Monday, June 16, 2014

Prof Camille Parmesan - Biodiversity and Climate Change

      March 19th, 2014 Professor Camille Parmesan* gave the first Annual Plymouth Lecture, presented jointly by the Plymouth University and the Linnean Society of London, hosted by Dr Malcolm Scoble (Scientific Secretary Linnean Society of London)  Dr Parmesan's talk was titled, "Biodiversity and Climate Change - Connecting the Past to the Future"

The video is followed with short descriptions and time-signatures for easy reference. 

Video is posted at YouTube by Rich Boden - Plymouth Linnean Lecture

"2014 - Prof Camille Parmesan - Biodiversity and Climate Change"

Texas Academy of Science's  2013 Distinguished Texas Scientist

Introduction  -  by Dr. Malcolm Scoble
5:30  -  Professor Camille Parmesan: 
I am going to be talking about Biodiversity and Climate Change but I also want to talk about how the science comes about
6:00  -  look at global warming
7:10  -  arctic excursions - local cooling
8:35  -  need to look at the global scale
10:50  -  what has climate change been driving besides temperatures? ...
extreme storms
11:55  -  storm surge
12:10  -  increased hydrological cycle - increase both in rain events and droughts
13:15  -  what does all this mean for wild life?
13:30  -  Diacheila arctica (arctic beetle) range shifts since last ice age
15:10  -  marsh fritlillary (UK) and Edith's Checkerspot - E. editha (US) butterflies species
working on the Checkerspot West Coast and Sierra Nevada since 1992...
20:40  -  why E.editha is a good subject for climate studies… it's a sedentary species
21:45  -  color patterns ... what they tell us ...
establishing a historical baseline 
25:00  -  revisiting sites... was site suitable... was site populated?
26:30  -  establishing patterns
27:00  -  looking for extinctions in areas that are still good habitat
27:25  -  average location of population had moved northward by 92 kilometers
which is amazingly close to the 105 kilometer models estimated based on the .7°C warming this area has experienced.
27:55  -  'extinction' by elevation... near sea level ~40%, in high mountains ~15%
29:00  -  Mexico
30:30  -  host plant and butterflies, warming forcing life cycles out of sync.
31:35  -  snow pack melting 2 weeks earlier... false spring events ...
extreme events and population extinctions
33:00  -  Four years working in North America on one species, needed more species to work with, UK's extensive historical records made it the place to continue this line of research... seeking "historical baselines"
34:10  -  teasing out land-use changes and impacts
34:30  -  the study team ...
36:30  -  searching out suitable study sites
41:00  -  two years of research, results: 
65% of butterflies colonized northward across northern Europe
42:10  -  what's happening in the oceans ...
shallow temperature gradient
rate of change on locations between 1960 - 2009
44:15  -  comparing land and ocean specie shifts
45:20  -  tropics ...
mountain species
46:20  -  change in the timing of spring events
47:10  -  Australia toTasmania invasions ...
lobsters and urchins and kelp forests
49:40  -  Considering climate science deniers
53:50  -  effects on people, happening now ...
56:10  -  reaction of evangelical visitors ...
57:50  -  it's not about birds and butterflies - its about people
{She's good, finished right on the hour.}

Q/A

1:00:15  -  aiding species relocation, habitat creation, protection, landscape networking
1:02:00  -  deniers?
1:04:00  -  you are from Texas...
1:05:00  -  are you pessimistic?
realizing people and organizations can change quickly
1:07:00  -  are we training enough biologists?
1:10:00  -  policy and patterns of development, protecting nature


1 comment:

Unknown said...

CC - thanks for posting this! Just by coincidence and while working on a presentation, I happened upon this lecture earlier today and enjoyed watching it immensely!