Climate Change Impacts on the Structure and Function of Lake Plankton Communities

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Some of the most critical anthropogenic challenges to lake ecosystems are global climate warming, land-use changes to lake watersheds and enhanced dispersal of planktonic organisms, including exotic species. Such challenges provide "natural experiments" which allow ecologists to explore the basic questions of how communities are structured and how ecosystem function is related to this structure. Focusing in particular on climate change effects, I am proposing to examine more specifically, which ecosystem features are most critical for plankton community structure and in turn, how altered community structure influences lake ecosystem function. My approach invoves examining such questions at the within-lake scale as well as by taking advantage of cross-lake comparisons and landscape-level features affecting lakes. Also, I am interested in a variety of metrics for assessing community structure by explicitly considering aspects of composition and diversity from both taxonomic and functional perspectives. Moreover, I will explore both the richness and evenness components of diversity. A major weakness in research that has examined the link between community structure (biodiversity) and ecosystem function to date is that little to no work has been done in natural situations, nor with animal organisms. My proposed research will therefore fill a critical knowledge gap by assessing important indicators of food web and ecosystem cycling and rates in lake phytoplankton and zooplankton. Research will involve time series and landscape-level observations, short-term container experiments, as well as larger scale experiments. Advanced statistical modelling will enable us to tease apart the mechanisms driving particular commmunity and ecosystem changes.