Dr. Peter Vitousek from Stanford University will give a talk entitled “Island Ecosystems as Models for Human-Environment Interaction” for the University of Connecticut’s Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment. The talk will take place on Friday, October 16, 3 pm at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Konover Auditorium, at UConn. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Oceanic Islands have long been model systems for understanding evolution and speciation, and ecosystem development and dynamics. The Islands of Polynesia are also useful as models for understanding human-environment interaction. For example, most of the Hawaiian Islands supported more people at the time of European contact than they do today, in socially and culturally complex societies that drew all of their sustenance from local sources. Studies contribute to understanding the development and dynamics of intensive agriculture and the island societies that both drive and depended upon it, and indicate the possibility of a transition to sustainability on isolated islands.
The Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series brings leading scholars and scientists to the University of Connecticut to present public lectures on nature and the environment. The lectures are open to the public and do not require registration. For additional information please call 860.486.4460 or visit http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/asc/events/teale/teale.htm.
For more information, contact: Natural History Museum at 860.486.4460