The CFRES Fall Seminar Series is sponsored by faculty in the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. Distinguished speakers are invited to present on their research and/or field of expertise. Open to all.
Tiana Williams-Claussen
Director of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department
Northern California Condor Restoration Program: Cultural and Ecological Revitalization in the Pacific Northwest
Tiana Williams-Claussen will provide a brief history and ecology of California Condor, and describe the traditional paradigm guiding the Yurok Tribe's 14-year effort to bring them home to Yurok Ancestral Territory in Northern California. She will discuss integrating traditional knowledge with contemporary science, and will close with a summary of the reintroduction effort, and the next steps to realizing this goal.
September 9th, 2021 from 12:30-1:30pm eastern
Zoom link: https://michigantech.zoom.us/
Elizabeth Borer - DELS Speaker
Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
University of Minnesota, St. Paul.
A Global Experiment's Integrated Insights into a Nitrogen-Rich Future.
"In my research, I examine the ways that global changes like nitrogen deposition, carbon dioxide emissions, and species invasions and extinctions interact to control the composition and function of ecological communities. My two primary areas of research include quantifying how these global changes (1) affect disease transmission and risk and (2) control biodiversity and ecosystem function. I primarily work in grasslands studying plants, insects, and disease, though my interests reach far beyond this biome."
DELS Seminar: September 23rd, 2021 from 12:30pm-1:30pm eastern.
Link to Recorded Seminar: https://michigantech.zoom.us/
Passcode: 2=igSvDy
Sybil Seitzinger - DELS Speaker
Professor, School of Environmental Studies
Executive Director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions
University of Victoria, British Columbia
Nitrogen Hunting from Land to Ocean
Sybil's research has centered on nutrient biogeochemistry in coastal marine and freshwater ecosystems, spanning a range of spatial scales from molecular level organic chemical characterization to models at global scales, with the impact of human activities being a common theme.
DELS Seminar: Thursday October 7th, 2021 from 12:30-1:30pm eastern
Zoom Link: https://michigantech.zoom.us/j/89737303172?pwd=TlBZU0FhNU00QSt0K0VvMW5rdFpJdz09
Dave Kelly - DELS Speaker
Professor of Ecology
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Two Aspects of Plant-Animal Interactions in the South Pacific: Mast Seeding and Bird-Plant Mutualisms in New Zealand
One of Dave's interests is... "Mast seeding: the description of variable among-year flowering patterns (mast seeding) and inter-species synchrony in New Zealand, the evolutionary benefits of masting, modelling the resource dynamics within plants that create masting"
DELS Seminar: Wednesday, October 20th 3:00-4:00pm
Zoom Link: https://michigantech.zoom.us/j/87426407260?pwd=TTkwRWxlSTZiOSt0b1VBSGcrei94dz09
Tom Martin
Research Scientist
USGS & University of Montana
Adult and Offspring Mortality in the Evolution of Life History Strategies Based on Field Studies of Songbirds on 4 Continents
Mortality is a strong source of selection for the evolution of traits and strategies, but variation across species in different parts of the world has not been well studied. I will explore consequences for standard life history traits like brood size, development rates, parental care behaviors, and also consequences for some traits less studied, like fledgling timing and performance, parental energy expenditure based on doubly-labeled water, and even phenology of timing of breeding.
Thursday November 18th, 2021 from 2:00-3:00pm eastern
In person. Room G002 in Forestry Building.
Yufang Jin
Professor
Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources
University of California, Davis
An Improved Understanding of Wildfire Behavior in California Enabled by "Big Data" Analytics
This talk will introduce a recent study of wildfires since 2012 across California’s diverse ecosystems, using machine learning approaches to integrate remote sensing observations and many environmental geospatial layers. Our analysis showed that extreme weather, such as heatwave and wind gust, exacerbated both fire rate of spread and burn severity. Fuels were also found to play a critical role in overall wildfire risk, but their importance varied with ecoregions.
Visit Yufang's Website here.
Friday December 3rd, 2021 from 12:30-1:30pm eastern
Zoom Link: https://michigantech.zoom.