After the Fire: Animal Response to a World on Fire

Speaker: Morgan Tingley, PhD, Associate Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA

Fire is a critical and natural part of California’s ecosystems, but the nature of fire here is rapidly shifting due to climate change. From a biological perspective, fire is a regular disturbance that affects the distribution and abundance of species and has shaped evolution for millions of years. Nevertheless, we are entering an unprecedented period where the dominant nature of fire is rapidly changing, disrupting both human and animal lives.

In this lecture, Morgan Tingley will discuss the myriad ways that fire has shaped the ecology of animals—particularly birds—in California and how the shifting nature of fire here is impacting our biodiversity. By learning how species are currently responding to a rapidly changing world, we are offered a glimpse into what our increasingly flammable future will hold.

This talk will be held in person and via Zoom.

Light refreshments will be served.

Morgan Tingley’s research addresses both fundamental and applied ecological questions of how species respond to large-scale, and predominantly anthropogenic, changes to their environments, particularly the effects of climate change, including fire, on bird communities. He has extensive experience in temperate mountain systems, focusing primarily on California’s Sierra Nevada.

Tingley joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020, after previously serving as an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut and as a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow at Princeton University. He is an elected fellow of the American Ornithological Society and a research associate with the Institute for Bird Populations. He is a recipient of the “Wings across the Americas” conservation award from the U.S. Forest Service, and the Young Professional Award from the Cooper Ornithological Society. His research papers have been covered widely by the popular press, including features by The New York Times, LA Times, and The Washington Post.

Tingley received his B.A. in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University in 2003, an M.Sc. in Zoology with a focus on Integrative Bioscience from Oxford University in 2004, and his Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from University of California, Berkeley in 2011.