Biology Seminar: Barry Logan

“Mechanisms of mortality and the legacy of land use in dwarf mistletoe-infected spruce forests along the Maine coast”, talk by Barry Logan, Professor, Biology Department, Bowdoin College. Eastern dwarf mistletoe, a diminutive plant parasite, can fell a mature white spruce in a matter of years. Curiously, a closely related host growing in the same forest stands, red spruce, tolerates infection and even succeeds in killing the parasite. Drawing upon observations at scales from hormone metabolism through whole–tree growth, I will propose a causal chain of events leading to white spruce decline and contrast it against a hypothesized mechanism of red spruce tolerance, relating the present-day ecophysiology of coastal Maine spruce stands to patterns of 19th century land use with particular relevance to Vermont.

Lunch provided at 12:15pm.

Sponsored by the Department of Biology, www.middlebury.edu/academics/bio