Dr. Evan DeLucia- “The Changing American Landscape and its Connection to Climate”

University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

Nov 9 – Washington State University; CUB 210: Jr Ballroom East; 4:10 pm

Nov 10 – University of Idaho; REN 125; 12:30 pm

The earliest human civilizations managed land with fire, and later vast areas of the Earth’s surface were transformed by intensive agriculture. As we change the type of vegetation on the land surface and how it is managed, we directly affect the climate system. Terrestrial ecosystems exchange greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane – with the atmosphere, determining its ability to trap heat. The type of vegetation also determines how much solar radiation is reflected and how much energy is carried away by evaporation. The DeLucia laboratory has created a single metric – climate regulating value (CRV) that quantifies how land uses affect the climate system. Second only to the expansion of intensive, row-crop agriculture, a new bioenergy economy – one that depends on plants to produce liquid fuel – has the potential to alter the coupling of land and atmosphere. By combining field scale measurements of biogeochemical processes with coupled ecological-economic models, we demonstrate that the expansion of bioenergy crops in the rain fed eastern US can provide fuel and mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases e.g. provide a favorable CRV, while having minimal effects on the food supply. Our research suggests that expanded use of cellulosic biofuels can have a positive effect on the US energy portfolio.

Dr. Evan DeLucia is an active researcher, educator, and innovator in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His major accomplishments include becoming a G. William Arends Professor of Biology, founding director of the Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department Head of Plant Biology, director of the School of Integrative Biology, chair of the Physiological Ecology Section of the Ecological Society, member of the American Association of Plant Physiologists, member of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, and advisor to members of the US congress and the National Academy of Sciences on the effects of the carbon cycle and the trophic dynamics between plants and insects. Most recently, Dr. DeLucia became director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment whose aim is to synergize environmental efforts on the University of Illinois campus with nearby cities by promoting green sustainability education and outreach. Additionally, Dr. DeLucia serves as a peer-review editor for Ecology, Oecologia, Tree Physiology, and Global Change Biology. He received his M.F.S at Yale University in forest ecology, Ph.D. at Duke University in plant ecology and physiology, was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University, and a Fulbright Fellow at Landcare Research in New Zealand.