When
Speaker: Noelle Beckman, Utah State University
Date: Wednesday, October 17th, 2018
Time: 3:00-4:00 pm
Location: ENR2, S107
Abstract: For plants, which are sessile for most life history stages, seed dispersal is an essential process. Global change affects the ecology and evolution of dispersal, limiting the ability of species to move or adapt to global change events. Aspects of dispersal ability may trade-off with other aspects of a life history strategy, such as reproduction. However, dispersal has not been incorporated explicitly into investigations of plant life history strategies. Quantifying the influence of dispersal on individual fitness and plant populations is challenging. Empirically, dispersal is difficult to observe, measure, and manipulate at the relevant scales needed to assess the full influence of dispersal. Analysis of spatial models with realistic assumptions about processes at multiple scales is a mathematical challenge. Incorporating dispersal into plant life history strategies and examining dispersal under global change will not only give us a better basic understanding of patterns of biodiversity and species distributions but also allow us to better predict species? responses to global change.
FLYER