Webinar: The impact of global climate change on wildlife ecology in the Alaskan Arctic and Sub-Arctic

Speaker: Dr. David R. Klein, Professor Emeritus of Wildlife Ecology, Department of Biology and Wildlife & Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Title: The impact of global climate change on wildlife ecology in the Alaskan Arctic and Sub-Arctic

Description: This webinar examines the impact of global climate change on wildlife ecology in the Alaskan Arctic and Sub-Arctic.  Dr. Klein provides a brief summary of his early research studying the introduction, increase, and crash die-off of reindeer on St. Matthew Island, Alaska.  He illustrates how climate change in recent decades,  through interaction of the atmosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, has slowed recovery of plant communities over-grazed by the reindeer and has subsequently altered the ecology of other wildlife on the St. Mathew Islands. This latter aspect of climate change will include the arrival of a new fox species to the islands and the consequences for predation on the millions of birds that nest on these islands annually.

Dr. David R. Klein's Biography:

• Dr. Klein is an Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Ecology – University of Alaska Fairbanks and a scientist affiliated with the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS).  He is an elected Fellow of the AAAS, and the Arctic Institute of North America
•  Dr. Klein also conducted research on the ecology of large mammals in Denmark, Norway, South Africa, Canada, Greenland and Portugal
• AAAS Fellow, and Arctic Institute of North America Fellow
• Dr. Klein’s interests are broadly ecological and sociological, with current primary focus on changes taking place in the natural and human environments of the Arctic regions of the world, and their relation to expanding industrial development of resources and global climate change

Intended Audience:  Middle and High Science Teachers but all educators are welcome

Duration: 44'46"