School of Biology and Ecology Seminar Series - School of Biology and Ecology

Matthew Chatfield teaches his Bio Evolution class in Williams Hall.

SBE Seminar Speakers

Every semester (fall and spring), we invite speakers from universities, federal and non-federal agencies, and researchers to speak at the Mitchell Center.

SBE fall 2025 Seminar Speakers

All seminars will be held in the Mitchell Center at 3PM on Fridays, unless otherwise stated.

September 5

Dr. Warren Porter, UW Madison

Title: Climate spaces, climate cliffs, and climate change: using Niche Mapper to find the future global consequences for milking cows and swinging gibbons

Hosted by Jacquelyn Gill and Danielle Levesque

This talk focuses on how it is possible to compute climate constraints on the potential for reproduction at the individual and population level as well as survival and growth potential. Species survival in the face of climate change will depend upon successful reproduction. Our results have depended heavily on collaborators’ empirical data to verify the theoretical constructs of climate spaces and climate cliffs. We used milk from dairy cows as a surrogate for individual reproductive output and an unusual population of extremely rare Gibbons do validations at the population level.

Warren Porter is an Emeritus Professor of Integrative Biology, an Ardath and Robert Rodale Professor of Environmental Toxicology and has been an affiliate faculty member in Engineering Physics. He and his colleagues have developed Niche Mapper™, a generic, mechanistic integratemicroclimate-animal energetics/behavior/distribution model for modern and extinct animals. He also studies low-level mixtures effects of pesticides on animals.

September 12

Julia Barra, UMaine Postdoc

Title: Managing for Soil Health: A Research Trip from Florida to Maine

Hosted by Han Tan

TBA

September 26

Dr. Taylor Lindsay, Tufts University

Title: The Little Coral that Could: The Ecology and Trophic Plasticity of New England’s Only Scleractinain Coral

Hosted by TBA

TBA

October 10

Dr. Geoff Zahn, William and Mary

Title: Building a better holobiont: A framework for predicting microbiome coalescence

Hosted by Pete Avis

TBA

TBA.

October 17

Dr. Jordan Tourville

Title: Living on the Edge: Past, Present, and Future Changes of Northeastern alpine zones

Hosted by TBA

TBA

October 24

Dr. Lydia Fyie

Title: Seasonality of Vector-Borne Disease in Anthropogenic Environments

Hosted by Allie Gardner

TBA.

TBA

November 7

Dr. Adam Heathcote, St. Croix Watershed Research Station

Title: Building QuFrom carbon burial to algae blooms: remote lakes as sentinels of global change

Hosted by Jasmine Saros

TBA

November 14

Dr. Joely DeSimone, UMCES

Title: Working towards a community ecology understanding of bird migration

Hosted by Kate Ruskin

TBA

December 5

Dr. Lucas Bernacki. St. Joseph’s College

Title: An Investigation of Morphology and Genetics in Subspecies of Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta) in Maine, USA

Hosted by Erin Grey-Avis

TBA

DEcember 12

Kristen Nolting, Colby College

Title: It’s not easy bein’ green: plant evolution and adaptation in natural and agroecosystems

Hosted by TBA

TBA

Spring 2025 Seminars

Find our Spring 2025 seminars here.

Jasmine Saros, UMaine
Graduate Student Lightning Talks
Brittany Slabach, College of the Atlantic
Stephanie Miller, SBE postdoc
Melissa Aikens, UNH
Jordan Dowell, LSU
Jess Gersony, Smith College
Kiley Daley, UMaine postdoc
Trisha Spanbauer