For further information, contact the MBL Communications Office at (508) 289-7423 or e-mail us at comm@mbl.edu

For Immediate Release: August 5, 2009
Contact: Gina Hebert, 508-289-7725; ghebert@mbl.edu

MBL, WOODS HOLE, MA—Renowned ecologist Dr. Paul Colinvaux will be the final speaker in the 2009 MBLWHOI Library Summer Salon Series on Wednesday. August 12 at 4:00 PM in the Library’s Grass Reading Room, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole. Dr. Colinvaux, a Senior Research Scientist in the MBL’s Ecosystems Center, is an ecologist at the forefront of pollen research for the past 40 years. He will be discussing his book, “Amazon Expeditions: My Search for the Ice-Age Equator.” The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Colinvaux’s memoir of a life in science takes readers from the Alaskan Tundra to steamy Amazon jungles and everywhere in between. The narrative follows his efforts to untangle "one of the knottiest problems of ecological theory," why the Amazon is the most biodiverse region in the world, with a unique population of birds and 80,000 plant species. Dr. Colinvaux's research takes him across South America, and his conclusions turn on its head the hypothesis endorsed by most of the scientific community—that the equatorial temperature was constant but arid, so that life could only exist in enclaves (his findings indicates a moist climate and a temperature drop of four degrees).

Dr. Colinvaux also is a MBL Corporation member and Professor Emeritus at the Ohio State University. He has published extensively on ecological topics and hosted the twenty-part PBS series, What Ecology Really Says.

For more information, contact the MBLWHOI Library at 508-289-7341.

The MBL is a leading international, independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to discovery and to improving the human condition through creative research and education in the biological, biomedical and environmental sciences. Founded in 1888 as the Marine Biological Laboratory, the MBL is the oldest private marine laboratory in the Americas.