At JAE we’re taking the opportunity to showcase our wonderful Editorial Board by chatting to our Editors about research, what it’s like to be an editor, and their advice to prospective authors.

Editor Profile

What do you study and why did you choose to study this particular area?

When I started graduate school in the early 1990s, I made a discovery that changed my life. I was conducting a survey of benthic invertebrates in the St Lawrence River near Montreal, when I found a small striped mollusk attached to a rock. It was my first encounter with the zebra mussel, which was destined to become one of the most ecologically disruptive invaders ever seen in North America. I was amazed at how such a species can suddenly appear in—and ultimately dominate—communities in a region located thousands of kilometres beyond its natural range. This event inspired me to explore the world of invasion ecology: the study of the causes and consequences of nonnative species introductions. I began this exploration by reading Charles Elton’s famous monograph The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. Since then, I have viewed biological invasions as a unique form of human-driven global change that has profoundly transformed biodiversity and entire ecosystems.

What are the questions in ecology that you hope to address in your research?

The most basic questions that drive my research are: 1) Why are some introduced species more successful and more impactful invaders than others? 2) Why do the impacts of invaders vary across time and space? and 3) Why are some ecosystems more vulnerable to being altered by invasion? I examine these questions using lakes and rivers as model systems.

What is one of the biggest challenges you have faced in your career?

The biggest challenge to developing a predictive understanding of invasions and their impacts is that they are highly context dependent. The outcome of an invasion is largely influenced by local environmental variables, which makes forecasting across ecosystems very difficult. However, much progress has been made on this front over the past 30 years.

What are your future directions of research?

I am fascinated by synergistic interactions between invasions and other stressors like climate change. My lab is studying how invader performance and impacts vary under current and projected future warming scenarios.  A new wave of invasions is occurring under climate change, and the synergies involved will pose tremendous challenges for ecologists to understand, predict, and manage.

Why are you an Associate Editor?

One thing that attracted me to the JAE was that its founding editor was Charles Elton, whose writings about animal ecology and invasive species have greatly influenced my career. 

As an Associate Editor, one tries to promote cutting-edge research that will move the field forward; but recognizing what is truly ‘cutting edge’ can be difficult. A frequent challenge is to recruit scientists with the appropriate expertise to review a paper. People are so overwhelmed with work that they feel they must turn down requests to do peer review.  I think that, over time, we will increasingly rely upon early career researchers, including postdocs and senior graduate students, as reviewers. Those that participate will gain valuable experience.

What are some of the mistakes that you see in papers? How might these be addressed by submitting authors?

To be accepted in the JAE, a paper must inform broad ecological principles in novel ways—while not exaggerating or overextrapolation the implications of its results. A common pitfall is to inadequately demonstrate the novelty of a study. A strong Introduction and Discussion should place the research question convincingly in the broader context and clarify the value of their model system without overselling it.  

What submissions would you like to see more of?

Well, of course I’m biased, but I would like to see more studies of freshwater invertebrates, especially benthic taxa. These are very useful model organisms for studying concepts such as facilitation, disturbance, dispersal, trophic cascades, and the relationship between diversity and ecosystem function, among others. In addition, think it would be appropriate for a journal that was founded by Elton to publish more studies on the dynamics and impacts of invasive animal populations.

What would you say are some of the biggest challenges in wider ecological research?

A major challenge is to develop a predictive understanding of the effects of overlapping stressors on ecological communities. For example, a combination of multiple invasive species, elevated water temperatures, and nutrient pollution has been implicated in outbreaks of avian botulism causing recurring die-offs of waterfowl in the North American Great Lakes. These types of synergies are difficult to study and even more challenging to predict, but they could occur in greater frequency as certain stressors (invasion rates, climate warming) increase in magnitude. I anticipate a burgeoning growth of studies in ‘multiple stressor ecology’ in the coming years.

Another challenge is the increasing deficit of taxonomic expertise, as a consequence of a worldwide erosion of training in systematics across taxa. There’s good reason to believe that this deficit is not adequately compensated by molecular techniques. Consequently, we increasingly lack the capacity to distinguish non-native and native species; thus, we risk underestimating rates of invasion and extinction, and erroneously attributing impacts of invasions to other causes. More generally, understanding the processes that determine patterns of diversity, abundance, and distribution of organisms requires confidence in the accuracy of species identifications. To address this problem, universities and government agencies must take a leadership role in training. I believe students and other early career researchers would embrace opportunities to learn how to better recognize biodiversity. 

You can view the full Journal of Animal Ecology Editorial Board here.