University of Connecticut
Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment
Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 4:00pm (EST)
Anurag Agrawal
James A. Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies
Cornell University
"The Declining Monarch: A Butterfly’s Ecology Speaks to America’s Environmental Crisis"
Please join us for an in-person Teale lecture, on Thursday, October 16 at 4:00pm in the Konover Auditorium in the Dodd Center on the UConn Storrs campus.
Dr. Anurag Agrawal is the James Perkins Chair in Environmental Studies at Cornell University. He obtained both a bachelors (Biology) and masters (Conservation Biology) degree from the University of Pennsylvania and worked with tropical ecologist, Daniel Janzen. In 1999 he earned a PhD in Population Biology from the University of California, Davis. A year later he started as an assistant professor at the University of Toronto in the former Department of Botany, and since 2004 he is Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Department of Entomology at Cornell. Anurag lectures widely to professionals and the public, and he has won numerous awards including the highest honors from several academic societies focused on biology, plant science, entomology, and ecology. Anurag teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at Cornell in Ecology and Biodiversity, Field Biology, and Chemical Interactions. His research melds questions on the ecology and evolution of interactions between wild plants and their insect pests, including aspects of community interactions, chemical ecology, coevolution, and the entire monarch life-cycle. Integrating natural history, scientific theories, and interacting with diverse scientists, from students to citizens, is his passion.
The environmental crisis is broad and deep, touching most aspects of our existence. For the little things that run the world - insects engaged in services from pollination to supporting the rest of the food chain - recent evidence points to long-term declines. In this lecture, I will introduce this problem and the challenges of deciphering the causes. Through the focused lens of the monarch butterfly, sometimes referred to as the Bambi of the invertebrate world, we'll journey through beautiful natural history, complex life-cycles, and the mysteries of a continentally declining population. There are lessons to be learned for the conservation of biodiversity.
Although the talk will be in-person, it is also available to watch (live) on the UConn Kaltura platform. The live stream link is on the Teale Series web page: https://environment.institute.uconn.edu/teale-lecture-series/
This event is free and open to the public. If you need accommodation to access or participate, please contact CSMNHinfo@uconn.edu
For more information, contact: Dr. Erin Kuprewicz at csmnhinfo@uconn.edu