Michigan's changes in the last 100 years
The University of Michigan Press Author Series will present a panel discussion on how the environment in Michigan has changed in the past 100 years, led by an editor and authors of the new Press book The Changing Environment of Northern Michigan: A Century of Science and Nature at the University of Michigan Biological Station.
The free event will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 22, at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery/Room 100 on the Diag in central campus.
Editor Alan Hogg, Jr., says this is what to expect:
"Watch one spot long enough, and something's bound to happen. Imagine how much you’d see if you watched 10,000 acres for 100 years. That's what scientists have been doing at the University of Michigan Biological Station. On Feb 22 you can talk to a few of the researchers who contributed to The Changing Environment of Northern Michigan.
"In 1909, Northern Michigan was scarred by logging and fire. When UMBS was founded that year, it was perfectly poised to watch and learn how the environment recovered. Now, one hundred years later, UMBS is just as involved in documenting and learning from change caused by invasive species, climate change, and the ways we use land - farms recovered from forest are reverting to forest, or to housing developments.
"At our Feb 22 discussion, we will feature at least four authors from The Changing Environment of Northern Michigan - all UMBS faculty who have investigated environmental change in Northern Michigan.
"David Gates spent his childhood summers at UMBS with his father, professor Frank Gates, and returned as UMBS director from 1971-1986. Burt Barnes has written about how the forest has recovered from the 19th century logging, and what the forest might look like in another 100 years.
"Phil Myers studies mammals, and has written about how mice, flying squirrels, and opossoms (amongst other mammals) have been affected by the way humans have changed the environment. And Paul Webb, a fish expert, has written about the way sport fishers have tried to change the species of fish in Douglas Lake, with varying degrees of success."
