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Macroecology in the Sunday Lab
We are a group of research associates, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate student researchers working on understanding species distributions and their responses to environmental change. We value enthusiasm and a commitment to learning, and share a philosophy of reproducible and open science. We challenge ourselves to rigorously address key questions in climate change biogeography. Interested in getting involved? See advice for prospective students.
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Post-docs
Jawad Sakarchi - Post Doc
Dr. Sakarchi is an evolutionary ecologist and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow based in McGill working in the Sunday lab and with Oscar Godoy's Messy Lab. Dr. Sakarchi hails from the research group of Dr. Rachel Germain at the Biodiversity Research Centre at UBC. Dr. Sakarchi's research focuses on competition and how it can bridge ecological processes with evolutionary patterns, focusing on competition within species. Jawad's website
Dr. Sakarchi is an evolutionary ecologist and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow based in McGill working in the Sunday lab and with Oscar Godoy's Messy Lab. Dr. Sakarchi hails from the research group of Dr. Rachel Germain at the Biodiversity Research Centre at UBC. Dr. Sakarchi's research focuses on competition and how it can bridge ecological processes with evolutionary patterns, focusing on competition within species. Jawad's website
Neha Acharya-Patel - Research Assistant
Dr. Acharya-Patel's research revolves around environmental genomics; particularly environmental DNA (eDNA) and its multitude of applications in the marine environment. We are so happy that Dr. Acharya-Patel is assisting the Sunday lab to meet FAIR guidelines and FAIR principles in our eDNA research practice. Neha's website
Dr. Acharya-Patel's research revolves around environmental genomics; particularly environmental DNA (eDNA) and its multitude of applications in the marine environment. We are so happy that Dr. Acharya-Patel is assisting the Sunday lab to meet FAIR guidelines and FAIR principles in our eDNA research practice. Neha's website
Graduate Students
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Jake Lawlor - PhD
Jake is studying how ocean currents, species traits, and climate change interact to shape species' distributions in coastal oceans. He plans to use time-series data across large spatial scales combined with hydrodynamic dispersal modeling to ask what kinds of organisms shift their distributional ranges in response to climate change, and under what conditions they do so. Jake is most interested in applying techniques in data science and computation to questions in ecology. (he/him) |
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Nikki Moore - PhD
Species are already shifting their range limits in response to climate warming. However, variation in the sensitivity of species ranges to warming indicates that the importance of temperature in restricting ranges varies, both between species and across the different edges of a range. I am interested in understanding the role that temperature plays in driving the geographic distribution of life by studying how and why the relationship between temperature and range limits differs interspecifically (between species) and geographically (across the edges of a species’ range). My other current research interests include understanding the ecological consequences of changes in climate variability, identifying drivers of intraspecific differences in thermal tolerance limits, and investigating the link between thermal safety and population decline. (she/her) |
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Erica Fellin - PhD
Erica is studying the advancement of ticks and Lyme disease in Quebec and the impacts on outdoor workers. Her work is geared to provide new information to guide risk modeling, surveillance prioritization, and preventative public health strategies in areas where outdoor workers might be exposed to blacklegged ticks and B. burgdorferi. |
Salvador Babinet - MSc Student
Salvador started in the Sunday Lab as an undergraduate researcher and will be rejoining as a MSc student in Fall of 2027. Salvador will be focussing on forecasting change in fish distributions in the North Eastern Pacific using data-driven methods supplied by the Pacific eDNA Coastal Observatory. Salvador's previous work focussed on understanding latitudinal gradients in species richness from eDNA surveys.
Salvador started in the Sunday Lab as an undergraduate researcher and will be rejoining as a MSc student in Fall of 2027. Salvador will be focussing on forecasting change in fish distributions in the North Eastern Pacific using data-driven methods supplied by the Pacific eDNA Coastal Observatory. Salvador's previous work focussed on understanding latitudinal gradients in species richness from eDNA surveys.
Lindsay Myhre - Undergraduate Research Assistant
Lindsay is studying how competitive outcomes changes with temperature using experimental microcosms. Can we predict the outcome of competition based a species' minimum resource requirement to support growth? Lindsay is working on it!
Lindsay is studying how competitive outcomes changes with temperature using experimental microcosms. Can we predict the outcome of competition based a species' minimum resource requirement to support growth? Lindsay is working on it!
Past lab members
Post-Doctoral Researchers and Research Associates
Dr. Eden Tekwa - G.Scholar - Power analysis for biodiversity change
Dr. Joey Bernhardt - website - Responses to temporally variable environments
Dr. Juan G. Rubalcaba website - Traits and thermoregulation in global ectotherms
Dr. David Hunt - LinkedIn - Data Synthesis education in Ecology and Evolution, Living Data Project CREATE
Dr. Joseph Burant - website - Data Synthesis education in Ecology and Evolution, Living Data Project CREATE
Dr. Sam Straus - LinkedIn - Data Synthesis education in Ecology and Evolution, Living Data Project CREATE
Dr. Eden Tekwa - G.Scholar - Power analysis for biodiversity change
Dr. Joey Bernhardt - website - Responses to temporally variable environments
Dr. Juan G. Rubalcaba website - Traits and thermoregulation in global ectotherms
Dr. David Hunt - LinkedIn - Data Synthesis education in Ecology and Evolution, Living Data Project CREATE
Dr. Joseph Burant - website - Data Synthesis education in Ecology and Evolution, Living Data Project CREATE
Dr. Sam Straus - LinkedIn - Data Synthesis education in Ecology and Evolution, Living Data Project CREATE
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Kate Sheridan - LinkedIn - Kate has just finished their PhD in the Sunday Lab, building the bioinformatics tools to study fish distributions over large spatial scales using eDNA metabarcoding from the Pacific eDNA Coastal Observatory. Kate asked how fish community assemblages and species ranges have changed across time and space, and found a major break in thermal affinities that coincided with the the biogeographic break at Point Conception, CA.
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MSc Students
Jory Griffith - LinkedIn - Urbanization weakens the latitudinal diversity gradient in birds
Ben Millard-Martin - LinkedIn - Beach seines and eDNA detect biodiversity at different scales
Julia Briand - LinkedIn - Temporal trait biodiversity change in coral reef communities
Danielle MacRae - Temporal trait biodiversity change in Atlantic fish communities
Jory Griffith - LinkedIn - Urbanization weakens the latitudinal diversity gradient in birds
Ben Millard-Martin - LinkedIn - Beach seines and eDNA detect biodiversity at different scales
Julia Briand - LinkedIn - Temporal trait biodiversity change in coral reef communities
Danielle MacRae - Temporal trait biodiversity change in Atlantic fish communities
Undergraduate student researches in the Sunday Lab
Undergraduate research experiences are a big deal in the Sunday Lab! We've had lots of great students come through our doors.
Undergraduate research experiences are a big deal in the Sunday Lab! We've had lots of great students come through our doors.
Anya Mueller - Patterns of fish and invertebrate biodiversity sampled using eDNA around Haida Gwaii
Alix Hourdin - Species interactions and warming experiments in microalgae
Gabriel Forest - Ground-truthing satellite-derived temperature data for inshore waters
Tessa Rehill - Do eDNA samples fish caught in mid-water trawls in BC?
Gaëlle Mével - Species interactions and warming experiments in microalgae
Clare Sanderson - Species traits related to dispersal at species range edges
Victor Cruz - Forecasting sea urchin population change in the NE Pacific
Brit Van Ameron - Systematic review of global species' range shifts
Nuha Anver Mohamed Rizan - Species interactions and warming experiments in microalgae
Sarah Gravel - Species traits related thermal range-filling in ectotherms
Alix Hourdin - Species interactions and warming experiments in microalgae
Gabriel Forest - Ground-truthing satellite-derived temperature data for inshore waters
Tessa Rehill - Do eDNA samples fish caught in mid-water trawls in BC?
Gaëlle Mével - Species interactions and warming experiments in microalgae
Clare Sanderson - Species traits related to dispersal at species range edges
Victor Cruz - Forecasting sea urchin population change in the NE Pacific
Brit Van Ameron - Systematic review of global species' range shifts
Nuha Anver Mohamed Rizan - Species interactions and warming experiments in microalgae
Sarah Gravel - Species traits related thermal range-filling in ectotherms
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