EES Departmental Seminar: Changing Land Covers, Climate, and Biological Invasions: Ecosystem Function in Human-Modified Landscapes
Dr. Andrew Reinmann
Asst Prof, Biology, Earth and Environmental Sciences, CUNY
Title: Changing Land Covers, Climate, and Biological Invasions: Ecosystem Function in Human-Modified Landscapes
Abstract: Temperate forests currently comprise the world’s largest terrestrial net carbon sink. However, land cover change, climate change, and biological invasions are altering the forest structural characteristics and processes that mediate the terrestrial carbon cycle. A large proportion of the world’s remaining temperate forest area falls within human-modified landscapes, which are characterized by admixtures of fragmented forest patches, built environments (e.g., towns, cities), and farmland that collectively alter many environmental controls of ecosystem processes. By contrast, much of our understanding of forest ecosystems comes from research conducted in large, intact forests that are generally far removed from human-created land covers. Over the past 10 years, my colleagues and I have been studying carbon cycling, tree ecophysiology, and ecosystem processes in edge-influenced forest patches of human-modified landscapes. Our surprising results indicate that the fragmented forests of human-modified landscapes can actually sequester more carbon per unit area than their intact counterparts, but are also more negatively impacted by climate stress (e.g., heat waves, drought). During my seminar, I will present this work and describe a new large-scale field experiment we are using to study the interactive effects of forest fragmentation and climate change on forest ecosystem processes. My seminar will conclude with an overview of our ongoing work exploring the ecological impacts of invasive species, with a focus on new tools we are developing to track changes in forest health from the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid.
Time
Location
Milligan Room, 8th Floor Biology/EES wing of the LSC