IMPORTANT NOTE:  As the December meeting is also our AGM we are starting the evening at 7 p.m.

Dr. Danielle Fraser is a research scientist in palaeobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature and Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University in Biology and Earth Sciences.

The Presentation:

Conservation biologists seek to understand the natural responses of undisturbed ecosystems to human activity. They want to develop policies to conserve these ecosystems.

However, these biologists work with ecosystems that have been disturbed by humans for decades or more.

Fortunately, the fossil record documents the responses of natural ecosystems to many types of disturbances, both biotic and abiotic. Fossils enable us:

a) to develop ecological baselines,

b) to develop a clear picture of ecosystems that were undisturbed by humans,

c) to understand the long-term outcomes of disturbance, and

d) to make predictions around ongoing global change.

Dr. Fraser will review the ways in which palaeontology can contribute to conservation science and use relevant examples from her research. She will argue that the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance will reach far beyond our lifetimes and that the fossil record is the only source of relevant long term data.

Biography:

Danielle Fraser is a research scientist in palaeobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature and Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University in Biology and Earth Sciences. She received her BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Calgary and her PhD from Carleton University in 2015. Danielle completed her postdoctoral studies at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History before taking up her position at the museum.