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Earth’s Biodiversity: Its Origins, Impacts and Potential Fate
Seminar followed by Q&A and drinks – all welcome – join in person or online
The amazing diversity of life on Earth is the direct result of evolutionarily unavoidable tradeoffs that all life has faced since the Cambrian explosion. Because of such tradeoffs, new species coexisted with, and did not displace, established species. These same tradeoffs explain why greater diversity leads to increases in ecosystem productivity and stability, carbon capture and storage, water quality, soil fertility, and resistance to invasive species. Humans, the only species to escape these tradeoffs, caused waves of extinctions during the past 50K years. In this, the final period of rapid increases in human population and income, the prevention of further extinctions will require major changes to agriculture, diets and energy sources and usage.
Biography
David Tilman is Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, and Distinguished Professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California Santa Barbara. Tilman is an ecologist whose long-term experiments and related mathematical theory were the first to show that biodiversity is a major determinant of ecosystem stability, productivity, carbon storage and susceptibility to invasion. His recent work focuses on ways to protect and preserve biodiversity by improving agriculture and diets.
He is a member of the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society. Awards include the International Prize for Biology, the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, the Balzan Prize, the BBVA Foundation’s Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the Asahi Foundation’s Blue Planet Prize, and in 2025, the United States National Medal of Science.
He is deeply interested in the interface of science, society, ethics and environmental policy, and has communicated the benefits of scientifically-based solutions to major environmental problems with the public, politicians, and media. He has given expert invited testimony to Congressional committees and served on several White House scientific advisory committees.
David Tilman, whose Ph. D. was from the University of Michigan in 1976, has written two books, edited four books, and published more than 375 scientific papers, including more than 40 papers in Nature and Science.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery/Biodiversity Network, or its researchers.
Date:
21 October 2025, 16:15
Venue:
Dyson Perrins Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QY
Venue Details:
Main lecture theatre (1st floor, lift available)
Speaker:
David Tilman (University of Minnesota)
Organising department:
Environmental Change Institute
Organisers:
Carlyn Samuel (University of Oxford),
Jane Applegarth (University of Oxford, Oxford University Centre for the Environment)
Organiser contact email address:
biodiversity@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Yadvinder Malhi (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and the Biodiversity Network seminar series
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://bookwhen.com/oxfordbiodiversitynetwork
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Public
Editors:
Jane Applegarth,
Carlyn Samuel
