University Distinguished Professor, Dr. Sharon Billings will present her inaugural lecture, "Predicting Ecosystems of the Future with the Forests and Grasslands of Today" at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, at the Beren Petroleum Conference Center, Slawson Hall G192. The event is free and open to the public.

About the presentation: 
"Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems are undergoing rapid changes due to human influences.
Some of these changes are obvious, like clearing an old-growth forest or native prairie for
agricultural use. Some are more subtle, like increased rates of ecosystem greenhouse gas
fluxes to the atmosphere or the slow encroachment of northern forests into Arctic tundra,
both of which can occur with warming temperatures. Evidence is mounting that myriad,
well-documented changes in ecosystem functioning with land use change and warming –
whether visibly obvious or more subtle – are modifying key physical aspects of
belowground processes that until recently were assumed to remain relatively static. Our
work draws on multiple disciplines (biology, geology, physical geography, pedology,
ecosystem ecology, ecohydrology, reactive transport modeling, and Earth System
modeling) to elucidate these changes, quantify the rates at which they occur, and
illuminate their consequences for the flows of water and solutes deep within soil profiles
and across landscapes. We use these results from many diRerent ecosystems to constrain
key inputs to the models that help project Earth’s future climate."

Register HERE