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Videos of Spring 2012 Applied Biodiversity Science Seminars

To view videos from previous semesters, please visit our listing of Previous Applied Biodiversity Science Seminars.

 

 

Assessing Social Carrying Capacity on Texas Inland Waterways

Dr. Gerard Kyle, Associate Professor, Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Sciences, Texas A&M University (website)

 

Abstract: Historically, the charter of Texas river management authorities has centered on the production of electricity, water supply, and flood control. For agencies managing rivers and reservoirs that lie close to some of the state’s large urban centers, however, a third issue is becoming increasingly salient and is presenting these agencies with new management challenges; i.e., the provision of water-based recreational opportunities. While river management authorities vary considerably in their capacity to accommodate this new imperative, there is growing evidence suggesting that this function is becoming an increasingly important component of their lake management operations. Proximate population growth coupled with an ongoing drought across the state has increased the value Texans ascribe to water-based recreation opportunities. In this investigation, I use the context of Lake Travis to document an approach for assessing social carrying capacity on inland waterways; a key component for assessing the quality of the recreational experience. Drawing on theory related to crowding and human territoriality, I present and test path models highlighting the influence of several factors that shape recreational users’ experience. The findings are discussed within the context of issues related to the shifting focus of Texas water management policy, population change, and watershed conservation.

 

 

 

**Earth Stewardship: Sustainability Strategies for a Rapidly Changing Planet

Dr. F. Stuart Chapin, III, Professor Emeritus of Ecology, Department of Biology and Wildlife, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks (website)

Abstract: Earth stewardship is an action-oriented framework intended to foster social-ecological sustainability of a rapidly changing planet. Recent developments identify three strategies that make optimal use of current understanding in an environment of inevitable uncertainty and abrupt change: reducing the magnitude of, and exposure and sensitivity to, known stresses; focusing on proactive policies that shape change; and avoiding or escaping unsustainable social-ecological traps. All social-ecological systems are vulnerable to recent and projected changes but have sources of adaptive capacity and reslience that can sustain ecosystem services and sources of adaptive capacity and resilience that can sustain ecosystem services and human well-being through active ecosystem stewardship. There is urgent need for natural and social scientists to collaborate with practitioners and the public in developing strategies that foster stewardship at all scales. Ecologists can foster earth stewardship at local to global scales through education and outreach that fosters appreciation for and commitment to local and global places, monitoring threats to and progress toward sustainability, improved understanding of threshold behavior of social-ecological systems, and leadership in defining and pursuing sustainability goals. I show from collaborations with Alaska Indigenous residents, who are experiencing substatial climate change, that each of these steps is feasible.

 

**Co-Sponsored with the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management as part of the The Dyksterhuis Seminar Series

 

 

 

 

*Redefining Our Relationship with Nature

Dr. Brendon Larson, Associate Professor, Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada (website)

Abstract: Drawing from his book, Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability: Redefining our Relationship with Nature, Dr. Larson will highlight how metaphors frame our understanding of the natural world and how reforming them can help us relate to global change and move towards sustainability. In this engaging presentation, he will specifically seek to juggle how we usually perceive and relate to invasive species.

 

*Co-Sponsored by a College of Liberal Arts Strategic Development Grant

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personhood, Memory, and Elephant Management

Dr. Gary Varner, Professor and Interim Head, Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University (website)

Abstract: In philosophical ethics, to describe an individual as a “person” is to claim that they deserve a special kind of respect in virtue of having certain cognitive capacities. In this sense, are any non-human animals good candidates for personhood? That depends, of course, on which cognitive capacities are in question. In this presentation, Dr. Varner will argue that while we have no good evidence that any non-human animals are persons in the sense of taking a biographical perspective on their lives (something that all normal adult humans do), some animals may be what he calls “near-persons” in virtue of having some kind of robust, conscious sense of their own pasts and futures. Elephants may qualify as near-persons in this sense, and Dr. Varner will briefly consider what the implications of this would be. If elephants are near-persons, then what kind of special respect would that call for in the management of wild and captive populations?

 

 

 

 

 

Ecological Integration Symposium:

From the superorganism to the Gaia hypothesis:
A brief history of organicism in ecology from the early 20th to the early 21st century

Dr. J. Baird Callicott, University Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy, University of North Texas (website)

Abstract: The superorganism was the first paradigm in ecology principally formulated by F. E. Clements in the early twentieth century. It was supplanted by the ecosystem paradigm, introduced by A. G. Tansley and completed by R. L. Lindeman. E. P. Odum reintroduced Clementsian organicism and holism to ecosystem ecology by the mid-twentieth century. H. A. Gleason, a contemporary of Clements, who challenged his organicism and holism, was vindicated in the late twentieth century by the triumph of the flux-of-nature paradigm (clearly articulated by S. T. A. Pickett) featuring directionless change, ubiquitous natural and anthropogenic disturbance, and stochasitic assemblages of animal and plant species adapted to similar environmental gradients. The superorganism paradigm is now, however, revived in twenty-first-century Gaian science—planetary systems science—and provides norms for climate change ethics.

 

 

 

 

 

Ecological Integration Symposium:

Genomic, geographic and temporal tracking of an evolving host-pathogen system

Dr. Scott Edwards, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Curator of Ornithology, and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (website)

Abstract: Climate change and human-induced habitat change increase the likelihood of contact between usually isolated species as well as the spread of novel pathogens. We have been studying the evolutionary interactions between a songbird host, the House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus), and an avian bacterial pathogen, Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG). MG is usually found in poultry but in 1994 field scientists detected it in populations of House Finches introduced in the 1940s to the eastern US. The disease spread rapidly throughout house finches in the eastern US and is now found in all US states except a few in the southwest. Using a combination of genomic comparisons across geography, historical insights of museum specimens and experimental infections, we are reconstructing the history of spread and co-evolutionary interactions between host and pathogen. House finches from Alabama, with substantial historic exposure to the pathogen, exhibited strikingly different gene expression responses to experimental infection compared to finches from Arizona, where MG has only recently arrived. We have also investigated genome evolution in the MG pathogen during and after the host shift, and find an exceptionally high rate of evolution as well as evidence that the pathogen itself is responding to invasion of a novel host species. Our studies suggests that the House Finch-MG interaction involves immune subversion and natural selection in populations of both host and parasite, and that a third actor, namely viruses, may also be important for explaining the evolutionary dynamics of this system.

 

 

 

Ecological Integration Symposium:

Population connectivity, gene flow and climate change

Dr. Sam Cushman, Research Landscape Ecologist, Forest and Woodlands Ecosystems Program, Rocky Mountain Research Station (website)

Abstract: Viability depends on population connectivity, which enables dispersal, demographic and genetic rescue and local recolonization. However, it has been extremely difficult to rigorously predict the processes that govern population connectivity. As a result, most estimates of dispersal, landscape resistance, barriers and corridors have been developed based on expert opinion and not validated with empirical data. I illustrate several robust ways to reliably predict population connectivity using empirical data, and explore a number of important issues related to scale, spatial error, thematic resolution and sampling regime. I then apply these principles in an example illustrating the effects of climate change on population connectivity of a species that depends on high-elevation habitats.

 

 

 

 

 

Ecological Integration Symposium:

Conservation in a Changing World: Do We Need a New Paradigm?

Dr. John A. Wiens, Chief Conservation Science Officer, PRBO Conservation Science (website)

Abstract: Conservation is in a conundrum. While the vision of the founders of the conservation movement continues to provide guidance, it is becoming increasingly difficult to implement that vision. Climate change is altering species distributions and creating novel, “no-analog” ecological communities, land-use change is altering the form and availability of habitats in the landscape, and fiscal realities and conflicting societal agendas mean that we can’t do everything that is needed—priorities must be determined. I consider the question of whether the past and current approaches to conservation are up to these challenges. I’ll touch on such topics as coping with uncertainty, developing anticipatory adaptive management, conducting ecological restoration with a moving target, assessing the magnitude of conservation reliance among species, and evaluating whether there is a “best” scale for conservation and resource management. All in less than an hour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Texas Water Wars: Interactions of Science, Policy, and Politics to Determine If There Will be Water for Nature

Dr. Kirk Winemiller, Regents Professor, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University (website)

Abstract: The population of Texas is expected to increase from 25 million to 46 million inhabitants by the year 2060, and this will be accompanied by a nearly 30% increase in municipal, industrial, and agricultural demand for freshwater. The amount of water in the biosphere is finite, and most of the freshwater we use comes from surface water. Surface water supports terrestrial, fluvial and estuarine ecosystems, including their ecological processes, flora and fauna. The problem is apparent and profound – Texans face a growing challenge to satisfy competing needs for freshwater. In the interest of improved water planning that balances all interests, the Texas legislature, state agencies, grassroots citizen groups, and non-governmental conservation organizations have undertaken a series of efforts to determine how much water a river or bay needs. Winemiller will summarize scientific, practical, and political aspects of our challenge to maintain essential flows for ecosystems while protecting human welfare, economic development and population growth. Complex scientific, technical, and sociopolitical aspects of the problem will be explored by describing some recent efforts.

 

 

 

Natural History, Aesthetics, and Conservation

Presented by Dr. Harry Greene, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University (website)

Abstract: The diversity of life on earth is under serious threats from multiple human-related causes, and science plays well-known roles in addressing management aspects of this problem. My presentation will describe how natural history also plays a vital role in enhancing our appreciation for organisms and environments, thereby influencing the value judgments that ultimately underlie all conservation. I will first explain how an 18th century philosopher’s distinction between “beauty” and “sublime” can be used in the context of Darwin’s notion of “descent with modification,” then illustrate this approach with frogs, rattlesnakes, the African megafauna, Longhorn Cattle, and California Condors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pleistocene Re-wilding: Lions in a Den of Daniels?

Presented by Dr. Harry Greene, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University (website)

Abstract: More than five years ago a group of us published papers in Nature and American Naturalist proposed partially restoring the lost North American Pleistocene megafauna with conspecifics and closely related proxies for tortoises, cheetah, elephants, and other species. In this seminar I will summarize our initiative and the subsequent response from conservation biologists and the public, with emphasis on implications for conserving biodiversity on a rapidly changing earth.