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Melonee Montano

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Research Symposium: Culturally Significant Plants and Climate Change
The loss or decline of culturally significant plants is a major concern for many tribal managers. Culturally significant plants are essential to many aspects of life for tribal members, including medicine, ceremonial practices, and traditional food dishes. In many parts of the U.S., droughts, floods, and changes in the timing of frost events are stressing these plants and in some cases have led to decreases in their areas of suitable habitat or a reduction in their resistance to disease. The goal of this project is to hold a research symposium that will bring together tribal resource managers and scientists from a range of disciplines in the South Central region to identify which culturally significant species...
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Impacts of Climate Change on Vegetation, Ecohydrology, and Management of Manoomin (Wild Rice) Watersheds
Manoomin, or wild rice, is an essential, sacred species for Native people throughout the Upper Great Lakes region, who have relied on the plant for food and ceremony for hundreds of years. Manoomin is also important to non-Native people, who also harvest it and benefit from the wildlife sustained by it. Manoomin is an indicator of ecosystem health—if manoomin is healthy so is the surrounding ecosystem. Unfortunately, this aquatic grass has declined across much of its range due to multiple human-caused stressors, including changes to water levels in the lakes and streams in which manoomin grows. Climate change will further disrupt water levels, most directly through changes in precipitation, but also through climate-driven...
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