Stanford biology professor Elizabeth Hadly's research in the far reaches of the globe from India to Patagonia to Southeast Asia addresses the issues of what determines and maintains vertebrate (especially mammal) diversity through space and time and how that diversity is influenced by the environment.
Bio
Elizabeth Hadly
Elizabeth Hadly is Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and Departmen of Geology and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University.
The research of Elizabeth Hadly probes how perturbations such as climatic change influence the evolution and ecology of Neogene vertebrates. She uses a combined field and laboratory approach to examine how ecological perturbations link or decouple levels of biological organization, because understanding the links among ecosystems, species, populations and genes is central to understanding how organisms exist, evolve and become extinct. She addresses problems in organismal biology from both evolutionary and ecological perspectives, primarily using extant mammals. One of the unique aspects of her overall approach is the focus on the decadal to millennial time scale, a scale that is little studied, although it is a scale that is integral to understanding links between ecology and evolution.
Professor Hadly’s field research involves excavation of finely stratified Holocene paleontological sites and collection of modern specimens in western North America and Patagonia. Construction of a state-of-the-art ancient DNA laboratory has made possible the study of genetic structure of populations through time. Laboratory work includes morphometric and molecular analyses with the intent to extend the level of investigation down to the population and genetic levels. Ongoing projects at the macroecological scale include the study of the ecological and evolutionary factors influencing biological diversity through a comparison of temperate terrestrial vertebrate faunas in North and South America.
Increase in the global average surface temperature resulting from enhancement of the greenhouse effect, primarily by air pollution. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasted that by 2100 global average surface temperatures would increase 3.2–7.2 °F (1.8–4.0 °C), depending on a range of scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions, and stated that it was now 90 percent certain that most of the warming observed over the previous half century could be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities (i.e., industrial processes and transportation). Many scientists predict that such an increase in temperature would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly, significantly raising the levels of coastal waters, and would produce new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall, seriously disrupting food production in certain regions. Other scientists maintain that such predictions are overstated. The 1992 Earth Summit and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change attempted to address the issue of global warming, but in both cases the efforts were hindered by conflicting national economic agendas and disputes between developed and developing nations over the cost and consequences of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Any member of the class (Mammalia) of warm-blooded vertebrates having four limbs (except for some aquatic species) and distinguished from other chordate classes by the female's milk-secreting glands and the presence of hair at some stage of development. Other unique characteristics include a jaw hinged directly to the skull, hearing through bones in the middle ear, a muscular diaphragm separating the pectoral and abdominal cavities, and nonnucleated mature red blood cells. Mammals range in size from tiny bats and shrews to the enormous blue whale. Monotremes (platypus and echidna) lay eggs; all other mammals bear live young. Marsupial newborns complete their development outside the womb, sometimes in a pouchlike structure. Placental mammals (seeplacenta) are born at a relatively advanced stage of development. The earliest mammals date from the late Triassic Period (which ended 206 million years ago); their immediate ancestors were the reptilian therapsids. For 70 million years mammals have been the dominant animals in terrestrial ecosystems, a consequence of two principal factors: the great behavioral adaptability provided by the ability of mammalian young to learn from their elders (a consequence of their dependence on their mothers for nourishment) and the physical adaptability to a wide range of climates and conditions provided by their warm-bloodedness. See alsocarnivore; cetacean; herbivore; insectivore; omnivore; primate; rodent.
It cracks me up when people treat CURRENT global warming as a fait accompli. It's laughable.
As even the BBC is now reliably reporting, every system of atmospheric measurement (not to be confused with distorted land-based systems of measurement) show NO warming since 1998. The earth is not warming. In fact it's been cooling slightly since 2007.
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