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Join Dr. Brian Scholtens for an overview of his completed and ongoing research on SC butterflies and moths. These include cataloging all the butterflies in the state, a survey of Congaree NP and a survey of Spring Island. He will also detail current efforts to survey Santee Coastal Reserve, specifically the area near the former Wedge Plantation, looking at how the fauna has changed in the 50 years since its initial survey in the 1960s and 1970s.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Brian Scholtens was born and raised in Iowa, where he attended Central College, receiving a B.A. in biology in 1983. He attended the University of Michigan, receiving his Ph.D. in 1990 in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology studying with Dr. Warren Herb Wagner and Dr. Brian Hazlett. He moved to Mt. Pleasant, SC in 1992 to become an assistant professor at the College of Charleston in the Biology Department. He is currently a professor in the department and teaches Entomology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Introductory Biology. For 30 years Brian taught Entomology or Ecology each summer at the University of Michigan Biological Station in northern Michigan and has offered courses in butterflies and moths at Humboldt Field Research Institute in Maine. His research has focused on the conservation biology of threatened and endangered insects and biodiversity surveys. He co-coordinated the Lepidoptera part of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, working particularly with the butterflies and Pyraloidea, and has more recently completed a moth survey (with Joe Culin, Clemson University, and John Snyder, Furman University) of Congaree National Park near Columbia, SC, and is participating in surveys of Sapelo Island, GA and the Santee Coastal Reserve.