The role of eco-evolutionary dynamics in modulating the effects of environmental change in aquatic food webs

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The unprecedented loss of species as a result of climate change and other human-induced disturbance presents an urgent need to incorporate adaptive evolutionary resilience, through evolution and phenotypic plasticity, into our understanding of ecological processes and vice versa (`eco-evolutionary dynamics`). Two major knowledge gaps that are key to understanding eco-evolutionary dynamics in relation to environmental change are A) climate-mediated effects of food webs on evolution and plasticity in space and time (linking ecology to evolution) and B) the ecological consequences of phenotypic plasticity in food webs (linking evolution to ecology). My proposed research will address each of these objectives by developing the unexplored interface between food web ecology and evolutionary biology (genomics, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity). My students and I will work at two climate scales: a coarse latitudinal scale from the Boreal to the Arctic and at a fine temporal scale to address the understudied effects of fluctuating temperature in the absence of biogeographical confounds. We will focus on adaptation and phenotypic plasticity in copepods and brook trout because of their broad northern distribution and abundance, and their potential ecological significance in relation to climate change. I will train 2 PhD, 3 MSc, and 10 BSc students who will receive unique combinations of empirical and conceptual skills. Our multi-faceted tool box will include food web metrics (fatty acids), genomics (next-generation sequencing of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)), quantitative genetics of performance traits (temperature tolerance, somatic growth, body size, and fecundity), field experiments, and large scale comparative studies of ecosystem function. An empirical intersection between food web ecology and evolutionary biology does not exist, and my research program will advance fundamental knowledge in ecology and evolution at this unexplored interface. Quantifying copepod landscape genomic structure, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity across gradients in the rate of climate-driven ecological change will inform us of evolutionary resilience in organisms coping with climate change at the base of aquatic food webs. Phenotypic plasticity may play a previously unrecognized yet significant role in modulating the consequences of rapid environmental change on the functioning of food webs. Maintaining the integrity of Canada's aquatic ecosystems is an increasingly difficult task under global change and other anthropogenic activities. My research program responds to Canadian needs for HQP that are trained to face the global challenges that threaten the sustenance of freshwater ecosystems through integrative approaches from genes to ecosystems.