Dr. Gregor Fussmann
The Fussmann Lab, McGill University How plankton interacts with the environment – and what happens if it doesn’t As a freshwater and evolutionary ecologist, I study the population dynamics and the evolutionary adaptation of plankton communities. With accelerating climate change, there is a need to understand the ecological and evolutionary responses of complex plankton communities in lakes and oceans. I will present the results of mesocosm experiments that have investigated the effects of rising CO2 and temperature. These factors play a particular role in lake ecosystems because CO2 is taken up by phytoplankton for photosynthesis and changing temperature affects the liquid water phase but also the duration of ice cover. Plankton communities in the wild always interact with their environment, but it is also necessary to gain an understanding of the baseline dynamics that occur when there is “no environment.” In this vein, I will present an alternative experimental approach, which attempts to shut out external environmental factors. In microcosm experiments we explored whether plankton predator-prey cycles can be sustained over long periods of time, as suggested by classical ecological models. Comments are closed.
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April 2024
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