The Lamar University student chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society, will present Dr. Beth Middleton, research ecologist at the Wetland & Aquatic Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Lafayette, Louisiana since 2002, in a presentation “Wetlands & Climate Change: The Reconnection of People and the Land,” on Thursday, February 22. 

The event, 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., in the Dr. Richard L. Price Auditorium, Herman Iles Building, John Gray Center, on the LU campus, is free and open to the public.                                          

Middleton’s research focuses on potential climate change impacts to wetlands using a macroecology approach to study ecosystem function across large geographical areas. She holds a Ph.D. in botany from Iowa State University. 

Her work is of interest to scientists, managers, and the public in that it informs the way forward for climate change management. She maintains a long-term network to examine climate change effects on some of the most pristine cypress swamps in the southeastern United States.

Her studies on the response of drought-stressed vegetation to hydrologic remediation are of critical importance to future natural resource conservation. Middleton’s talks focus on bringing an understanding of the effects of climate change on world wetlands to university and public audiences.

She gives many invited lectures on her ecological research as well as Earth Day talks and a TEDx talk called “Conservation Oblivion.”

For more information on the lecture, contact Jim Westgate, university professor of Earth and space sciences, at (409) 880-7970.