2011-12 Scientist Lecture Series
Ecological Systems Small and Large, Past and Present |
Join us this year to learn from current research how habitats support pollinators, how pollinators and herbivores affect plants and ecosystems, and how forest and oaks evolve over time. All lectures are free, but registration is required. Register online or call call 440.602.3833. |
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Promoting Pollinators on Mined Land: The Role of Reclaimed, Restored and Remnant Habitats in Supporting Native Bee Communities |
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| Date | Wednesday, Dec. 14 |
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| Time | 7pm | |
| Location | Reinberger Classroom | |
| Speaker | Karen Goodell, Ph.D., assistant professor, Ohio State University |
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| Description | Bees are critical elements of natural and managed ecosystems because they provide pollination services, but their diversity is threatened by habitat loss. Mining destroys bee habitat, but reclamation and restoration may support bee communities following the disturbance. Goodell's research focuses on how mined landscapes can be improved from a pollinator perspective. She will share the results of her investigations of how local floral diversity influences bee communities and how proximity to restored and remnant habitat patches can facilitate bee use of newly restored prairie patches in reclaimed grassland communities. |
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| Goodell is an assistant professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University at Newark. She holds a doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a master's degree from the University of California at Riverside, and a bachelor's degree from Brown University. Her research is focused on the ecology of plant pollinators, specifically the population and community ecology of bees, their plant hosts and their insect parasites. |
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Matchmaking in the Meadow - How Pollinators Affect Plant Mating Patterns |
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| Date | Wednesday, Jan. 18 | |
| Time | 7pm | |
| Location | Reinberger Classroom | |
| Speaker | Randy Mitchell, Ph.D., professor of biology at the University of Akron. |
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| Description | Plants can't move, but still must somehow locate and mate with other plants in order to reproduce. Most plants achieve this by enticing mobile animal pollinators to move pollen among flowers. But do the pollinators do what is best for the plants? Learn some of the ways that monkey flower plants ensure that pollinators visit them, and that their pollen moves to suitable mates. |
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| Mitchell is a professor of biology at the University of Akron and director of the Bath Nature Preserve. He holds a doctorate in biology from the University of California at Riverside. His research addresses evolutionary ecology of plant pollinator interactions, focusing on how plant mating patterns and success are affected by pollinator behavior and abundance. |
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Ghosts of Herbivores Past: Conservation Implications of the End-Pleistocene Extinctions |
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| Date | Wednesday, Feb 22 | |
| Time | 7pm | |
| Location | Reinberger Classroom | |
| Speaker | Jacquelyn Gill, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison |
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| Description | This talk will place emerging paleo-data in the context of what we do and don't know about the role of modern herbivores in shaping ecosystems. Plant communities from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in eastern North America (17,000 - 11,000 before the present) were compositionally unlike any found today. Recent work suggests that the extinction of megaherbivores, for example mastodons, coincided with and may have structured these novel plant communities. The influence of Pleistocene megafuana on ice-age plant communities has previously been poorly understood, but new evidence from spores of the dung fungus Sporormiella, which are preserved in lake sediments, may shed light on the ecological context and consequences of megafaunal population collapse. |
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| Jacquelyn Gill is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has an master's in geography from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor's degree in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic. Her research addresses how the extinction of North American megafauna (e.g. mastadons) during the last ice age influenced plant communities in eastern North America. She uses fossils of pollen, charcoal, and spores from lake sediments as proxies for environmental change and then reconstructs past vegetation communities. Her research has been published in the journal Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. |
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Are Oaks as Promiscuous as We Think They Are? |
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| Date | Wednesday, March 14 | |
| Time | 7pm | |
| Location | Reinberger Classroom | |
| Speaker | Andrew Hipp, Ph.D., plant systematist at the Morton Arboretum |
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| Description | Many of our common oaks are big, beautiful, ecologically important components of the landscape. They are the largest contributors to woody plant biomass and biodiversity in North America and Mexico. They structure our forests and savannas; feed wildlife, invertebrates, and humans; and provide the raw materials for ships and whiskey barrels. Yet the evolutionary history of oaks has been difficult to study, and in fact oaks have been deemed to be a “worst case scenario for the biological species concept,” indeed, for species concepts of all kinds. Oaks are notoriously promiscuous, mating readily across species boundaries… or do they? In this talk, Hipp will present data on the evolutionary history of oaks (Quercus, Fagaceae) and on his and other researchers’ work into the integrity of oak species.
He will answer one of the questions that undoubtedly keeps you awake at night: should I really believe in oak species? As Hipp’s work demonstrates, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” So join us for this exciting lecture and sleep well tonight. |
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| Hipp is a plant systematist and herbarium curator at the Morton Arboretum and has academic appointments at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum. He holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His research focuses primarily on the evolution and systematics of oaks and sedges, addressing the diversification of plant lineages using tools such as molecular phylogenetics, population genetics, cytogenetics and herbarium study. |
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Turnover in Eastern Old-growth Forests: Natural and Novel Processes |
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| Date | Friday, April 27 | |
| Time | 7pm | |
| Location | Reinberger Classroom | |
| Speaker | James Runkle, Ph.D., professor at Wright State University |
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| Description | Runkle studies the processes by which eastern old-growth forests maintain their species composition and appearance: trees die but the forests often seem to change little for long time periods. In many of our forests trees die singly or in small groups forming gaps in the canopy. Their replacements come up in these gaps. How balanced are the patterns of death and the patterns of regrowth? In 30 plus years of studying this question in several different forests of the East, including The Holden Arboretum, he has found some places where forest properties are consistent over time while in others they show changes. An increasingly important factor affecting natural processes is the increase of several tree pathogens brought to this country over the last century. Some of those impacts will be discussed. | |
| Runkle is a professor of biology at Wright State University. He holds a doctorate from Cornell University. His research addresses the dynamics of plant communities and populations and the ecological characteristics of woody species in the eastern United States. Of particular interest are processes associated with tree death (creating holes or gaps in the forest canopy) and replacement in old-growth hardwood forests. Runkle has previously researched old-growth forests at The Holden Arboretum. | ||
