*** THE LINNAEAN SOCIETY OF NEW YORK - MEETING PROGRAM - AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK CITY ***
Next Tuesday (14 Apr 2015) the Society’s two-part evening program will feature expert presentations of the biology behind brood parasitism and the impact of climate change on the northeast from the perspective of a conservation biologist. Please join us. *6:00 pm – Nature’s Cheats: Understanding the biological basis for the evolution of brood parasitism* Kathleen Lynch, who is a professor of biology at Hofstra University, writes about her talk: “I will discuss the various forms of brood parasitism that exist, the orders of birds in which it evolved, the co-evolutionary adaptations that evolved in both host and parasitic species and how we are starting to examine the biological basis for this behavior.” Lynch’s research interests include animal behavior and evolution as well as animal physiology and communication. Kathleen Lynch received her Bachelors degree from the University of Montana, where she had her first field experience working with Lazuli Buntings. She received a M.S. degree from Idaho State University studying the reproductive success of Worm eating Warblers nesting in hardwood forests sprayed with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). She went on to study neuroethology at the University of Texas at Austin where she investigated the hormonal and neural basis for mate choice decisions in female Tungara frogs. *7:30 pm – Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Concord, Richard Primack* Henry David Thoreau was a climate change scientist. For over a decade Boston University professor of biology Richard Primack has been using Thoreau’s mid-19th-century records and other data to document the dramatically earlier flowering and leafing out times of plants, the earlier ice out at Walden Pond, the earlier flight times of butterflies, and the more variable response of migratory birds. Primack notes that birds may be particularly vulnerable to climate change if they are not responding as strongly to warmer weather as plants and insects. Further, plants in Thoreau’s hometown Concord are also changing in abundance due to a warming climate, with many wildflower populations declining and non-native species increasing. With warmer spring and autumn weather, the growing season is being extended with implications for forest growth, the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and insect life cycles. Finally, Primack will consider how Thoreau might have reacted to today’s climate change crisis, and what his advice to us might have been. The presentation will be supported by quotations from the writings of Thoreau. Primack is the author of *Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods* (2014). *WHERE & WHEN* Both programs are open to the public FREE OF CHARGE and will be held in the People Center in the AMNH. Enter the museum from the 77th Street entrance, and follow the signs to the elevator to reach the venue on the 2nd floor*.* The first program will last approximately one hour with time before the second program to talk to the speakers, and mingle with LSNY officers and council members, who can provide information on becoming a part of this thriving and historic natural history society. *MORE INFORMATION ON LSNY PROGRAMS* Please check out (and bookmark) our website: http://linnaeannewyork.org/calendar-programs-trips/programs2014-2015.html or visit us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linnaean-Society-of-New-York/335385365977?ref=ts Look forward to seeing you on Tuesday. Angus Wilson President, The Linnaean Society of New York (LSNY) -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
