"Landscape Conservation for Rare Insects!"

That's the title of a seminar to be hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology on Wednesday, Jan. 23. 

Nick Haddad, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Biology at North Carolina State University (NCSU), Raleigh, N.C., will speak from 12:10 to 1 p.m., in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Addition, corner of Hutchison and Kleiber Hall drives. Pollination ecologist Neal Williams, assistant professor of entomology, will introduce him.

The seminar promises to be riveting. 

"I will discuss studies of landscape approaches and how they may be used to conserve rare insects, focusing on rare butterflies," Haddad said. "In one experiment, we are studying how landscape corridors may be used to increase insect dispersal and population viability.  In a second experiment, we are asking whether habitat restoration creates population sources, or instead creates unintended population sinks for rare butterflies.  These experimental approaches that consider mechanisms of dispersal and demography can be used to inform large scale conservation and restoration in a changing world." 

One of his endangered subjects, found only in North Carolina, is a brown butterfly, Saint Francis satyr (Neonympha mitchellii francisci). See the photo below by Melissa McGaw.

Haddad recently launched a new website, Conservation Corridor, aimed at connecting science to conservation.

Haddad received his doctorate in ecology from the University of Georgia in 1997, and his bachelor's degree in biology, with honors, from Stanford University in 1991. He served as a researcher in the Guatemala Program, Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University, from 1990 to 1997, and as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota from 1997-1999 before joining the the North Carolina State University faculty in 1999.

He advanced from assistant professor of zoology to associate professor of biology to professor of biology. In between, he headed west to UC Davis to become a sabbatical scholar, hosted by Marcel Holyoak, from 2006-2007.

Haddad has published his work in Conservation Biology, Journal of Insect Conservation, Ecology, Ecology Letters,Conservation Genetics, PLoS ONE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Population Ecology, Science, and Ecography, among others.  

Assistant professors Brian Johnson and Joanna Chiu are coordinating the Department of Entomology's winter seminars. All the winter seminars are being video-recorded under the direction of James R. Carey and will be posted at a later date on UCTV.

Meanwhile, there's lots of good information on his Conservation Corridor website. You can also "like" his Conservation Corridor Facebook page.