Responses of Polar Bear Populations to Sea Ice Loss - 2/2
Polar bears live on the Arctic sea ice where temperatures are increasing faster than anywhere else in the world. How is the Arctic changing and what do we know about how polar bears are responding? Dr. Karyn Rode, a Research Wildlife Biologist with the Alaska Science Center of the United States Geological Survey, will provide an overview of the life history of polar bears, their range throughout the Arctic and their evolutionary history. She'll discuss her research in the Chukchi Sea and what has been learned in recent years about how polar bears are responding to the rapidly changing Arctic.
Dr. Rode’s area of specialization is the nutritional and physiological ecology of large mammals, anthropogenic effects on large mammals and the population ecology of Ursidae (bears). She is a member of the Scientific Working Group of the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission and of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Polar Bear Specialist Group. She is a prolific researcher, having written for 49 publications. Her most recent article, written in cooperation with other researchers, is titled, “Habitat degradation affects the summer activity of polar bears.”
Dr. Rode earned a B.S. in Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Zoology at Washington State University.