This is a past event
'Climate change impacts on marine biodiversity in Polar Regions' and 'Al Gore's Climate Reality'
This event will consist of two 20-minute talks, followed by a question and answer session. All are welcome to attend, its is free and there is no booking required.
Speaker 1: Frithjof Kuepper, Professor in Marine Biology, "Climate change impacts on marine biodiversity in Polar Regions"
Polar regions are hotspots of climate change, inevitably affecting seaweed biodiversity by sea ice recession, increased iceberg scouring, and increased inputs of glacial melt water, all of which can have major impacts on phytobenthic communities. However, any studies in this context confront major challenges in terms of (1) scarce historic baseline datasets and (2) environmental and logistical constraints for scientific collections, and in situ observations by diving. This talk presents highlights from our expeditions to northern Baffin Island (Canadian Arctic, 2009) and Adelaide Island (Antarctica, 2010-2011 and 2017-2018) which assessed the biodiversity of seaweeds and associated eukaryotic pathogens at established study sites. Our dataset provides a baseline inventory for future work assessing impacts of the currently ongoing changes in the Arctic and Antarctic marine environment. The talk also discusses wider implications for establishing baseline inventories in the context of climate change.
Speaker 2: Kathryn Logan, PhD student in Biology, "Al Gore's Climate Reality"
In 2017, I successfully applied to attend former USA vice president Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Programme. This 4-day scientific event brings together individuals from across the world to learn about and discuss climate issues that are happening now. This programme gives participants the opportunity to learn climate change facts and develop their communication skills through storytelling, public speaking and social media and to engage with individuals who may not believe in climate change. The hope is to make a worldwide difference to the environment before its too late through influencing policy and inspiring others within everyone’s individual communities.
- Venue
- Room 105, St Mary's Building, Elphinstone Road
- Contact
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For more information:
Adam Price
Tel: 01224 272690
Email: a.price@abdn.ac.uk