Community assembly and function in lake plankton

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The long term goals of my research program are to understand the distribution of, and interactions between, factors that influence community assembly and structure in lake plankton metacommunities. The research focuses on plankton because their structure and assembly are of primary importance for the functioning and services provided by lake ecosystems (e.g. recreational fisheries, water quality, invasive species spread). The first objective of the proposed research is to explore how changes to abiotic factors influence community structure in plankton. Specifically I will examine the role of the stability and type of thermal stratification within lakes. Research in marine systems has long focused on the role of physical mixing in the water column, uncovering its ability to influence the rates of contact and ecological interaction (competition, predation) between plankton individuals and species. I will examine these effects, which have been grossly understudied in lakes, by using a novel large-scale experimental approach to alter the normal pattern of mixing and thermocline formation. The second objective of the proposed research works to furthering our understanding of the mechanisms that drive community assembly in lake plankton by examining functional trait composition across gradients of lakes. Functional trait distributions shed insight into ecological factors affecting community assembly and are likely to be more relevant to community assembly than taxonomy alone. Overall, my research program furthers understanding of how plankton community structure relates to gradients of spatial structure (both within-lake and landscape-level), biotic challenge (invasive species) and biogeochemical factors (e.g. phosphorus, dissolved organic carbon).