The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

UW-Madison News Release--Ecological change

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10/4/2004

CONTACT: Don Waller, (608) 263-2042, dmwaller@wisc.edu



MEETING TO EXPLORE A CHANGING NATURAL WORLD	



MADISON - A two-day workshop aimed at documenting and exploring the significance of ecological change in Wisconsin will be held Oct. 7 and 8 at the Pyle Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.



The meeting, according to organizer Don Waller, a UW-Madison professor of botany, is an opportunity for academic and agency scientists, as well as social scientists, policymakers and journalists, to mark and analyze how Wisconsin's flora and fauna have changed over time as a result of human influence.



Wisconsin, Waller notes, has a tradition of careful biological surveys, starting with surveyor notes in the 19th century and continuing with pioneering work in the 20th century on Wisconsin lakes, and bird and plant communities.



"These records provide critical baselines for us to understand the creeping ecological change going on around us today," Waller notes.



The intent of the workshop is to put ecological change under a microscope, Waller says, and begin to arrive at a synthesis of how Wisconsin has changed during the last 150 years.



The meeting will explore how habitat destruction and fragmentation, the spread of invasive weedy species, emerging infectious diseases and "biotic homogenization" have altered the state's natural landscapes.



"The workshop has two broad goals," Waller says. "One, we want to construct a big picture of ecological change by exchanging results and ideas from work on many different systems. Two, we want to share this big picture, and supporting research and ideas, with the public."



Toward that end, workshop participants will collaborate on a book, tentatively entitled "The Vanishing Present: Ecological Change in Wisconsin," to be published in 2005.



The workshop, which runs from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Oct. 7-8, is open to interested faculty and staff. For more information, contact Waller at dmwaller@wisc.edu or (608) 263-2042.

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- Terry Devitt (608) 262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu





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