Photo by Margaret Primack
An illustrated lecture by Dr. Richard B. Primack, Professor of Biology at Boston University
Sunday, August 10th
Time: 4 p.m.
Place: Union Chapel
The 2014 Smith Vaughan Natural History Lecture
Dr. Richard Primack, who has been investigating the impact of climate change on the flowering and leafing out times of plants, the spring arrival of birds and the flight times of insects, will address the potential for ecological mismatches among species caused by climate change.
More Information
Dr. Richard B. Primack
PhD, Duke University, 1976
Areas of interest: impact of climate change on plants and animals; conservation biology; timing of leaf out and leaf senescence; rare plants; tropical forests
Current Research: The Primack Lab
The Primack Lab: Conservation Biology & Plant Ecology
Richard Primack is investigating the impact of climate change on the flowering and leafing out times of plants, the spring arrival of birds and the flight times of insects in Massachusetts, Japan, and South Korea, and the potential for ecological mismatches among species caused by climate change.
The main geographical focus is Concord, Massachusetts, due to the availability of extensive phenological records kept by Henry David Thoreau and later naturalists. The lab is using Concord as a living laboratory to determine the effects of climate change species, and land use changes on the population dynamics of native and non-native species.
The lab is also comparing our results from Concord with long-term changes at Acadia National Park in Maine. An expanding interest is the variation among species in leafing out times and leaf senescence times, and the physiological control of these processes. An ongoing activity involves producing conservation biology textbooks and working with co-authors to produce textbooks in other languages.
In addition, Richard Primack serves as Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Biological Conservation.
For popular articles about his work, visit: http://www.bu.edu/news/category/richard-primack/
For more information on the Conservation Biology Translation Project, copies of articles and information on his recent book “Walden Warming Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods”, visit:
http://people.bu.edu/primack
