Experiencing Botany Through the Eyes of an Arkansas Traveler with Brendan Kosnik

Join Brendan while he walks through his botanical adventures in Arkansas starting with Mississippi River Island work. Brendan will cover rare sedges on Crowley’s Ridge and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, as well as other interesting species native to the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains and the Gulf Coastal Plain that he’s encountered on his botanical forays and while working for The Nature Conservancy.
A Michigan native, Brendan attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He then went on to earn a second bachelor’s degree in biology from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, beginning a career devoted to plants, ecology, and conservation. In 2021, Brendan moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas to pursue his master’s degree in the Marsico Lab at Arkansas State University. His thesis research focuses on rare sedges (Carex spp.) in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and Crowley’s ridge ecoregions of Arkansas. This April, Brendan joined The Nature Conservancy’s Arkansas Field Office with the in Little Rock where he has begun to support plant community monitoring and prescribed fire programs.