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March 11, 2010

Dalton State College presents lecture on effects of global climate change

Dalton Daily Citizen

DALTON — James Porter, professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, will present a lecture at Dalton State College on the “Effects of Global Climate Change on Georgia” on Thursday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m.

The lecture, which is sponsored by the Fine Arts and Lecture Series and the Office of Student Activities, is free and open to the public. It will be in the Goodroe Auditorium of Memorial Hall.

“When I was a graduate student at the University of Georgia, I became aware of Dr. Porter’s active research on coral reefs,” said John Lugthart, professor of biology at Dalton State and a member of the Fine Arts and Lecture Series committee. “He had the reputation of being both a really good researcher and a really good teacher. He is known for his passion for teaching, and, in fact, he received UGA’s prestigious Meigs Teaching Award in 2002.”

Porter is a marine ecologist who specializes in the biology, ecology and assessment of Floridian and Caribbean coral reefs. He has testified before Congress five times, most recently on the effects of global warming on coral reefs. He has also served as a consultant to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta on the environmental effects of underwater unexploded ordnance in Hawaii and Vieques, Puerto Rico.

“One of the reasons I thought it would be good to have him speak at Dalton State is that he is one of Georgia’s foremost researchers, and he will be able to share with us what we might expect in Georgia with respect to issues surrounding climate change,” Lugthart said. “Often we think of climate change as a global issue, not a local one. It will be enlightening to hear him speak about those issues and how they affect us as Georgians.”

Porter serves as an associate dean of the Odum School of Ecology at UGA and is also a faculty member in the School of Marine Programs, Water Resources and Conservation Ecology.

He is an expert in a number of fields, including theoretical ecology, coral reefs, predator-prey dynamics and marine ecosystems. Porter was the leader of the research team that discovered the cause of white pox disease, a disease caused by the common bacteria Serratia marcescens, which is decimating populations of Caribbean elkhorn coral in the Florida Keys.

A graduate of Yale University, where he earned his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D., Porter has conducted research projects on the successional dynamics of marine benthos, Georgia coast and Florida coral reefs, and ecological physiology and oxygen metabolism in benthic marine invertebrates.

He is the author of “The Ecology and Etiology of Newly Emerging Marine Diseases” and “The Everglades, Florida Bay and Coral Reefs of the Florida Keys.”

 

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