I met Larry Allain in Dr. Mike Zavada's Paleobotany class in graduate school in the early 1990's. We were both in our 30's returning to university after careers in Horticulture. Larry completed a MS degree studying Plant Taxonomy with Dr. Zavada and began working with the United States Geological Service (USGS) at the National Wetlands Research Center as a botanist and plant ecologist after graduation. He pioneered research in coastal prairie, identifying remnant prairie and quantifying the loss of prairie due to habitat conversion across the state and beyond. Larry and a team of experts developed a floristic quality index (FQI) to assign a value to each species from 1-10 with 10 being the highest for those plants found in high quality prairie. The goal of the Index is to better assess the integrity of remaining coastal prairie and to improve restoration methods and management tools. While photographing plants for a coastal prairie plant database, Larry observed the diversity of insects utilizing different plants. This observation led to new research and a deeper understanding of the importance of plant-insect interactions in prairie ecology. Later in this newsletter you can see Larry's newly certified property and read about what he is doing in his "retirement"! -Dona Weifenbach
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