Duane Chapman, a research biologist who is a national leader in efforts to study, control and prevent the spread of Asian carp, will deliver a free, public lecture in St. Paul on Oct. 8.
Chapman edited two books, published by the American Fisheries Society, on invasive Asian carp and the threats they pose to native fish and other aquatic life, and he has given more than 100 presentations on Asian carp and other invasive species.
He is a recent past president of the Introduced Fish Section of the American Fisheries Society, and Chair of Research and Risk Assessment for the Mississippi River Basin Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species. He led the drafting of the “Control” section of the National Plan for management of Asian carps, and was the science lead for the United States in the Binational Risk Assessment for Asian Carps in the Great Lakes.
Chapman’s lecture, titled “The Biology and Management of Asian Carp: Lessons for Minnesota,” will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, in the Student Center theater of the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus. The Student Center is at 2017 Buford Ave., St. Paul.
The lecture is sponsored by the Freshwater Society, the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences, the Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center at the university, and the university’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.
Chapman’s presentation will be the 12th lecture on water and the environment in a speaker series that honors the late Malcolm Moos, a former university president.
Chapman, who lives and works in Missouri, has researched four Asian carp species – bighead, black, grass and silver — that have spread up the Mississippi River and its tributaries since they escaped or were released from fish farms on the lower Mississippi. He will offer a short history of the Asian carp invasion of the United States, discuss their biology, and describe how it drives their effects on environments they invade. He will discuss options, including emerging technologies, for control of the invasion.
A panel of Minnesota experts, led by Dr. Peter Sorensen, the scientific director of the Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center, will appear with Chapman and join him in taking questions from the lecture audience.