Laura Pollock
I’m an Assistant Professor in quantitative ecology at McGill University. My research addresses various topics in ecology, biogeography, and conservation, but I’m increasingly drawn to the pursuit of making sense of large-scale biodiversity patterns via statistical models. I’ve worked in a variety of places and continents- most recently in France with Wilfried Thuiller on a Marie Curie project CLEF ‘Conserving the Legacy of Evolution into the Future’. Before that in Australia at the University of Melbourne as part of the National Environmental Research Program (NERP Environmental Decisions Hub). And before that doing a PhD with Pete Vesk studying the coolest trees (eucalypts, in case you weren’t aware of that fact), and before that in lowland swamps and marshes of the Gulf of Mexico with Loretta Battaglia, and before that in my own backyard- the mountains of Wyoming with Kate Dwire.
Postdocs
Katherine Hébert
Katherine is a postdoc working on the testing and development of biodiversity indicators. Her PhD pointed to a number of considerations for ensuring robust trends for population-based metrics (e.g. Living Planet Index) and now she is broadening this outlook to other data- and model-based metrics. She is the scientific coordinator on our project recommending indicators for the Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs (MELCCFP). Read more.
Wenyuan Zhang
Wenyuan is a postdoc (co-supervised with Andy Gonzalez) with an interest in how connectivity impacts species movement, and how connectivity scales from habitat patches to entire regions. He is refining new methods for conservation scenarios (e.g. expanding protected areas) and indicators that integrate connectivity with Habitat and MELCCFP. See more here
Graduate Students
Janaína Serrano
Janaína is doing a PhD in conservation biogeography. She’s interested in how threats impact species distributions across the landscape, especially those related to climate and land-use change. She is currently comparing threat based on trait vulnerability assessments to climate change risk and population trends to identify species likely at risk but not currently listed. That and cultivating an enthusiasm for Canadian winter!
Isaac Eckert
Isaac is doing a PhD on the biogeography of Canadian species and is interested in the implications of the northern biodiversity paradox- climate projections indicate large increases in the diversity of many northern communities, but how realistic are these projections? which species might track their climate niche and why? How does a static reserve system match with the dynamic nature of expected climate change shifts? Isaac’s website
Dominique Caron
Dominique is doing a PhD on species interactions and trying to understand the set of circumstances that lead to different types of interactions, particularly those in food webs. He is building models that are able to predict interactions for species that don’t currently have empirical data available (most of them), and is interested in how species interactions might vary between clades or regions. Dom is also our resident expert on all things Montréal. Dom’s website.
Maximiliane Jousse
Max is doing a PhD project on developing and testing biodiversity indicators that account for seasonal fluctuations and species associations. She is starting with birds and trees of the northern temperate and boreal forests.
Julia McDowell
Julia is PhD student (co-supervised by David Mouillot) working on ecological and socio-economic networks in marine systems. She is using hydrodynamic networks and cultural and political considerations to understand connectivity in marine reserves and plan for their future.
Abbie Jones
Abbie is a PhD student (co-supervised with Brian Leung) working on advances in species distribution models that correct for spatial and taxonomic biases and that combine presence-only with presence-absence datasets.. and she’s doing lots of them (for tens of thousands of plant species!).
Noah Wightman
Noah is a PhD student (co-supervised with Brian Leung) working on integrative models that use different input data sources (presence-only, survey data, reserve species lists) to account for different types of bias in distribution and occupancy models. Currently, he is using survey data and simulations to figure out how to deal with correlated probabilities and the discrepancy between the scale at which we sample versus the scale at which we would like to make predictions.
Nina Obiar
Nina is a Msc student interested in the intersection of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Specifically, she is interested in whether typical biodiversity metrics are effective surrogates for ‘useful’ plants–those with historic or contemporary (or possible future) uses.
Samara Manzin
Samara is a Msc student (co-supervised with Andy Gonzalez) interested in how connectivity can be used in conservation planning in Québec. She is particularly interested in how traits combine to create movement eco-profiles.
Undergraduates/RAs
Phoebe Leung
Phoebe is an undergraduate research assistant in the lab who is working on amassing a large dataset of mammal diet interactions based upon an extensive (but undigitized) source.
Micah Pavlidis
Micah is doing an honours project on butterfly-plant associations in Canada and the implications for conservation planning.
Former lab members
Graduate students:
Louise O’Connor
Andrea Brown
Postdocs:
Joey Burant research page and twitter.
Undergraduates:
Darren Li
Camille Simon
Olivia St-Laurent
Quantitative Biodiversity Lab 