Guest Speaker- Kevin Hultine, Director- Desert Botanical Garden PHOENIX, AZ

Host: Sean Michaletz

Title: Can plants acclimate to extreme heat waves?

Climate change coupled with urban expansion are rapidly altering environmental conditions in which native plants of the desert southwestern United States and northern Mexico have thrived in since the last glacial maximum. As a consequence of these changes, plants and ecosystems are now being exposed to heat waves that are occurring at higher frequencies, and intensity. I will discuss some of the adaptive traits plants express to cope with novel heat wave conditions, and the thermal limits that plants face during summer heat waves. Throughout, I will focus the presentation on the foundation tree species, Populus fremontii, that not only supports a remarkable diversity of plant and animal taxa in riparian ecosystems, but occurs in some of the hottest locations in North America. The presentation will not only emphasize the adaptive significance, and limitations of thermal tolerance, but will also cover potential conservation priorities for maintaining dryland ecosystems threatened with climate change.

Bio: Kevin Hultine is the Director of Research in the Department of Research, Conservation and Collections at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ. He also holds adjunct faculty appointments in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and the School of Earth and Sustainability at Northern Arizona University. He holds a BS in Forest Resources from the University of Idaho (1997), a MS in Renewable Resources from the University of Arizona (2001), a PhD in Renewable Resources from the University of Arizona (2004), and worked as an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Utah from 2004 to 2010.

Lab web page: https://dbg.org/research-conservation/dpel/

Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=04hEUKIAAAAJ&hl=en