June 2022
It is now generally accepted that our climate is changing to the detriment of most of life on earth due to an unnatural rise in CO2. It has caused a change in the timing of such natural events as the budding of trees, shrubs, and forbs as well as insect emergence from winter dormancy which ultimately affects nesting birds that depend on insects to feed their nestlings.
Dr. Doug Stotz, from the Field Museum, will discuss these offsets as well as the effects of climate change on native plants, vegetation communities, and the wildlife that depend on them. He will also address the role those urban areas can play in the conservation of plants, animals, and their habitats in the face of climate change, including some thoughts on what people can do in their backyards and local parks.
Douglas Stotz is a senior conservation ecologist in the Keller Science Action Center at the Field Museum. He received his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from University of Chicago in 1990. He is active in programs to preserve biological diversity and threatened habitats, both in the Chicago region and in the Andean and Amazonian rainforests of South America. In Chicago, he focuses on studying bird migration, the effects of climate change on bird populations and the value of urban area to biodiversity conservation. He is a member and formerly chair of the Climate Change Committee for Chicago Wilderness. Besides his bird work, Doug is part of the museum’s Monarch team, ensuring that urban areas live up to their potential for providing habitat and milkweed to this declining migratory butterfly.