TGI Friday Seminar: Vegetation, climate, and ecological change in tropical Africa

Who: Dr. Bonnie Jacobs, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University

When: November 13th, 3-4 PM

Where: EESAT 130

Why? Climate is the main determinant of plant geography and leaf morphology. Therefore, fossil plants can be used to understand past climate, which is essential for the testing of climate models used to create scenarios of future climate change. Moreover, the foundation of nearly every ecosystem on Earth is plants, which supply energy derived from the sun to all other life, resulting in a close ecological link between flora and fauna, and knowledge of the former sheds light on the food resources and habitat of the latter. Equally as important, fossil plants provide tangible evidence of how and where our current flora evolved.

Dr. Bonnie Jacobs conducts research on paleobotany, the study of fossil plants, ranging in size from microscopic cells to macroscopic leaves, fruits, seeds and wood. Research projects have included fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and in the U. S., Texas, and New Mexico.

http://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Academics/Departments/EarthSciences/People/Faculty/B%20Jacobs