Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard University Press

  • Friday, October 26, 6:00 pm – Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins

    In her new book Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins (co-written with Craig Stanford), biologist Maddalena Bearzi examines how apes and dolphins, although distantly related, share a remarkably parallel evolution toward complex intelligence and behavior – and what this may reveal about the cognitive development of homo sapiens. Cosponsored by The Harvard Museum of Natural History and Harvard University Press. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Tuesday, April 3, 6:00 pm – Learning From Insects: How Our World is Shaped by Bees, Ants, and Other Social Insects

    Discover why many of the world’s top scientists have devoted their careers to the study of social insects in Learning From Insects: How Our World is Shaped by Bees, Ants, and Other Social Insects, a dialogue and booksigning with Thomas Seeley, Biology Professor at Cornell, and Bernd Heinrich, Profession Emeritus at the University of Vermont, on Tuesday, April 3, at 6:00 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge. Moderated by Professor Naomi Pierce, Curator of Lepidoptera in the MCZ at Harvard. The speakers will discuss their research and why it’s critical that we study and learn from insects.

    Following the presentation, there will be reception and book signing in the Museum’s galleries. Cosponsored with Harvard University Press. Free and open to the public. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage.  For more information, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, May 10, 6:00 pm – The Secrets of Field Notes: Capturing Science, Nature and Exploration

    In a fascinating new collection, Field Notes on Science and Nature, Harvard University Press provides a rare glimpse into the journals and sketches of top scientists such as Charles Darwin, George Schaller, and Kenn Kaufman. Editor Michael Canfield, lecturer in biology at Harvard, will discuss what makes these notes and journals so important, the secrets they reveal, and how they can help us cultivate skills as a gardener, citizen scientist, or adventurer. The free lecture will take place at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge, on Tuesday, May 10, from 6 – 8.  For more information, log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu, or call 617-495-3045.

  • Tuesday, October 27, 3:30 pm – Reading and Conserving New England: Insights from History and Ecology

    David Foster, of Harvard Forest and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, will speak on Tuesday, October 27 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus Student Union, Cape Cod Lounge, as part of The Environmental Institute’s Fall Lecture Program, which is free and open to the public.

    This talk is based on David’s long-standing conviction that every landscape and region has a history that strongly conditions its current condition and its future dynamics. In this talk he will provide an overview of the ecological insights that emerge from a consideration of the natural and cultural history of New England and then illustrate how this can be applied both to anticipating future conditions and to conservation management, including discussion of the Wildlands and Woodlands vision being developed by scientists associated with the Harvard Forest.

    Bio

    David Foster is an ecologist and author of Thoreau’s Country – Journey through a Transformed Landscape (1999), New England Forests Through Time (2000; both Harvard University Press), Forests in Time – The Environmental Consequences of 1000 years of Change in New England (2004; Yale University Press) and Wildland and Woodlands: A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts (Harvard University). He has been a faculty member in Biology since 1983 and is Director of the Harvard Forest, Harvard University’s 3500-acre ecological laboratory and classroom in central Massachusetts. David is the Principal Investigator for the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and involving more than 100 scientists and students investigating the dynamics of New England landscape as a consequence of climate change, human activity, and natural disturbance.

    David has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Minnesota and has conducted studies in the boreal forests of Labrador, Sweden and Norway and the forests of Puerto Rico, the Yucatan, and Patagonia in addition to his primary research on landscape dynamics in New England. His interests focus on understanding the historical changes in forest ecosystems that result from human and natural disturbance and applying these results to the conservation and management of natural and cultural landscapes. He currently serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy -Massachusetts, Trustees of Reservations, Conservation Research Foundation and Highstead Foundation. As part of his larger conservation work David and a group of Harvard Forest researchers developed Wildlands and Woodlands – A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts, which lays out an ambitious plan for the protection and conservation of half of the land in the state.At Harvard University David teaches courses on forest ecology and environmental change and directs the graduate program in forest biology. He lives in Shutesbury, Massachusetts with his wife Marianne Jorgensen and their children Christian and Ava.  For more information, log on to www.umass.edu/tei/TEI/LectureFall2009.html.

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