Saturday, October 4th, 2025
9-11:45 am | 12-2:45 pm
Join us for New Hope Creek Biodiversity Day—a celebration of the unique flora and fauna that call New Hope Creek home! This event will also highlight how the Duke Forest’s ongoing restoration projects will ultimately restore habitat connectivity, improve in-stream aquatic habitat, and stabilize stream banks for wildlife. We will host two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, each offering a series of interactive presentations led by experts on the topics of native mussels, plants, fungi, and birds of the Duke Forest. When signing up for a session, you will be able to rank the presentation topics based on your interests. Tour participants will rotate through two presentations during the session. Our staff will do their best to place you in the presentation rotation that interests you most.
Audience: This tour is geared toward adult audiences (ages 18+). Any minors interested in participating must have a parent or guardian present and have an active interest in the subject.
Accessibility:
- Tour participants will be on their feet throughout this nearly 3-hour tour, walking and standing during presentations.
- Some speakers will lead tour participants off-trail as part of the tour experience. Off-trail walking is otherwise not permitted without the express supervision of Duke Forest Staff or guest speakers. Walking in a forested environment involves obstacles, uneven surfaces, significant slopes, and moderate distances. We invite participants to bring trekking poles or a walking stick if needed.
- Our registration form includes a question where you can share details about any accessibility needs you may have. If you have accessibility considerations that you would like to make our staff aware of, please let us know.
- There are NO BATHROOMS in the tour area, but a port-a-potty will be nearby for our tour speakers or emergencies. Please plan accordingly.
Sign-Up Here
Space is limited to 40 participants in each session. To increase the reach of our tours, the first 10 tour slots will be first-come, first-served, and the remaining slots will be filled from a waitlist. You will receive a notification of your status, as to whether you are a confirmed participant or remain on the waitlist, by the end of the day on Friday, September 26. Confirmed participants will receive full event details shortly thereafter. Rain date is Sunday, October 5, 2025.
Our tours are small and often fill quickly, and we hope to engage a mix of folks new to the Duke Forest and past participants. Thank you for your understanding.
Speaker Bios
Mussels
Brena Jones has been a biologist with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission for the past 20 years, with a focus on rare freshwater fish, mussels, crayfish, and aquatic snails, as well as their associated habitats across the watersheds of central and eastern NC. She is excited to share information with you about some of our hidden treasures living rich lives beneath the surface of our state’s waters, and how those lives are connected to each of us. (AM SESSION)
Langston Rimmer is a biologist with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission with a focus on applied ecology of rare freshwater fish, mussels, crayfish, and aquatic snails across the watersheds of central and eastern NC. He has been exploring the forests and streams of NC since he was a kid and is excited to share information with you about some our beautiful streams and rivers. (PM SESSION)
Recently, NCWRC has been partnering with the Duke Forest to help protect rare mussel species which live in New Hope Creek. We relocated these animals out of the way of an ongoing barrier removal project to avoid species impacts, and we also stocked some young mussels, a rare native species called the Notched Rainbow. Join us for the event to learn more about these exciting conservation projects!
Plants
Robert Peet is a Research Professor in the Biology Department at UNC Chapel Hill. His research emphasizes forest dynamics, biogeography, vegetation pattern, species diversity and the development and exploration of large-scale biodiversity databases. One project of particular relevance for this event is a study of the composition and long-term dynamics of Duke Forest vegetation, a project he started with Norm Christensen in 1977 and which still occupies some of his time. He has served the Ecological Society of America as Secretary and Editor-in-Chief, the International Association for Vegetation Science as President and co-founder of its premier journal, Journal of Vegetation Science, and he co-organized and serves on the US National Vegetation Classification Panel. He is one of four primary organizers of the Carolina Vegetation Survey, a 35-year effort to document and better understand the natural vegetation of the Carolinas.
During the Duke Forest Biodiversity Day event Dr. Peet will help participants better understand the patten of vegetation on the local landscape and how it reflects topographic position, underlying geology, disturbance events and past land use. He will also discuss how this information can help guide land management and the protection of biodiversity.
Fungi
Rytas Vilgalys is a prominent American mycologist and Professor of Biology at Duke University, where he also has joint appointments in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Nicholas School for the Environment. Vilgalys is renowned for his pioneering work in fungal molecular systematics and evolutionary biology and his key role in transitioning fungal taxonomy from traditional morphology-based methods to modern genome-based approaches. His research encompasses a wide range of areas, including fungal ecology, medical mycology, plant pathology, and genetics. Current research addresses microbial ecology of fungi in ecosystems, and especially their symbiotic mycorrhizal relationships with plants. Dr. Vilgalys earned his Ph.D. in Botany from Virginia Tech in 1985 with a dissertation on the evolutionary genetics and systematics of fungi. He has received several honors including American Academy of Microbiology Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, and the Distinguished Mycologist Award from the Mycological Society of America in 2014 (was also president of the MSA in 2010).
Birds
Alex Nickley is an avid birder and amateur naturalist with a background in language and culture. After graduating from Duke with an MA in East Asian Studies, Alex spent four fruitful years working for Middlebury College and CET in the beautiful and highly diverse province of Yunnan, China. During his stint in China he developed several custom programs that focused on culture and the environment in addition to administering Chinese language programs for students studying abroad. He also birded like crazy in places ranging from Kunming’s urban jungle to the virgin forests and snowcapped peaks of Tibetan Yunnan. Alex now works for the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute at Duke and birds campus whenever he gets the chance. He also has the distinguished honor of serving as the founding advisor for the Duke Birding Club!