February Lunchtime Lecture: Conserving Plant Biodiversity
“Conserving Plant Biodiversity: Native Seed Collection & Predictive Species Distribution Modeling“
A Hybrid Lunchtime Lecture by Kay Hankins
In a rapidly changing global environment, understanding species’ distributions and how they may be expected to change over time is perhaps more critical now than ever before. Anthropogenic activities, including the explosive globalization of the world’s economy, travel, and trade, have placed unprecedented pressure on our planet’s native ecosystems and biodiversity. Narrowly endemic, endangered, or otherwise threatened taxa are especially vulnerable to the resulting impacts caused by human-related activities and climate change, and, unfortunately for plants, their story is no different.
Native plants play a vital, foundational role in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem on the planet, and thus, conserving plant biodiversity has increasingly become a top priority for conservation biologists and land managers across the globe. For many plants, this usually involves the wild collection and long-term storage of native plant seeds.
Seed heads of an Asclepius speciosa bagged for collection.
For February’s Lunchtime Lecture, Kay will primarily be focusing on her previous experiences collecting native plant seeds as part of the Seeds of Success (SOS) Program with the Chicago Botanic Garden as well as her graduate research studying species distribution modeling (i.e., ecological niche modeling) and how it can be used as a tool to better understand the factors governing a target species’ distribution, help identify previously undiscovered rare species populations, support land management decision making, and predict potential changes in future habitat suitability based on various global climate change scenarios.
Kay Hankins, Seed Bank Conservation Botanist at BRIT at the FWBG
This is a free hybrid seminar. Please join us in person in the Commons of the BRIT Building or virtually via the following link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82755024484.
About the Research Lecture Series
The BRIT Research Lecture Series is designed to create community wide conversation about a diverse range of important and rapidly developing topics. This series gives scientists and speakers a forum for sharing the most current information about their areas of expertise and allows the public to interact with leading members of the local, national, and international scientific community. Read more at fwbg.org/events/lecture-series.
February Lunchtime Lecture: Conserving Plant Biodiversity
“Conserving Plant Biodiversity: Native Seed Collection & Predictive Species Distribution Modeling“
A Hybrid Lunchtime Lecture by Kay Hankins
In a rapidly changing global environment, understanding species’ distributions and how they may be expected to change over time is perhaps more critical now than ever before. Anthropogenic activities, including the explosive globalization of the world’s economy, travel, and trade, have placed unprecedented pressure on our planet’s native ecosystems and biodiversity. Narrowly endemic, endangered, or otherwise threatened taxa are especially vulnerable to the resulting impacts caused by human-related activities and climate change, and, unfortunately for plants, their story is no different.
Native plants play a vital, foundational role in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem on the planet, and thus, conserving plant biodiversity has increasingly become a top priority for conservation biologists and land managers across the globe. For many plants, this usually involves the wild collection and long-term storage of native plant seeds.
Seed heads of an Asclepius speciosa bagged for collection.
For February’s Lunchtime Lecture, Kay will primarily be focusing on her previous experiences collecting native plant seeds as part of the Seeds of Success (SOS) Program with the Chicago Botanic Garden as well as her graduate research studying species distribution modeling (i.e., ecological niche modeling) and how it can be used as a tool to better understand the factors governing a target species’ distribution, help identify previously undiscovered rare species populations, support land management decision making, and predict potential changes in future habitat suitability based on various global climate change scenarios.
Kay Hankins, Seed Bank Conservation Botanist at BRIT at the FWBG
This is a free hybrid seminar. Please join us in person in the Commons of the BRIT Building or virtually via the following link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82755024484.
About the Research Lecture Series
The BRIT Research Lecture Series is designed to create community wide conversation about a diverse range of important and rapidly developing topics. This series gives scientists and speakers a forum for sharing the most current information about their areas of expertise and allows the public to interact with leading members of the local, national, and international scientific community. Read more at fwbg.org/events/lecture-series.