McGill University
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Irene Gregory-Eaves
Beatrix Beisner
Start: 2012-01-01
End: 2016-06-01

Project

Planktonic biodiversity patterns along gradients of multiple stressors and disturbance histories: integration of paleoecology and molecular techniques
Biodiversity and environmental change are two prevalent topics, both in the field of ecology as well as society. While globally there is an impressive network of long-term ecological monitoring sites, their monitored area represents a miniscule proportion of the Earth’s surface. Furthermore they are often non-existent in areas of significant anthropogenic stress (for example in areas heavily developed for resource extraction). Paleolimnology studies can offer unique insights into when, where and how freshwater communities have experienced past change and have significant predictive power. This thesis will examine themes of metacommunities, biodiversity, functional ecology and temporal scales to ask questions related to the impact of anthropogenic stressors on both past and present plankton biodiversity patterns. The inclusion of large datasets and molecular methods enhances the relevance of this work and provides increased power when generating and testing ecological hypotheses.

Keywords

diatoms, diapause, dispersal, land-use, Latitude, Paleolimnology

Publications

1- The terminology of metacommunity ecology
Winegardner, Amanda K., Brittany K. Jones, Ingrid S.Y. Ng, Tadeu Siqueira, Karl Cottenie
2012 Trends in Ecology & Evolution

2- Insights into biodiversity sampling strategies for freshwater microinvertebrate faunas through bioblitz campaigns and DNA barcoding
Laforest, Brandon J, Amanda K Winegardner, Omar A Zaheer, Nicholas W Jeffery, Elizabeth E Boyle, Sarah J Adamowicz
2013 BMC Ecology