The University of Tennessee will host its second Engagement and Outreach Conference October 29 in the Student Union Ballroom from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. This year’s theme is Partnering for Impact. Faculty will present on their community partnerships around such priority topics as health, housing, homelessness, substance abuse, education, and evaluation. Many of these challenges have been identified as critical in Knox County. The conference will also showcase UT projects and initiatives that help improve lives in the greater Knoxville area. The event is open to faculty, staff, students, and nonprofits. It is free but registration is required.

The effects of climate change in the tropics are manifesting as changes in species abundances, shifts in ranges, and changes in the timing of life history events, like fruiting and flowering of trees, according to a literature review published in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics and authored by a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professor.

Climate plays a major role in the distribution and abundance of species, and climate change will likely alter life in the tropics.

“One of the clearest signals of the impact of climate change in the tropics has been the upslope movement of a variety of species,” said Kimberly Sheldon, author of the review and assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “With warming, we would predict species would move toward higher elevations, and we see that tropical birds, moths, trees, and herpetofauna are all shifting upslope.”