Symposium to showcase ecology research

Daniel Janzen, an internationally known expert in tropical ecology, biodiversity, and conservation, will be the keynote speaker at the Ecology Group’s Sixth Annual Ecology Symposium Oct. 5-6 at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Auditorium.

Janzen, distinguished professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania, opens the event at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5, with a free public lecture, “Costa Rica’s Area de Conservacion Guanacaste: A Long March to Survival Through Non-Damaging Biodiversity Development.” He will address the significance of biodiversity, the difficulty of managing conserved wildlands, and human impacts on wildlife in this area.

On Friday, Oct. 6, six UW–Madison professors will outline their ecological research in brief presentations, 1-3 p.m. Friday’s program also is free and open to the public:

• Eric Kruger, Forest Ecology & Management, “How Will Wisconsin’s Forests Respond to Anticipated Changes in Atmospheric Chemistry?”
• Lisa Naughton, Geography, “Community-Based Wildlife Conservation in the Peruvian Amazon.”
• Paul Berry, Botany, “Interpreting Diversity in Neotropical Lowland Forests.”
  — Warren Porter, Zoology, “Physiology on a Landscape Scale.”
• Christine Ribic, Wildlife Ecology, “Life’s a Beach: The Dynamics of Adelie Penguin Colonies in the Antarctic.”
• Kenneth Raffa, Entomology, “Chemical Signaling Among Trees, Insect Herbivores, and Predators: Landscape-Level Consequences and Management Implications.”

Janzen will close the symposium with a second lecture, “Host Specificity of Costa Rican Caterpillars and Their Parasites,” beginning at 3:30 p.m. For more information, contact Emily Steel, (608) 265-6712; ecsteel@students.wisc.edu