April Gardening Lecture to Focus on Reptiles, Amphibians in Your Garden

The second lecture in this year’s Lafayette County Master Gardener Association’s annual spring gardening lecture series is slated for April 13.

The lecture will be held at noon in the Dotsy A. Fitts Auditorium in the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library.

Parking is available at the library or across the street at the Oxford Skate Park or the Pavillion.

The speaker will be Dr. Brice Noonan, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Mississippi. His presentation is entitled “Your Big Backyard … And All Its Wonderful Reptiles and Amphibians.” If you have questions about what kind of snakes and amphibians might be inhabiting your garden, you won’t want to miss this lecture.

Noonan holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Biology from the University of Texas at Arlington. At UM, Noonan teaches classes in Evolution, Genetics, Herpetology, Biology of Invasive Species, Biology of the Caribbean and Island Biogeography at the undergraduate level. At the graduate level, he teaches courses in Molecular Systematics, Phylogenetic Systematics, and Phylogeography.

The final presentation will be on May 11 with guest speaker Jeff McManus, Director of Landscape Services at the University of Mississippi since 2000.

Staff report