How can neglected and underutilized plant species increase food resiliance in a changing climate? Can lichen change your life? Should bees be taking probiotics? Come find out at this month’s Nature Nerds!
If this is your first Nature Nerds program, please read this:
Nature Nerds is an informal educational event for grown-ups.
We swear sometimes. Jokes are made that are not intended for kids. Pretty much every biologist who gets on stage talks about sex. This program is not for the haughty or for youths. It is... a good time!
Enlichenment 101, Bee Microbiomes, and Indigenous Uses of California Native Plants
What native plants around us are known for their usefulness to people? Can lichen change your life? Should bees be taking probiotics? Come find out at this month’s Nature Nerds!
Enlichenment 101: how loving lichens can change the way you see the world
You might know lichens as blobs of green stuff growing on rocks. That's about to change. In this brief but deep dive into lichenology, you'll learn what lichens are, what lichens have to do with reindeer, knitting, and the air we breathe, and how lichens call into question what it means to be an individual.
Allie Weill is a science writer and lichen educator and the Secretary of the California Lichen Society. She has a PhD in Ecology from UC Davis. She has taught Lichens of the Bay Area at Merritt College and has led and co-led lichen walks, talks, and workshops since 2018. She took a lichen course in grad school because it seemed like more fun than working on her dissertation and it changed her life, and that's not an exaggeration.
@californialichens
https://lookalichen.com/
https://www.californialichens.org/
Indigenous Uses of California Native Plants
Indigenous groups continue to steward, use, and work with the native flora they have worked with since time immemorial. Come learn a bit about plants used by indigenous peoples of Northern California. You will also get to hear about the upcoming California Native Plant Foods Celebration & Symposium in February 2026 where folks will have an opportunity to learn firsthand from indigenous groups.
Will McMahan grew up in northern Colorado and has loved plants since an early age. Will is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Niger, South Africa) and has worked in government contracting, nonprofit and corporate social responsibility consulting, and international food security. Will has a B.A. in geography from Dartmouth College and in 2019 went back to school to obtain a post-baccalaureate in plant biology at the University of Washington, Seattle. Will researches crop evolution, domestication, and diversity, especially of the so-called neglected and underutilized plant species, also known as orphan crops or opportunity crops.
Do Bees Have Microbiomes?
In recent years, we have learned that humans are actually ecosystems covered and filled with microbes. But what about insects? Where do microbes live on and within these arthropods? Learn more about how and where insects pick up microbes and what functions they might serve.
Lexie Martin is an Entomology PhD Candidate at the University of California, Davis in Dr. Rachel Vannette’s Lab. She studies the impacts of environmentally acquired microbes on the health of bumblebees and blue orchard bees, but is broadly interested in bee gut microbiomes and bee-flower-microbe interactions. When she is not in the lab, she likes cooking, reading romance novels, and playing with her two (very loud and very naughty) pomeranians.
IG: @entomolexie
https://entomolexie.wordpress.com/
ABOUT TICKET PRICES:
$27 tickets are for you if you own your home, can travel internationally for fun, have savings and investments. This price directly offsets lower prices for folks that could use support.
$18 tickets are for you if you can meet your basic needs.
$7 tickets are if you're a single parent, you use EBT, cannot afford to take time off without financial burden, are an unpaid community organizer.
