Elizabeth Crone, Population Ecologist of Harvard Forest, will speak at the Arnold Arboretum on Tuesday, April 16, beginning at 6:30, in a program co-sponsored by the Cambridge Science Festival. Population ecologists study plant and animal populations in essentially the same way that insurance actuaries assess risks about human populations: they track births and deaths of different plant and animal species, and use these patterns to predict how these species will respond to changes in habitat management, climate, and more. However, there is much less data about most species than about humans, and environmental planners often want longer-term forecasts than insurance companies. Elizabeth Crone will describe how plant ecologists monitor populations and collect demographic information. She will also speak about successes and failures in forecasting the futures of different plant populations, and describe how ecologists go about the science of fortune-telling. Free, but registration requested at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.
