Captured Sunshine: An Energetic View of Terrestrial Ecosystems

The Harvard Forest, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability present the 2024 Charles Bullard Lectures featuring Yadvinder Malhi, Professor of Ecosystem Science, School of Geography and the Environment; Programme Leader, Ecosystems Group at the Environmental Change Institute, and the Director of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, University of Oxford.

The biosphere was first described as “a planetary membrane for capturing, storing and transforming solar energy” by Vernadsky in the early 20th century. Every living organism and organism function in the biosphere is united, and can be compared, by the cascade of captured sunshine that powers it. But beyond powerful imagery, can an energetics approach to ecosystems yield a practical contribution to understanding how increasing human pressure is altering ecological function, and be a tool for assessing effectiveness of nature recovery? This talk explores this potential with a focus on plants, birds and mammals, the best documented taxonomic groups, in the context of terrestrial ecosystems. Malhi will draw on examples from Wytham Woods, intact and logged tropical forests in Borneo, and a broad regional examination of sub-Saharan Africa. An energetic approach to understanding life an earth can yield some surprising and provocative insights into our changing biosphere.

The annual Charles Bullard Lectures were established by the Harvard Forest in 2022 to honor and learn from renowned scholars of forest ecology and conservation. The Lectures are supported by the Charles Bullard endowment and are closely associated with Harvard’s long-running Bullard Fellowship, a distinguished scholar-in-residence program for forest research.

For information and to register for the second of the 2024 Bullard Lectures, visit OCT 3 | Tropical Forests and Planet Earth: A Macrosope View