Experts Convene Second Annual Invasive Species Symposium at UMass Amherst

*** MEDIA ADVISORY ***

DATE:        Thursday, July 12
TIME:         9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
WHAT:       Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change Management Symposium
WHERE:    Integrated Sciences Building, 661 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst

Over 100 federal, state and conservation organization managers and scientists from around the region are expected to gather to hear international experts talk about the current research on invasive species and to discuss how climate change might affect invasion risk in the Northeast. They will also talk about how to translate research into management action.

Speakers will include:

10 a.m. – “Using impact assessments to prioritize range-shifting invasive plants,” by UMass Amherst biogeographer and associate professor of environmental conservation Bethany Bradley, an expert in plant invasive species.

1:30 p.m. – “Emerging global invasion threats and response capacities,” by Regan Early, lecturer in conservation biology at the University of Exeter, U.K., and an expert in effects of human activity on wildlife around the world.

3:30 p.m. – “Effect of increasing water temperatures on acquati invasions,” by Jennifer Price Tack, a postdoctoral researcher and wildlife ecologist specializing in quantitative ecology and decision support science at Cornell University.

Toni Lyn Morelli, adjunct professor of environmental conservation and U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist at the campus’s Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, will facilitate panel discussions among the experts.

Other sessions will be presented on potential effects of pests and pathogens on carbon sequestration and storage by North American forests, challenges for listing invasive plants in the United States and how climate change could awaken some naturalized “sleeper” species.