2025 Long Island
Natural History
Conference
The 2025 Long Island Natural History Conference will be held on March 28-29, 2025. Please mark your calendar!
Details about the 2025 conference will be announced as they become available. Please check back here for details.
In the meantime, all presentations from the 2024 event are posted below and are included in the full collection of conference presentations in our LINHC Video Library.
About the Conference
The Long Island Natural History Conference is the largest regional forum for the exchange of information about Long Island’s natural history. The annual event brings together Long Island’s leading naturalists to exchange current information, identifies research and management needs, and encourages collaborations and a greater region-wide interest in Long Island’s natural history.
The Conference was established by the Long Island Nature Organization (LINO) in 2012 to support education and research about the natural history of Long Island. The conference resulted from the vision and dedication of Mike Bottini, Tim Green, John Turner and the late James Monaco.
The conference was founded with the following goals:
- Introduce people doing field research, natural resource management, and conservation projects on Long Island
- Exchange current information on the natural history of Long Island
- Identify research and management needs
- Foster friendships and collegial relationships
- Encourage a greater region-wide interest in Long Island’s natural history.
Seatuck assumed management of the Long Island Natural History Conference following its merger with LINO in 2020.
LINHC Video Library
The majority of presentations from past Long Island Natural History Conferences have been recorded and uploaded to YouTube. A full listing of these recordings (more than 90 in all!) can be found here in the LINHC Video Library. You can find presentations by browsing either the SPEAKER INDEX or the TOPIC INDEX.
2024 LINHC PRESENTATIONS
Dark Skies for Fireflies: a Multi-year Survey of lampyrids in New York State Park
Katie Hietala-Henschell, Zoologist
New York Heritage Program
Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) Shell Damage and Health in an Urban Landscape
Anna Thonis
Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University
CONSERVATION UPDATE: The Long Island Mammal Survey
Taylor Larson, Environmental Educator
Seatuck Environmental Association
The rise of a new top dog: contrasting impacts of feral cats and red foxes on threatened shorebirds during a mange epidemic on Fire Island
Christy N. Wails
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech
Distribution, Status, and Flora of Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain Heathlands and Grasslands
Michael Whittemore, Ecologist
Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission
CONSERVATION UPDATE: Restoring the American chestnut
Frank Piccininni, Regional co-director
American Chestnut Foundation
Threats to Our Maritime Beech Forest
Mina Vescera, Nursery/Landscape Specialist
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County
Applying research towards creating an annual cycle understanding of New York Black Skimmer populations
Rob Longiaru, Conservation Biologist
Town of Hempstead Department of Conservation & Waterways
CONSERVATION UPDATE: The Vernal Pool Project
John Turner, Senior Conservation Policy Advocate
Seatuck Environmental Association
Drone-based aerial surveys to quantify nearshore Atlantic menhaden and their predators
Dean L. Hernandez
School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Stony Brook University
Generalist Dietary Dynamics Within Small Mammal Communities in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens
Imogene C. Welles
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
CONSERVATION UPDATE: Conservation projects in the Peconic Estuary
Joyce Novak, Executive Director
Peconic Estuary Partnership
That was then, this is now… Standing on the shoulders of some of Long Island’s greatest naturalists.
Robert McGrath
Stony Brook University
From the Wrack Line to the Twilight Zone: A Tour of New York’s Less-famous Marine Creatures
Joe Warren, Associate Professor
School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University
CONSERVATION UPDATE: South Shore Bays Unified Water Study
Robyn Silvestri, Executive Director
Save the Great South Bay
Tracking Post-Release Movement Patterns of New York’s Rehabilitated Sea Turtles Provides Insight into their Utilization of New York Waters
Maxine Montello, Executive Director
New York Marine Rescue Center, Riverhead, NY
The ruffed grouse on Long Island
John Turner, Senior Conservation Policy Advocate
Seatuck Environmental Association