How did we get in this predicament — with the west coast of the USA in flames and fire now ravaging areas typically left untouched? From a forest level, how does a changing climate and an increase in fire affect tree species, stored carbon, and the overall flow and productivity of the system?
Matt Hurteau, associate professor of biology and director of the Earth Systems Ecology Lab at UNM, will give us an overview of how fire has continually and now at great speed reshaped different ecosystems — both here and around the world. In this time of accelerating climate change, Matt will show us some large-scale simulations and share field research so that we might all better understand climate change from the forest level, and how we might increasingly intervene at a local level.