Steward Pickett, an expert in the ecology of plants, landscapes, and urban systems, delivers the 2013 JJR Lecture as part of the School of Natural Resources & Environment's Dean's Speaker Series. The talk is titled "Changing Urban Realities and the Evolution of Urban Ecological Science."

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Abstract: Although much is made of the proportion of humanity that now lives in cities as a justification for urban ecological research, the changing nature of urbanization itself presents new opportunities for understanding human ecosystems.  This presentation will present a new framework for urban systems in the global context, emphasizing global teleconnections, and contrasts in livelihood, lifestyle, and the local nature of specific urban ecosystems.  Urban transformations in this complex context will be illustrated by trends in Baltimore, Maryland, and example data on the watershed function will be presented.  The desire of jurisdictions in the metropolitan Baltimore region to become more sustainable drives new research efforts focusing on urban metacommunity structure, urban streams as an extension of the river continuum concept, and new approaches to locational choice of households.  The Baltimore case is put in the context of other global urban transformations as a way to advance urban ecological theory.

Biography: Steward Pickett, a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in Millbrook, New York, is an expert in the ecology of plants, landscapes, and urban systems.  He was awarded the PhD by the University of Illinois in 1977. He directs the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, Long-Term Ecological Research program, and co-directs the Urban Sustainability Research Coordination Network.  His research focuses on the ecological structure of urban areas and the temporal dynamics of vegetation, which has taken him to the primary forests of western Pennsylvania, the post-agricultural oldfields of New Jersey, and the riparian woodlands and savannas of Kruger National Park, South Africa.  He has edited or written books on ecological heterogeneity, humans as components of ecosystems, conservation, the linkage of ecology and urban design, the philosophy of ecology, and ecological ethics.  He has served as President of the Ecological Society of America, as well has having been that organization’s inaugural Vice President for Science.