Eco-evolutionary interactions along landscape gradients in carbon and nutrients

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The long-term goal of my research program is to reveal interactions between ecology and evolution that are important for maintaining biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems. I will do this in a landscape context that considers heterogeneous habitats and dispersal connections. The research focuses on zooplankton because they are important for energy and biomass flow in aquatic food webs. The first objective of the proposed research is to compare patterns in community and genetic diversity across freshwater landscape gradients in carbon, nutrients and latitude that span regions impacted by agriculture and logging. My students and I will do field surveys to compare the spatial distribution of genetic and phenotypic diversity in stoichiometric traits (carbon:phosphorus-ratios) among populations and communities. Little work to date has been done to understand how landscape-level diversity in populations and communities are related. This is a critical step in moving towards understanding how these levels of biological organization interact with one another (eco-evolutionary interactions). The second objective of the proposed research is to understand the ecological consequences of evolutionary diversity in population traits related to ecological stoichiometry on communities and ecosystems. We will do field and laboratory experiments to test for these effects on competitive interactions in zooplankton metacommunities and on trophic cascades in freshwater ecosystems. Overall, my research program contributes an evolutionary perspective to our understanding of mechanisms underlying shifts in biodiversity in our rapidly changing world. The proposed research is at the forefront of eco-evolutionary work because it will consider how evolution can influence ecological processes. Our approach is unique because we will use stoichiometric traits that are directly linked to energy flow in freshwater ecosystems to address interactions between ecology and evolution. The proposed studies will provide a platform for a long-term research program on the role of evolution in functional resilience to environmental perturbations in aquatic ecosystems.