Alison Derry

Université du Québec à Montréal | UQAM · Department of Biological Sciences

Microbes play a critical role in plant litter decomposition and influence the fate of carbon in rivers and riparian zones. When decomposing low‐nutrient plant litter, microbes acquire nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from the environment (i.e., nutrient immobilization), and this process is potentially sensitive to nutrient loading and changing clima...

Human-induced salinization increasingly threatens inland waters; yet we know little about the multifaceted response of lake communities to salt contamination. By conducting a coordinated mesocosm experiment of lake salinization across 16 sites in North America and Europe, we quantified the response of zooplankton abundance and (taxonomic and functi...

Time Since Invasion (TSI) at invaded sites is an important factor that can moderate invasive species abundances and their ecological impacts on resident communities, and yet it remains rarely addressed by invasion studies. We revisit the ecological impacts of round goby invasion in the Upper St. Lawrence River (Canada) on macroinvertebrate and fish...

Understanding the drivers of successful species invasions is important for conserving native biodiversity and for mitigating the economic impacts of introduced species. However, whole-genome resolution investigations of the underlying contributions of neutral and adaptive genetic variation in successful introductions are rare. Increased propagule p...

In nature, populations are subjected to a wide variety of environmental conditions that affect fitness and induce adaptive or plastic responses in traits, resulting in phenotypic divergence between populations. The dimensionality of that divergence, however, remains contentious. At the extremes, some contend that populations diverge along a single...

Research has demonstrated consistent positive correlations between organism abundance and absolute environmental DNA (eDNA) concentrations. Robust correlations in laboratory experiments indicate strong functional links, suggesting the potential for eDNA to monitor organism abundance in nature. However, correlations between absolute eDNA concentrati...

The nutritional diversity of resources can affect the adaptive evolution of consumer metabolism and consumer diversification. The omega-3 long-chain polyun-saturated fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; 20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; 22:6n-3) have a high potential to affect consumer fitness, through their widespread effects on reproduct...

Beaulieu J, Trépanier-Leroux D, Fischer JM, Olson MH, Thibodeau S, Humphries S, Fraser DJ, Derry AM. 2021. Rotenone for exotic trout eradication: nontarget impacts on aquatic communities in a mountain lake. Lake Reserv Manage. XX:XXX–XXX. Rotenone is widely used in lake and reservoir management for the eradication of exotic fish. However, nontarget...

Rotenone is widely used in lake and reservoir management for the eradication of exotic fish. However, nontarget effects of rotenone on freshwater organisms such as zooplankton and macroinvertebrates are of concern because of the ecological importance of these organisms in aquatic food webs as a resource base for fish, especially when rotenone is ap...

When restoring gene flow for conservation management, genetic variation should be viewed along a continuum of genetic divergence between donor and recipient populations. On the one hand, maintaining local adaptation (low divergence between donors and recipients) can enhance conservation success in the short term. On the other hand, reducing local a...

Abstract Spatial environmental gradients can promote adaptive differences among conspecific populations as a result of local adaptation or phenotypic plasticity. Such divergence can be opposed by various constraints, including gene flow, limited genetic variation, temporal fluctuations, or developmental constraints. We focus on the constraint that...

Current advancements in environmental RNA (eRNA) exploit its relatively fast turnover rate relative to environmental DNA (eDNA) to assess ‘metabolically active’ or temporally/spatially recent community diversity. However, this focus significantly underutilizes the trove of potential ecological information encrypted in eRNA. Here, we argue for pushi...

Refuges that result from environmental heterogeneity within ecosystems have an important yet under-appreciated role in maintaining native community diversity in face of exotic invasion. The objective of our study was to determine if different refuge types constrain invasion impacts on native biodiversity at the whole ecosystem-scale of the Upper St...

Freshwater salinization is a widespread issue, but evidence of ecological effects on aquatic communities remains scarce. We experimentally exposed salt‐naive plankton communities of a north‐temperate, freshwater lake to a gradient of chloride (Cl−) concentration (0.27–1400 mg Cl L−1) with in situ mesocosms. Following 6 weeks, we measured changes in...

Theory predicts that population genetic structure and metacommunity structure are linked by the common processes of drift and migration, but how population genetic structure and metacommunity structure are related in nature is still unknown. Deeper understanding of the processes influencing both genetic and community diversity is vital for better p...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) concentration exhibits a positive correlation with organism abundance in nature, but modeling this relationship could be substantially improved by incorporating the biology of eDNA production. A recent model (Molecular Ecology, 10.1111/mec.15543) extended models of physiological allometric scaling to eDNA production, hypoth...

Organism abundance is a critical parameter in ecology, but its estimation is often challenging. Approaches utilizing eDNA to indirectly estimate abundance have recently generated substantial interest. However, preliminary correlations observed between eDNA concentration and abundance in nature are typically moderate in strength with significant une...

Organism abundance is a critical parameter in ecology, but its estimation is often challenging. Approaches utilizing eDNA to indirectly estimate abundance have recently generated substantial interest. However, preliminary correlations observed between eDNA concentration and abundance in nature are typically moderate in strength with significant une...

Evolutionary approaches are gaining popularity in conservation science, with diverse strategies applied in efforts to support adaptive population outcomes. Yet conservation strategies differ in the type of adaptive outcomes they promote as conservation goals. For instance, strategies based on genetic or demographic rescue implicitly target adaptive...

Maladaptation is widespread in natural populations. However, maladaptation has most often been associated with absolute population decline in local habitats rather than on a spectrum of relative fitness variation that can assist natural populations in their persistence at larger regional scales. We report results from a field experiment that tested...

Evolutionary biologists have long trained their sights on adaptation, focusing on the power of natural selection to produce relative fitness advantages while often ignoring changes in absolute fitness. Ecologists generally have taken a different tack, focusing on changes in abundance and ranges that reflect absolute fitness while often ignoring rel...

The use of eDNA to detect the presence/absence of rare or invasive species is well documented and its use in biodiversity monitoring is expanding. Preliminary laboratory research has also shown a positive correlation between the concentration of species‐specific eDNA particles and the density/biomass of a species in a given environment. However, th...

River ecosystems receive and process vast quantities of terrestrial organic carbon, the fate of which depends strongly on microbial activity. Variation in and controls of processing rates, however, are poorly characterized at the global scale. In response, we used a peer-sourced research network and a highly standardized carbon processing assay to...

River ecosystems receive and process vast quantities of terrestrial organic carbon, the fate of which depends strongly on microbial activity. Variation in and controls of processing rates, however, are poorly characterized at the global scale. In response, we used a peer-sourced research network and a highly standardized carbon processing assay to...

River ecosystems receive and process vast quantities of terrestrial organic carbon, the fate of which depends strongly on microbial activity. Variation in and controls of processing rates, however, are poorly characterized at the global scale. In response, we used a peer-sourced research network and a highly standardized carbon processing assay to...

River ecosystems receive and process vast quantities of terrestrial organic carbon, the fate of which depends strongly on microbial activity. Variation in and controls of processing rates, however, are poorly characterized at the global scale. In response, we used a peer-sourced research network and a highly standardized carbon processing assay to...

We tested if there was a difference in mass-specific excretion rate between two genetically size-divergent brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) populations that can be accounted for by genetic/maternal factors. We conducted laboratory-based common garden experimentation using F1 generation fish, with five to seven families per population at two ages...

We applied essential fatty acids as a biomarker to experimentally test the effects of a fish-mediated trophic cascade on calanoid copepod nutritional state and functional traits in north-temperate freshwater ponds. A whole-pond experiment was conducted where young-of-the-year brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) were introduced into three natural, f...

Evolutionarily-informed approaches in conservation typically focus on fostering adaptive responses to human modified environments. Goals guiding such approaches are generally aimed either at maintaining optimal traits (i.e. conservation for an adaptive state) or increasing adaptive potential (i.e. conservation for an adaptive process). When viewed...

The lakes surrounding the iron-ore mining region of Schefferville, Québec, Canada sit within a landscape of historical disturbances, two of which have been relatively well documented over time: metal contamination and nutrient loading. Based on the analysis of sediment cores, we used cladoceran zooplankton subfossil assemblages from two lakes locat...

Theoretical work has shown that spatial landscape context can contribute to reducing local adaptation in populations depending on the spatial pattern of environmental heterogeneity, the spatial scale of distances between habitats on landscapes, and the level of habitat connectivity. However, only a handful of empirical studies have addressed the im...

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are primarily generated by phytoplankton in aquatic ecosystems, and can limit the growth, development, and reproduction of higher consumers. Among the most critical of the EFAs are highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs), which are only produced by certain groups of phytoplankton. Changing environmental conditions can al...

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are primarily generated by phytoplankton in aquatic ecosystems, and can limit the growth, development, and reproduction of higher consumers. Among the most critical of the EFAs are highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs), which are only produced by certain groups of phytoplankton. Changing environmental conditions can al...

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are primarily generated by phytoplankton in aquatic ecosystems, and can limit the growth, development, and reproduction of higher consumers. Among the most critical of the EFAs are highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs), which are only produced by certain groups of phytoplankton. Changing environmental conditions can al...

Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are photoheterotrophic prokaryotes that use light as a secondary energy source to complement the consumption of organic matter. Despite this metabolic flexibility and their widespread distribution, their low relative abundances suggest that they may be subjected to strong regulatory processes. However,...

Humic stress is associated with the widespread and ongoing browning of lakes. Natural landscape gradients in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) potentially result in aquatic communities with different tolerances to humic substances and thus expected contrasting responses to further lake browning.If zooplanktonic species are adapted to different backgro...

Methanogenesis has traditionally been assumed to occur only in anoxic environments, yet there is mounting, albeit indirect, evidence of methane (CH4) production in oxic marine and freshwaters. Here we present the first direct, ecosystem-scale demonstration of methanogenesis in oxic lake waters. This methanogenesis appears to be driven by acetoclast...

Ten years after DNA barcoding was initially suggested as a tool to identify species, millions of barcode sequences from more than one hundred thousand species are available in public databases. While several papers have reviewed the methods and potential applications of DNA barcoding, most have focused on species identification and discovery, and r...

Native species might be able to persist in the face of a detrimental exotic invader by occupying refuge habitats where the exotic is not successful. These refuges might then provide demographic subsidies that enhance persistence of the native species in areas of coexistence with the exotic species. Phenotypic plasticity of the native species could...

One of the greatest threats to the biotic integrity of native aquatic communities over contemporary time scales is the invasion and rapid geographic spread of exotic species. Whereas dispersal rates of exotic species are documented to affect invasion success, few studies acknowledge the role of dispersal in both exotic and native species in mediati...

Evolutionary relationships within the phylum Rotifera are poorly understood despite the important role that they play in freshwater ecosystems. Phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences from two mitochondrial genes, 16S rDNA and cytochrome oxidase I (COI), were employed to examine the extent of genetic divergence within populations of several common t...

Evolutionary relationships within the phylum Rotifera are poorly understood despite the important role that they play in freshwater ecosystems. Phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences from two mitochondrial genes, 16S rDNA and cytochrome oxidase I (COI), were employed to examine the extent of genetic divergence within populations of several common t...

Although salinity and aquatic biodiversity are inversely related in lake water, the relationship between types of salts and zooplankton communities is poorly understood. In this study, zooplankton species were related to environmental variables from 12 lakes: three saline lakes with water where the dominant anions were SO4 and CO3, four saline lake...

Functional diversities of microorganisms in arctic soil samples at three incubation temperatures were assessed using sole-carbon-source-utilization (SCSU). Soil samples from four sites were collected from the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils. Microorganisms were extracted from samples and inoculated into ECO-Biolog plates and incubated at 4, 1...

We conducted a systematic study of soils and vegetation present at Amaqquaksaat on Igloolik Island, Nunavut, a site occupied by Dorset and Thule people prior to 1823 and probably for over a thousand years. We compared this site to an area affected by ongoing mammal and bird activity and an area of relatively unfertilized polar semidesert. At these...

Functional diversities of micro-organisms in arctic soils at three incubation temperatures were assessed using sole-carbon-source-utilization (SCSU). Soil samples were collected from an area of anthropogenic fertilization (mixed Dorset/Thule/Historic site), an area of animal enrichment (bird rock perches), and unaltered tundra (raised beach; contro...

Functional diversities of microorganisms from uncontaminated and creosote-contaminated soils were assessed using sole-carbon source-utilization patterns. The microorganisms were extracted from soil samples and inoculated into Gram-negative Biolog plates incubated at 23C. Measurement of Shannon diversity, richness, and evenness indices, principal co...

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Environmental Biology and Ecology, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta. Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2001. Includes bibliographical references. Microfiche.