Krista Noel

Presenting: Landscaping for Missouri’s Native Bees

A love for nature was instilled in Krista from a young age while roaming the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, fishing and swimming in north Georgia lakes and rivers, and enjoying the sugar sands and blue-green waters of Florida’s panhandle. As she got older longleaf pine flatwoods and savannas, oak hammock, scrub, and pitcher plant bogs of the Coastal Plain were added to her favorite haunts.

She has a Bachelor’s degree from Kenesaw State University and a Master’s degree from University of Southern Mississippi where she studied if nest characteristics, such as soil composition, egg depth, canopy cover etc. affect the hatching success of eggs of the federally threatened gopher tortoise. Krista has worn many hats during her career including wildlife rehabilitator, herpetologist, monitoring mitigation banks, and private land conservationist but her favorite is the last 13 years she’s been a Natural History Biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Krista monitors the Kansas City Region’s rare natural communities, plants and animals and seeks out new occurrences to maintain the state’s Natural Heritage Database. Her favorite surveys are for mussels, birds, herps and bees. She seeks to understand the relationships of Missouri’s natural communities with their flora, fauna, environment, and humans to better conserve them and instill an interest in their preservation.