Climate Change program offered at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

From staff reports

Do you want to learn how your favorite beach may respond to predicted climate change? Then join researcher, Lukas Bell-Dereske for a special public program entitled “Climate Change in the Great Lakes Dunes: Responses of the Plant Community at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore” on Thursday, August 21 at 9 a.m. at the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center auditorium in Empire. During his presentation, Bell-Dereske will discuss the large shifts in temperature and precipitation due to climate changes that are predicted for the Great Lakes Region. These predictions, if correct, could lead to huge shifts in the dune ecosystem. This special program is free.

Bell-Dereske grew up in the southern end of the Manistee National Forest in Branch, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Bell-Dereske began his graduate work in 2010 studying how plants and microbes benefit each other and the effects of climate change in the Great Lakes dune plant community. He transferred to the University of New Mexico in 2012, where he is continuing his research on the Great Lakes dune ecosystem.