Dr Lynette Forster: Species on the move in an era of climate change

When: Thursday 2nd July.

Time: 7:15pm for a 7:30 start.

Place: UTAS Sandy Bay Campus – Law Building Seminar Room (Room 132).

About: Climate change is altering the distribution of species around the world. Understanding how invertebrates respond to extreme weather events remains critical for managing climate change impacts on biodiversity. Tasmania’s mountains provide a natural laboratory where changes in species distribution can be tracked across altitudinal gradients, offering valuable insights into how biodiversity responds to extreme weather events and a changing climate. Research on beetle communities along the altitudinal gradient of Mt Weld provides new insights on how species respond to extreme weather events, revealing expected and surprising patterns on species movement influenced by temperature and habitat availability. The talk will explore how long-term monitoring could improve our understanding of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management in an era of climate change. The talk will also highlight how kunanyi / Mount Wellington, one of Tasmania’s most accessible mountains, could become an important site for long-term ecological monitoring.

Speaker:

Dr Lynne Forster is an entomologist with a long-standing interest in Tasmania’s invertebrate fauna. She is a Research Fellow in Entomology at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania. Her research focuses on methods to promote pollinators, parasitoids, and predatory insects for biological pest control in agricultural landscapes, while also investigating the ecology of invertebrates in changing environments. Her earlier work has examined the impacts of habitat fragmentation, fire and extreme weather events on beetle communities, providing new insights into the functional ecology of invertebrates and their chemical and genetic relationships and adaptations across landscapes in changing environments. She is a contributor to the Field Guide to the Insects of Tasmania and continues to help document and identify the state’s rich diversity of insects and other invertebrates. Learn more: https://discover.utas.edu.au/Lynette.Forster

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