Speaker
Dr. Jess Brandt, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment & Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of Connecticut

The seminar is open to the public.
To join online, please contact seminars@cluttereawag.ch for access details.

Abstract
Animals play a substantial role in the distribution of nutrients and contaminants within and among ecosystems yet are under-appreciated relative to atmospheric and hydrological pathways of contaminant dispersal. A key distinction between animal-mediated transport (biotransport) and abiotic transport is that nutrients and contaminants stored in animal tissues are packaged as food and likely to have immediate influence in the systems that receive them. The growth of biotransport research since the 1990s has transformed our understanding of transboundary ecological networks. This talk will provide an overview of nutrient and contaminant distribution via the energetic pathways that connect disparate systems, and the biological and environmental processes that decouple nutrient from contaminant biotransport. I will highlight recent research by my group and collaborators exploring these themes at stream-riparian interfaces and from oceans to inland ecosystems at continental scales.