All lectures are presented fully online via Zoom every Friday at 3:30 PM. The link to join the meeting is https://go.wisc.edu/l880yf except when otherwise indicated. Brown bag sessions start at noon on the days there are speakers. Alumni, friends and the public are always invited to attend.
Fall 2022 Lectures
October 28th – What can tree growth tell us about the response of eastern North America deciduous forests to climate change?
Justin Maxwell, University of Indiana – Bloomington
While ongoing climate change affects a number of meteorological drivers relevant to plant functioning, an increase in the frequency and severity of drought events may ultimately have the largest impact on ecosystem carbon cycling. Much of what we know about tree response to drought comes from the relatively dry western U.S., where droughts are prolonged and often lead to tree mortality. Less attention has been focused on the humid eastern US, where drought-induced mortality is rarer but drought-related declines in carbon uptake and growth are nonetheless profound. Using a well replicated network of tree rings, I will present work that better examines how climate, particularly drought can impact tree growth and how that relates to carbon uptake.
November 2nd– The Material Elements of Enslaved People’s Mobility The Way to Freedom
Christy Hyman, Mississippi State University
For enslaved freedom seekers near the Great Dismal Swamp, interspecies encounters transformed into interspecies cooperation over a shared fight for survival. It was The Way to Freedom. Hear from Christy Hyman, assistant professor of human geography at Mississippi State University, who will lead a multilayered discussion of historical Black geographies, the natural world past and present, and contemporary issues of ecological sustainability as it pertains to these elements.