitat at home with native plants. As extreme weather becomes more common, our spaces can serve as a vital habitat and climate refuge for wildlife, providing much-needed relief from heat waves, desiccating winds, and heavy downpours.

About our speaker:

Tyler Refsland, Manager of Applied Ecology at the Wild Seed Project (WSP), has an extensive background in plant ecology, forest restoration, and climate change. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he studied how land management practices affect the drought resilience and carbon storing capacity of oak-hickory woodlands. Prior to his role at WSP, Tyler was a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, working in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and Wisconsin DNR to develop seed collection and planting strategies to promote climate resilient forests in the Great Lakes region. He lives in Portland with his partner, their two children, and dog Harriet

Portland’s Sustainability Series is co-hosted by the Portland Public Library and Momentum Conservation, and is sponsored by Bangor Savings Bank. The Portland Sustainability Series presents speakers who share aspects of the work needed to make Maine and our environment more sustainable. Please join us as we engage in these important topics and conversations!