OSU’s Bill Ripple will present “The Ecology of Fear: The Role of large Predators in Environmental Harmony” on Tuesday, June 21.
Ripple, a professor of in OSU’s College of Forestry, pioneered research in the role of large predators in a natural environment with groundbreaking studies in Yellowstone Olympic, Yosemite, Wind Cave, and Zion National Parks. His research found that following the disappearance of large predators in the West, increased elk and deer browsing appears to have heavily impacted plant communities and led to a loss of biodiversity. Only in Yellowstone, where wolves were reintroduced, does it appear that the impacts to plant communities are reversing. In his Science Pub, Ripple will explore the effects of reintroduction of wolves in other areas of the West and how that reintroduction can initiate ecosystem restoration.
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