Annabelle Fortin-Archambault
phd candidate

Understanding the processes underlying crustacean zooplankton ecological community composition in subarctic lakes
Annabelle is exploring the processes which drive the composition of zooplankton populations and communities in lakes in boreal regions. Her PhD includes deciphering the processes that structure metacommunities in three largely undisturbed regions of Quebec, and in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where there was severe arsenic pollution from mining activity in the latter half of the 20th century which left a gradient of arsenic concentration in lakes surrounding the city. She will also assess the changes in community composition through time in multiple lakes caused by the arsenic pollution in Yellowknife using paleolimnology methods. Finally, she will assess the evolutionary response of Daphnia pulex to arsenic pollution using a resurrection ecology approach. Annabelle is deeply interested in studying the ecological and evolutionary responses of freshwater organisms to anthropogenic disturbance.
Cosupervised with Irene Gregory-Eaves, Department of Biology, McGill