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In Collaboration with the University of Missouri, Bond Life Sciences Center and Missouri Life
Sciences Week, the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Presents the Inaugural
Symposium of:
The Center for Watershed Management and Water Resources
Symposium Title: Water for Agriculture: Challenges for this Century
Symposium Organization By:
Jason A. Hubbart, Ph.D., Director
Keith Goyne, Ph.D., Associate Director
Location: Monsanto Auditorium, Bond Life Sciences Center
Thursday, April 16, 2015
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Pre meeting reception: Monsanto Foyer (Hors d’oeuvres and drinks served)
Welcome and Opening Statement Speaker Introduction: Dr. Jason Hubbart
Symposium Opening Statement:
1:00 pm to 1:10 pm
Marc Linit, Ph.D. University of Missouri; Senior Associate Dean for Research and
Extension; College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; Senior Associate
Director, Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station.
Keynote Speaker Introduction by Dr. Jack Jones
Opening Keynote:
Robert W. Sterner, Ph.D. Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) and Director
of Large Lakes Observatory (LLO), UMD Department of Biology
Title: Human Uses and Abuses of Water
1:10 pm to 1:45 pm
(30 min talk, 5 min
questions)
Abstract: One of the most important scientific
concepts of our time is how human action alters
global cycles of energy and materials at a magnitude
rivaling or even exceeding the pre-industrial
background natural processes. Water sustains
human culture, and our consequent needs for water
have placed immense demands on this precious
natural resource. What human activities place the
largest demands? Huge water projects have been
undertaken around the world, under almost any
known political system. In this talk we will consider
humans as globally relevant agents of change of
Earth's hydrologic cycle and consider how we
current catalog and quantify the benefits we obtain
from water as it moves downhill from Earth to ocean.
Biography: One of Robert Sterner’s earliest memories is nighttime sailing with his family
on Lake Michigan off of Chicago. He has been attracted to lakes ever since. As a
Biology student at the University of Illinois, he had the good fortune to encounter a
young faculty member, Michael Lynch, whose lab was full of glass jars of small aquatic
organisms. These crustacean zooplankton, each of them one-to-several mm in length
were fascinating creatures and when he went to graduate school at the University of
Minnesota as the first PhD student of the well-known ecologist David Tilman, Robert
began thinking about how those zooplankton fit into the broader nutrient cycles within
lakes. His PhD work in Limnology (the science of inland waters) and then his
Postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Limnology in Germany laid the
groundwork for an ecological approach now called Ecological Stoichiometry. “ES”
examines how the nutrient content of organisms shapes their ecology and evolution. In
2002 he co-authored a major book on the topic.
He began his first faculty position in 1987 at the University of Texas at Arlington,
the second largest campus in the UT system. Robert joined the University of Minnesota
faculty in 1994 where he was initially based at the Gray Freshwater Biological Institute,
which was planned to house an interdisciplinary research group around the topic of
freshwater. Budget constraints led the University to close the Gray, and Robert moved to
the main campus and joined the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in St.
Paul. He later served as the Head of the EEB Department. From 2007 to 2009, Robert
served as the Director of the Division of Environmental Biology at the U.S. National
Science Foundation. In that post, he was responsible for a $110 million budget, which
made up roughly a quarter to a third of the federal investment in environmental research.
His move to Minnesota in 1994 brought Robert into the “gravitational pull” of
Earth’s largest lake by area. His research since then has included studies of Lake
Superior. He has examined different aspects of carbon and nutrient cycles and over the
years has amassed a great deal of basic information about these basic ecosystem
properties. He has led multiple grants from the US-NSF as well as Minnesota Sea Grant
concerning Lake Superior.
His move to Duluth as the new Director of the Large Lakes Observatory and
member of the faculty of the Department of Biology puts him back into an
interdisciplinary water center, an academic environment he values, and it brings him
even closer to the shores of the big lake.
Speaker and Panel Session #1: Session leader Jason Hubbart
Title: Water Resources and Water Quality: Complexities of Scale
1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
(15 min talks, and 15 min
panel session)
3:00 pm to 3:15 pm
1) Robert B. Jacobson, Ph.D. Supervisory Research Hydrologist; Chief, River Studies
Branch; US Geological Survey – CERC, Columbia, Missouri.
Title: Beyond Ecohydrology: Dimensions of Flow Management in Highly Altered River
Systems
2) Jennifer Hoggatt, Our Missouri Waters Statewide Coordinator; Missouri Department of
Natural Resources
Title: Our Missouri Waters – Collaboration for Watershed Planning and Protection
3) Jack R. Jones, Ph.D. Curators’ Professor, J. Michael Dunmire Professor and
Department Chair; University of Missouri, School of Natural Resources Department of
Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences
Title: Missouri Reservoirs: Summary from a Landscape Perspective
4) Loyd Wilson, Senior Policy Advisor; Missouri Department of Agriculture
Title: Coordinating Water Policy Development with Agricultural Stewardship
Break
Speaker and Panel Session #2: Session leader Keith Goyne.
Title: Water Quantity, Quality, and Use: Current and Future Challenges
3:15 pm to 4:30 pm
(15 min talks, and 15 min
panel session
1) Robert Sharp, Ph.D. and Director, Interdisciplinary Plant Group; University of Missouri,
Professor of Plant Sciences
Title: Root Growth in Drying Soil: A Critical but Understudied Component of Plant
Adaptation to Drought
2) Robert Lerch, Ph.D. US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Soil
Scientist;
Title: Water Quality Trends in Goodwater Creek Watershed: The Case for Targeting
Conservation Practices
3) Patrick Guinan, Ph.D. University of Missouri, Missouri State Climatologist
Title: Missouri’s Biggest Climatic Vulnerability
4) Joe Henggeler, Ph.D. University of Missouri, Associate Extension Professor
Title: Irrigation Use and Future Challenges for Missouri
Closing Keynote Speaker Introduction by Dr. Jason Hubbart:
Closing Keynote
Karen Fluornoy: Director, Water, Wetlands and Pesticides Division, EPA Region 7
Title: Water Quality Challenges in the Midwest-Now and in the Future
4:30 pm to 5:00 pm
5:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Bio: Karen has served as Director of EPA Region 7’s Water
Division since November, 2011. Karen also served for 6 years
as the Region 7 Ag Advisor to the Regional Administrator,
focusing on environmental issues and agriculture. Since
joining EPA Region 7 in 1978 in the construction grants
program, she has attained 14 years’ experience in the
hazardous waste, superfund, and air programs. Karen
received a degree in civil engineering from the University of
Missouri-Columbia.
Post meeting reception: Monsanto Foyer (Hors d’oeuvres and beer and wine served)
Support has been provided by the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, Bond Life
Sciences Center, MU Life Sciences Week and the Missouri Transect: Climate, Plants and
Community, an NSF EPSCoR project (Award IIA-1355406).