Have you noticed changes in the meadow, forest and alpine landscapes of the Rockies? On Tuesday, March 26, Tim Seastedt, University of Colorado Boulder professor of biology, will lead a discussion about how environmental changes affect local and regional plants and animal species.
The program, “Remaking the Rockies: Local and Regional Implications of Environmental Change,” will take place at 7 p.m., in the Berndt Hall, room CHEM 130 at Fort Lewis College. The event is free and open to the public.
“In this talk, I will report on how some ‘strange bedfellows’— increased carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the atmosphere, along with extreme events like drought and more or less frequent fires— are altering our plant and animal communities from the plains to the alpine regions of the Rockies,” Seastedt said.
“These changes can be good news or bad news for various plant and animal species, and these changes are also affecting our water supplies and other commodities provided by natural areas.”
Seastedt is an instructor in the CU-Boulder Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and is a fellow in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). His research interests include invasive species and how they interact with other components of global environmental change, with a focus on grassland and tundra ecosystems. His research sheds light on how insects and soil chemistry can be used to control the spread of non-native plants like diffuse knapweed, an aggressive noxious weed that has infested about 3 million acres in the West.
During his three-day visit, Seastedt will meet with Fort Lewis College students, area schools and local BLM and Forest Service land managers. On Thursday, March 28, he will present to middle and high school students and community members from 8-9:30 a.m. at the Silverton School, 1160 Snowden Street.
The programs are part of “CU in the Community,” a series of lectures by CU-Boulder faculty at Fort Lewis College. The series is jointly sponsored by Fort Lewis College, the Mountain Studies Institute, the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, the CU-Boulder Office for University Outreach and LearnMoreAboutClimate.colorado.edu. For more information about the series, email outreach@colorado.edu.
–CU-Boulder Office for University Outreach–