What: Geography department coffee hour. If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, can I still model it?
Where: Refreshments in 319 Walker at 3:30, talk at 4:00 in 112 Walker.
In his talk, Dybzinsk will review the approaches ecologists rely on to understand the natural world, distinguishing a hybrid approach termed "simplified models of systems." He will describe in detail (and with moments of middling humor) a simplified model of forests that, in some important cases, yields analytical predictions about the physiology, carbon allocation, and ecosystem dynamics of evolutionarily-honed plants across resource availability gradients.
More details here: http://www.geog.psu.edu/news/events/CH-dybzinski