[PAST EVENT] Food webs, climate change and new paradigms in ecology

December 5, 2014
3pm
Location
VIMS - Watermen's Hall, Watermen's Lobby
1375 Greate Road
Gloucester Point, VA 23062Map this location
Presenter: Dr. Brian Silliman, Duke University

Reception at 3:00 p.m. in the lobby of Watermen's Hall

Seminar from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in McHugh Auditorium

Title
"Food webs, climate change and new paradigms in ecology"

Abstract
Global change has led to increased physical forcing in many marine communities. How this increased physical stress will impact food web interactions that control ecosystem structure and function is less well known. In this talk, a new understanding of trophic feedbacks in salt marsh systems and how increasing climate stress can impact the nature of those interactions will be reviewed. Dr. Silliman will then test hypotheses generated form his food web work in salt marshes on the nature of trophic-physical coupling using both qualitative and quantitate meta analyses across terrestrial and marine systems. Results from this work both challenge and lead to conceptual expansion across diverse theories in ecology.

Biography
Dr. Silliman holds both B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, and he completed his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. Dr. Silliman was named a David H. Smith Conservation Fellow with The Nature Conservancy in 2004 and a Visiting Professor with the Royal Netherlands Society of Arts and Sciences in 2011. He has also received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Naturalists (2006), a Young Investigator Grant Award from the Andrew Mellon Foundation (2007), and a NSF Career Grant Award (2011). Dr. Silliman has published 13 book chapters and over 120 peer reviewed journal articles (many in high impact journals: Science, Nature, and PNAS) and co-edited two books: Human Impacts on Salt Marshes: A Global Perspective (with T. Grosholtz and M. Bertness), and Marine Community Ecology (with M. Bertness, J. Bruno, and J. Stachowicz). His teaching and research are focused on community ecology, conservation and restoration, global change, plant?animal interactions, and evolution and ecological consequences of cooperative behavior.
Contact

[[seitz, Rochelle Seitz]] at 804-684-7698