About
I am a community ecologist studying how seasonality – the regular and predictable rhythm of life – affects ecological and evolutionary dynamics from the organismal to the ecosystem level. Phenology and other adaptations to seasonality are shaped not only by the abiotic environment, but by the adaptation and co-adaptation of interacting species. My research focuses on how these interactions create an ecosystem’s biotic seasonal regime. Why do we observe different distributions of phenologies within and across groups? How do seasonal successional processes, variation between years, and evolutionary feedbacks shape these distributions? And what are their implications for food web structure, resilience, and diversity?
As a PhD candidate the Post lab at Yale University, I am studying these questions in lake insects and zooplankton, at scales from populations of a single species to global dynamics of zooplankton communities.
Petra Wakker 