June, 2026

Summary

• The lab welcomed Jason Holliday, Professor of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech, to give a Tree Talk at the Arboretum titled "Restoring the American Chestnut: Genomic Prediction for Disease Resistance and Climate Adaptation". 
• Welcome to Annabelle Daniels, our new REU student! Annabelle will be working with Emma, Catherine and Sean on research helping to document and restore butternut.
• Sean joined Adam Black, Director of Conservation at Bartlett Arboretum, and presented to a group of donors, board members, and visitors from Bartlett, about the “Conservation and genetics of red oaks of West Texas”, especially the threatened Quercus tardifolia.  About 40 people attended.
• Sean, Kylie, and Emma attended the third Butternut Tree Restoration Initiative workshop in Burlington, Vermont. This summit welcomed about 50 in person and 100 online participants, from diverse federal, state and local agencies, volunteer groups, and non profit organizations relating to forestry and wildlife, habitat restoration, and species conservation.
  • Emma spoke about the work that the Tree Conservation Biology team has done on quantifying butternut tree health, seedling recruitment and habitat evaluation over the past two years, in Illinois and Vermont.
  • Kylie spoke about an evaluation of butternut hybridization (with a non native tree species) using herbarium specimens from the 1830s to present day. They also spoke about seed conservation, their upcoming citizen science project with Adventure Scientists and upcoming field work.
  • Lastly the workshop also featured a presentation by six youth from the Circle of Courage, an organization to engage youth in indigenous cultural practices and relationship with nature. The youth presented what they have learned about butternut identification, life cycle, and uses. 
• Sean attended the fourth meeting of the World Biodiversity Forum held in Davos Switzerland. This meeting was established as an analogue to the World Economic Forum, but instead of economics and governance the topic is nature conservation, biodiversity monitoring, and science and their intersections with economics, society, art, and policy. Its purpose is to build networks, leadership, and actionable solutions that help halt biodiversity loss and support biodiversity goals such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Around 800 people from 70 countries typically attend, covering biodiversity and environmental scientists, conservation practitioners, NGOs/ IGOs, government officials, indigenous representatives, sustainability leaders from business and finance and civil-society organizations.
  • Sean gave a talk about efficient monitoring and reporting of genetic diversity (see here), is co-convening a session on satellite data and biodiversity (see here), and is co-author on other talks (here, here, here, here).
• Sean contributed to a chapter in the State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2026, led by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  This landmark publication reviews the status of plant and fungal biodiversity and provides updates on the tools used to study and conserve that biodiversity. Sean specifically helped write Chapter 8, “Safeguarding Nature with Accurate Data.” There were more than 400 contributing authors to this report, which received widespread news coverage (e.g. The Independent).
• Catherine, Annabelle, and Emma spent several days in southern Wisconsin to survey a population of butternut trees with a colleague from the US Forest Service. The population was last surveyed in 2012 and this visit was a reassessment to understand how the population has changed since then. Meanwhile, Hank Helmers (Research Experience Extension Fellow) and Kylie Roth reassessed a population of butternut trees in Vermont and another in New York which were both last surveyed in 2010.

Publications

• 2026. How much monitoring is needed to reliably track progress towards genetic diversity targets? Katherine Hébert, Laura Pollock, Sean Hoban. Biological Conservation. Open Access
  
  • This paper evaluates the reliability of a genetic diversity indicator developed by Sean Hoban, Tree Conservation Biologist, and currently used under the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The indicator is a tool for rapidly assessing whether species’ populations are large enough to maintain genetic diversity, with available data. Using simulations that incorporated realistic population trends, monitoring timeframes, and observation errors, the authors found that the indicator can accurately summarize changes in genetic diversity. They provide guidance on practical monitoring requirements: surveying populations every 2-4 years, sampling >50% of populations, and monitoring >100 species to obtain reliable estimates. The results support the conclusion that this indicator is a feasible, biologically meaningful, and technically robust tool for tracking progress toward global biodiversity goals. The study also highlights the need for more testing of biodiversity indicators to ensure accurate assessment of conservation outcomes.
    
• 2026. Monitoring genetic diversity in Sweden with new indicators for the CBD Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Viktoria Köppä, Henrik Thurfjell, Jessica da Silva, Sean Hoban, Alicia Mastretta-Yanes, Linda Laikre. Technical Report 7219. Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
  
  • In this report proxy-based indicators of genetic diversity are calculated for a large number of species in Sweden, primarily using data from the red-listing process and species action plans. The results highlight a general need to increase connectivity and population sizes. For example, 22% of the populations were found to be too small to maintain long term genetic variation. The authors suggest modifications to the species assessments for action plans and red listing to include genetic diversity indicators in the future. This would benefit both processes and provide new insights on species conservation status.