Research Area: Biodiversity

Elizabeth Boulding

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The current rates of environmental change experienced by animal populations are higher than have been experienced over much of fossil record. My laboratory investigates the factors that determine whether a population will adapt to a change in the environment without going extinct. Our current projects are:
1) Invasion biology, comparing scales of local genetic adaptation to exotic predators by prey with high and low dispersal potential.
2) Genomic selection and genome wide association analysis of growth, shape, pathogen resistant and life history traits in Atlantic salmon populations.
3) Assessing heritable variation in biological control of the salmon louse by two species of cleaner fish and co-operative behaviour by their client, Atlantic salmon.

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Karl Cottenie

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In the next 5 years, I will shift my research strategy by consolidating 4 streams of my past research: temporal dynamics, host-symbiont interactions, small mammal metacommunity dynamics, and DNA-based species identification and bioinformatics. I will focus on a study system that combines my past strengths in metacommunity ecology at multiple scales, but will apply them to a novel system: microbial metacommunities nested within a matrix of metacommunity of different host species.

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Brian Husband

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My research program investigates the ecological and evolutionary processes operating in plant populations, both wild and domesticated. Much of our work is conducted through the lens of plant reproductive systems, which control the quantity and quality of sperm and eggs, patterns of mating, and ultimately the transmission of genetic variation from one generation to the next. Current research projects include: 1) mating system variation and evolution, 2) polyploid speciation, 3) genetic and phenotypic consequences of whole genome duplication; 4) biology of small populations, and 5) impacts of hybridization between introduced species and endangered congeners. We work on a variety of study systems, including Arabidopsis, apple, strawberry, fireweed, American chestnut, and mulberry.

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Cortland Griswold

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A current focus of our coalescent-based work is the development of models to support inferring historical processes that shape an ecological community, from genes to ecosystem processes. These models have applications across the domains of life, from microbial communities to grasslands. A corollary to this work is theory in support of the interpretation of metagenomic data. In the area of polyploid population genetics, our work is currently focusing on models of multilocus selection, with potential application to understanding the evolution of recombination rates and diploidization.

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M. Alex Smith

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In this lab, we work to better understand the contemporary distribution of hyperdiverse, and often cryptic, species of insects across major ecological gradients in tropical and temperate environments. Our research is built upon projects designed to explore the causes and consequences of biodiversity across elevational, latitudinal and disturbance gradients and builds on long-term collections using phylogenetic, functional and physiological measures. I am committed to teaching, and learning from, diverse individuals and scientists, participating in outreach, improving how we communicate science, and publishing accessible research and data.

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Kevin McCann

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Generally speaking, we are interested in understanding how biological structure, broadly defined to include structure of all biological forms, mitigates the stability and functioning of ecosystems. This question naturally leads to understanding how human impacts alter biological structure and so also how impacts may potentially alter the stability and functioning of whole ecosystems. This latter aspect of human impacts brings has our empirically motivated interests in developing practical biomonitoring techniques that span the ecological hierarchy. Our work is theoretical, empirical and experimental, and most often in aquatic ecosystems like streams, lakes and coastal oceans. We are highly collaborative and have worked globally on different ecosystems.

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