Abstract
Dr. Julie Etterson, Assoc. Professor, UMD Biology
Title: Will evolution rescue populations from climate change?
The overarching question of my research is whether or not adaptive evolution is rapid enough to
rescue wild populations from climate change and, if not, what we should do about it. In this
seminar I will describe how I have used the tools of ecological genetics to address this issue by
predicting and empirically testing rates of adaptive evolution. I will also describe a new research
initiative, Project Baseline, that is laying the groundwork for future investigators to more
definitively answer this question over the next 50 years. Finally, I will discuss a forest
management experiment that is intended to test the value of human-mediated movement of trees
from more southern locations to ameliorate the negative effects of climate change that we are
already witnessing in northeastern Minnesota.