It’s Crickets at Sedgwick: Lecture Recording
Free online lecture with Dr. Caroline Williams
Sedgwick field crickets. Photo by Kate McCurdy
Co-hosted by the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society and the UC Sedgwick Reserve
View the recording of the online presentation at your convenience.
Presentation link: It’s Crickets at Sedgwick
The lecture is an hour’s duration, followed by Q & A. This online lecture was first presented “live” by the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society and partners via Zoom on Thursday, 6 August 2020 at 7:00 p.m.
The role of crickets in most people’s lives is “background music” to summer evening gatherings over food, drink, and good conversation while the kids play. Fewer people know them as food for pet reptiles or bait for anglers. But what can crickets and other insects tell us about the effects of climate change? Dr. Caroline Williams of UC Berkeley will explore this question her online presentation, will include a description of her broader research program, which focuses on biological impacts of winter climate change. Her research is changing what scientists understand about how warmer winters affect a range of living creatures that are adapted to winter cold.
Dr. Caroline Williams. Photo by Kate McCurdy
Caroline Williams is fascinated by how insects and other ectotherms maintain metabolism and performance in fluctuating environments. For example, how will climate change affect insect populations? Currently she is studying winter climate change and how snow cover affects montane beetles. A professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, her research combines field-based natural history and experiments with laboratory-based biochemistry and physiology. She uses the UC Natural Reserves, including Sedgwick Reserve, extensively for collecting scientific data in the field.
