We’re excited to announce that the 2011 BioBlitz will be held at the Joslin Farm site in Scituate from 3 p.m. Friday June 10 to 3 pm Saturday June 11. Providence Water is the land owner and local host and Roger Williams Park Zoo is the lead sponsor. Joslin Farm is approximately in the center of Rhode Island, located
south of the Scituate Reservoir, in the angle between Tunk Hill Road and Old Plainfield Pike. It was to this ridge-top land that one of Scituate’s founding families retreated after the construction of the reservoir. The land was unworked for many years and reforestation was well advanced when in 2009 Providence Water and USDA-NRCS undertook a major grassland and shrubland enhancement project at Joslin Farm. The dramatically scenic bioblitz site includes approximately 700 acres of mature hardwood forest, new and old warm season grassland, shrubland, and headwater streams. This bioblitz will be a unique opportunity to investigate the biodiversity on a long-abandoned farming landscape with large blocks of relatively undisturbed habitat, plus be a good chance to check out the effects of a modern habitat restoration. This is not an area frequented by biologists so anything could be discovered. A team orientation will be held Thursday, May 12, at Roger
Williams Park Zoo in Providence. The orientation is not required, but advanced registration for all participants is. More details will be forthcoming. Stay tuned!

The full program of presenters for RINHS’s 2011 Ecology of Rhode Island Conference, “Science and Management of Salt Ponds and Coastal Lagoons,” is now available. Please visit the conference page of this website. Registration for the conference is now open. Download a registration form.

Roger Goos, a professor of botany at the University of Rhode Island from 1970 to 1995, passed away on Monday, March 7 at the age of 86. Roger grew up on a farm in Iowa, serving in the Infantry in WW II (European Theater) earning a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Dr. Goos received his B.Sc, MSc and Ph.D from the University of Iowa. He served as president of the Mycological Society of America, published many articles and papers on mycology, conducted mushroom walks for numerous community groups, and was well known in mycological circles. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Lisbon and an Indo-American Fellowship to the University of Madras. In 2005 he received the Distinguished Naturalist Award from the Rhode Island Natural History Survey, which published his life’s work, The Mycota of Rhode Island, in 2010. His encyclopedic knowledge of fungi earned him invitations to collaborate around the globe, including in India, Japan, Iraq, Hawaii and the United Kingdom.

A memorial service for Dr. Goos will be held on Saturday, March 12 at 11 a.m. at the Apponaug Pentecostal Church, 75 Prospect St., Warwick. From 9:30 to 11 will be an informal gathering of friends and family. All are welcome. Dr. Goos will be buried in Iowa.