This presentation will feature highlights of a 35-year collaboration between Biologist Chris Ludwig and Ecologist Gary Fleming to find, understand, and protect some of the most important sites for biodiversity conservation in Virginia. Gary and Chris worked together at the Virginia Natural Heritage Program, a division of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), from 1991 until 2019, and have continued to collaborate following their retirements. The Natural Heritage Program's work focuses on science-based conservation to protect Virginia's native plant and animal life and the ecosystems upon which it depends. Scientists collect data on natural communities and rare plants and animals, develop land conservation data and online mapping tools, and provide up-to-date information to enable timely conservation decisions.

J. Christopher Ludwig is the former Chief Biologist for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Division of Natural Heritage, serving 21 years in that capacity. During this time, he directed and worked with a team of biologists to identify and prioritize protection of sites to conserve biodiversity in Virginia many of which are now protected. Chris has been a student of natural history since 1972 and focuses on the study of plants, birds, lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), and other organisms that cross his path. From 2001, Mr. Ludwig was executive director of a foundation which produced the 1,554-page Flora of Virginia (Weakley et al. 2012) published in November 2012. He was coauthor of this volume as well.

Gary P. Fleming is an Ecologist Emeritus of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Division of Natural Heritage. Prior to retiring in 2021, he spent thirty years with the program conducting inventories in all parts of Virginia to identify important sites for conservation, significant natural community occurrences, and rare plant populations. During that time, he and his colleagues also sampled more than 4700 vegetation plots across the state and developed a classification of Virginia natural communities. Mr. Fleming was also a contributing writer for the Flora of Virginia (Weakley et al. 2012) and an author of the subsequent Mobile App update (2020), responsible for writing two introductory sections and all of the habitat information in the species accounts. He is also a long-time member and Past President of the Virginia Botanical Associates, the group which administers the Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora.