People You’ll Hear in This Episode
Tufts Now.
Michael Reed, professor of biology, studies avian ecology and conservation biology. He looks at how habitat loss and fragmentation affect extinction risk and population viability, as well as the role of animal behavior in extinction risk and conservation. To get a feel for why species regeneration is so urgent, read about the UN report on species extinction rates, the report on species population size decline, and the 3 billion North American birds that have vanished since 1970.
Erica Smithwick, J95, majored in geology and environmental studies at Tufts. She is now a professor of geography at Penn State, where she is director of the Ecology Institute. A landscape and ecosystem ecologist, she is involved in understanding how a wide range of disturbances, especially fire, affect ecosystem function.