Lunch with a Scientist is an ongoing monthly lecture series at Cedar Creek. Each month, scientists present a general-audience lecture about their work at or related to Cedar Creek and take questions from the audience.
The series has been running since January 2019 as an in-person program. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was shifted online in April 2020, from which point recordings are available. Programs take place on the second Tuesday of each month (11:30am central time), either in-person at Cedar Creek, via zoom, or both. Details about speakers and delivery mode are at
https://cbs.umn.edu/cedarcreek/public-programs/lunch-scientist.
Program Description
In global grassland, changes in nutrient levels and rainfall patterns rewire plant interactions long before we notice dramatic shifts in species diversity. In a five‐year natural manipulation experiment in southern Spain, I explored how excessive nutrients and irregular precipitation reshape semi-arid plant communities at centimetric resolutions — revealing early warning signals that could help us better understand the impacts of global change.
About the Researcher
Paschalis Chatzopoulos is a Ph.D. candidate based at Universidad de Cadiz in Spain. He completed his M.Sc. in Ecology and Conservation at Uppsala University, where he pursued his research in tropical ecology and palm allometry. Since 2022, he is studying plant communities in a semi-arid grassland in southern Spain, focusing on plant-soil interactions, community stability, and biotic coupling.