Dr. Eric Post, UC Davis. Reason for hope? Rapid recovery of arctic tundra diversity following experimental re-introduction of mammalian herbivores and reversal of warming.
Earth is facing two inter-related crises: climate change and biodiversity loss. The intersection between these crises is prominent in the Arctic, where warming is occurring 2-3 times faster than the rest of the planet and biodiversity is characteristically low. This talk will highlight results from a long-term field experiment conducted in low-Arctic Greenland focusing on impacts of climate change on tundra diversity dynamics. The first 15 years of the experiment revealed that experimental removal of mammalian herbivores (caribou, muskoxen, and hares) hastened warming-related tundra diversity decline. The ensuing 7 years of the experiment show that experimental re-introduction of herbivores coupled with a cessation of warming promoted rapid recovery of tundra diversity. These results suggest that trophic rewilding and climate mitigation strategies can be effective in slowing or even reversing warming-related vegetation diversity decline.
I received my B.S. in biology from the University of Minnesota (1989) and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (1995). My dissertation research focused on the foraging ecology of caribou in Alaska and Greenland. Then I moved on to a four-year NSF-funded post-doc at the University of Oslo where I received training in statistical modeling of climate change impacts on the population ecology of birds and mammals. I taught in the Biology Department at Penn State for 16 years before moving to UC Davis in 2016.
Hosted by Jacquelyn Gill and the SAUNNA NRT
