Seminar: Coping with the New Normal: A Functional Trait Approach to Understanding the Anthropocene

Abstract:
Anthropogenic climate change is generating atypical weather conditions and disturbance regimes across the globe. In order to predict species, community, and ecosystem responses to abnormal climate and disturbance events now and in the future, we must focus on current outlier events that are becoming the “new normal”. The FunEco lab applies a functional trait-based approach to understand how extreme drought, elevated temperature, and atypically severe wildfire impact species, communities, and ecosystem function. I will discuss two foci of the FunEco Lab: understanding interacting effects of experimental warming and fire severity; and leveraging native seed collection to build drought resilience in the southwestern USA.

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