Upending the Paradigm: Agriculture and the environment for a sustainable future

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Join us for Yahara Lakes 101 to learn about the issues that impact our lakes!

About the talk

Increasing pressure on our agricultural lands pose significant biological and ecosystem-level consequences to our lands and waters. But what about the bugs? Lesser known, but equally important, is the decrease in species that support vital agricultural functions such as crop pollination and pest suppression. In this month’s Yahara Lakes 101 talk, UW-Madison entomologist, Claudio Gratton, will discuss how we can support agricultural needs while maintaining a multifunctional landscape that meets the diverse needs of our society, and crawling neighbors.

About our speaker

Dr. Gratton has been on the faculty in the Entomology department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison since 2003.  His research group works broadly on the landscape ecology of arthropod food webs in agricultural landscapes.  Their research has examined the role of unmanaged “non-crop” lands in the agricultural matrix and their effects on the abundance and diversity of beneficial insects including predators and pollinators and their effect on the provisioning of ecosystem services in agricultural habitats.  Recent work in bioenergy landscapes has been as part of the sustainability team of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC).  Research in the lab looking at the linkages between ecosystems also extends also to examining the relationships between lakes and streams and the adjacent terrestrial landscapes and the role of aquatic insects in creating those linkages. Recently, he has been part of bee and butterfly conservation efforts in the state.

Dr. Gratton received his BS in Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1991) and his PhD in Entomology from the University of California – Berkeley (1997). At UW he teaches courses in Basic and Applied Insect Ecology, Agroecology, Field Ecology, and Multivariate Methods in Ecological research.  His is a current Associate Editor of Ecological Applications.  He is a recipient of the Vilas Research Fellows award (2017), and is a Stanford-Woods Institute Aldo Leopold Leadership Program Fellow (2013).

Event Details

This event is at The Edgewater. Come at 7:30 a.m. for a meet-and-greet and to enjoy your coffee, pastries, and fruit. The program begins at 8 a.m., and class is dismissed by 9 a.m. Complimentary event parking will be available at The Edgewater.

Admission is FREE for 2019 Friends of Clean Lakes. If you are not a Friend, admission is $10 per event. Registration for each event is requested for all attendees.

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Yahara Lakes 101 Lecture Series

Yahara Lakes 101 is a series of educational events open to the public and a great chance for residents to learn more about the science behind the issues that affect our lakes. Each month we feature a different expert to make the science accessible and interesting to non-technical audiences.

The series is produced in partnership with the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, with hosting sponsor The Edgewater, presenting sponsor First Weber Group, supporting sponsor The Evjue Foundation, and media sponsor The Isthmus.