Presenter: Dr. Carol Trosset

Location: In-person at Lebanon Citizens National Bank (LCNB)

Beginning in the 1950s, the Trosset family restored an acre of woodland in a suburb of Cincinnati by letting the trees grow and repopulating the property with a large variety of native wildflowers. Using 40 years of weekly records collected by her mother, Carol will show us the richness of the resulting habitat, which has hosted 122 species of birds and 15 species of mammals. Data on wildflower bloom dates make it possible to see how climate change is affecting our local ephemeral wildflowers. Changes in the habitat over 70 years illustrate the opportunities and challenges of small-scale habitat restoration.

Carol Trosset grew up in Cincinnati studying natural history with her family and at the Cincinnati Zoo. She holds graduate degrees in cultural anthropology and conservation biology, and spent most of her career studying higher education effectiveness. Three years ago, she retired back to Cincinnati. She is the author of The Woods: The Natural History of an Acre in Southwestern Ohio, published in 2023 by the Ohio Biological Survey.