Kevin S. McCann, Professor, University of Guelph and Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Management
–
Global change has been reducing biodiversity within Canada and globally driving the biodiversity crisis. Just as insidious, but less understood, global change is simultaneously altering the connections behind biodiversity (i.e, the food web) that act as the backbone to the functioning of whole ecosystems. Kevin will first introduce some basics on food webs, before walking through numerous examples of how global change is altering the flow of energy through food webs. Along the way, he will argue that the current homogenization of ecosystems is fundamentally “rewiring” food webs in a remarkably consistent way that is likely to further threaten the resilience of ecosystems in a world with increasing climate variation. Current ecosystem management approaches that operate to add complexity at the landscape scale can mitigate these effects if implemented.
After completing a degree in mathematics at Dartmouth College, Dr. McCann returned to school to pursue an interest in applying math to ecology. He did post-doctoral research at the University of California before taking a faculty position at McGill University. In 2003, he returned to Guelph to study the structure and function of food webs. Although his focus is primarily on aquatic systems, his lab has a broad approach and includes collaborative work with soil, forest and desert food web ecologists.