This lecture will take place at 12:00 instead of (the regular) 16:00!

Ellen is an ecologist and the Research and Innovation Manager at the Nelson-Marlborough Institute in New Zealand. Until recently she was Director of Education and Assistant Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her work has included analyses of climate, vegetation and species traits data sets, controlled environment experiments and measurements along environmental (e.g. elevation, temperature, water and nutrient availability) and land-use gradients. She has broad research interests centered on understanding species’ responses to their environment. After moving from the relatively dark New Zealand to the intensely bright night sky of western Europe in late 2015, she became interested in the ecological impacts of artificial light at night. Artificial light at night is the fastest growing type of pollution. Light pollution affects the behavior and ecology of many different species. Her research is looking to improve our understanding of the effects of light pollution on plant communities, and mechanisms through which light pollution affects interactions between species in the food web – and how we can minimise these effects.

The title of her talk is:

“Illuminating disruptors of the plant clock”