Conservation Biologist to Talk About Climate Change Impact on Thoreau’s Concord
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Climate change is already impacting life on Earth. Just how it has impacted Henry David Thoreau’s Concord is the topic of the 2011 Jane Block Distinguished Seminar.
Richard B. Primack, a professor of biology at Boston University, will give the lecture, titled “The Impact of Climate Change on the Plants and Animals of Thoreau’s Concord,” at 4:10 p.m., Feb. 9, in 120A Genomics Building.
The hour-long lecture is free and open to the public. A reception in the Genomics Building lobby will follow the talk. To RSVP for the event, please call (951) 827-5494.
According to Primack, a good reason to focus on Concord, Mass., a small town about 20 miles west of Boston, is that it serves as a living laboratory to determine the effects of climate change, invasive species and land use changes on the population dynamics of plants and bird species.
He is the author of two leading textbooks in the field of conservation biology: A Primer of Conservation Biology (4th edition) and the Essentials of Conservation Biology (5th edition). The latter is the first textbook in the field of conservation biology, and is widely used in undergraduate classes. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biological Conservation, and is past president of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.
For the past 30 years, Primack has carried out research in tropical forest ecology, studying the long-term changes on tropical forests and cross-continental comparisons of tropical forests.
Thoreau (1817-1862) was born and lived nearly all his life in Concord. A writer, philosopher, and naturalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and for his essay “Civil Disobedience.”
Block is a widely recognized community leader who has played a significant role in saving lands in Riverside County, in getting habitat conservation plans established, and in establishing the Center for Conservation Biology at UC Riverside.
Primack’s lecture is cosponsored by the Center for Conservation Biology and the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences.
