Postdoc, PhD

Erin S. Dunlop

·Research Interests    ·Biography    ·Collaborators    ·My Publications

Erin Dunlop is now a Research Scientist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources in Canada.

Research Interests

Evolution is the underlying process shaping the world’s biota. Humans have significantly altered the environment and our activities have exerted tremendous selective forces on living resources. Harvest is one of these activities and has the potential to cause rapid evolutionary change in a variety of important traits and behaviours. Unfortunately, fisheries science has been slow to acknowledge the occurrence or importance of harvest-induced evolution; one reason is that genetic changes are believed by many to occur over extremely long timescales. It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that evolution can unfold in only a few generations, a timescale that is relevant ecologically and that should make evolutionary change a concern to managers of exploited populations.

My research examines the interacting ecological and evolutionary impacts of humans on fish populations and aquatic communities. I use a combined empirical and theoretical approach to study those processes which scale from genes to populations and the aim of my research is to bring an evolutionary perspective to fisheries science in particular, and to resource management in general.

My research interests focus on four areas:

(1) Modeling contemporary evolution
(2) Assessment and management of evolving resources
(3) The interplay among evolution, ecology, and space
(4) Smallmouth bass life history

(1) Modeling contemporary evolution

In collaboration with Dr. Mikko Heino and Dr. Ulf Dieckmann, I have been developing the eco-genetic modeling approach. The goal of this modeling approach is to follow the evolution of quantitative life-history traits in an ecologically rich setting. In an eco-genetic model, the ecological and evolutionary timescales are fully intertwined so that the rate, transients, magnitude, and endpoints of evolution can be examined. The genetic component of eco-genetic models includes the quantitative inheritance, heritable variation, and phenotypic expression of life-history traits. The ecological setting of an eco-genetic model includes density and frequency-dependence, phenotypic plasticity, and the explicit modeling of processes including individual growth, maturation, reproduction, inheritance, and mortality. An example eco-genetic model can be found in Dunlop et al. (2007).

Eco-genetic models are particularly suited to studying fisheries-induced evolution because they are tightly coupled with the type of empirical data available for many fish populations, they can be used to follow the evolution of multiple life-history traits (e.g., genetic determinants of growth, maturation tendency, reproductive effort), and they can be used to predict the effects of alternative management measures on the traits, recruitment processes, and population dynamics of exploited stocks.

(2) The assessment and management of evolving resources

Although there are a growing number of studies examining fisheries-induced evolution, it is not clear what management actions should be taken to mitigate these evolutionary effects. In many cases, the most effective management actions will depend on a variety of factors including the nature of the fishery, the history of exploitation of the stock, and the life-history characteristics of a stock.

(3) The interplay among evolution, ecology, and space

Spatial processes interact with eco-evolutionary dynamics to influence many factors such as the population dynamics, bioenergetics, species interactions, economy, and management of living resources. However, while the study of eco-evolutionary dynamics is beginning to grow, research on the interplay of these dynamics with spatial processes is still in its infancy.

Space is of obvious importance to species that undergo migrations. Preliminary research indicates that harvest influences the evolution of residency in salmonids (Thériault et al. 2008) and the evolution of migration distance in Northeast Arctic cod (Jørgensen et al. In press). The efficacy of marine protected areas will also depend on the interplay between evolution and space and on the bio-economic impacts of fisheries-induced evolution.

(4) Smallmouth bass life history

My PhD thesis used the smallmouth bass as a study species for examining the processes governing life history variation in freshwater fish. I continue to be interested in this fascinating species. The smallmouth bass shows paternal nest-guarding: after spawning the male remains for up to 6 weeks to guard the young brood as it develops. The presence of parental care favours large body size in male parents, a selective force which can alter the evolutionary response to harvest (Dunlop et al. 2007). The range of smallmouth bass has been expanding northwards (Dunlop and Shuter 2006), disrupting native species assemblages (Jackson 2002). As the species invades new lakes and streams, differences in local environments drive divergence through phenotypic plasticity and genetic adaptation (Dunlop et al. 2005a,b; 2007). The smallmouth bass is also an important recreational species and faces pressures from the expansion of double-crested cormorants (Lantry et al. 2002) and the invasion of round gobies (Steinhart et al. 2008) in the Great Lakes.

Biography

I completed a Bachelor of Science degree in 1999 at the University of Guelph, Canada and completed my Ph.D. in 2005 at the University of Toronto, Canada. My Ph.D. research examined the patterns and processes of life history variation in harvested freshwater fish. During my Ph.D., I was supervised by Dr. Brian Shuter (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources) and Dr. Helen Rodd (University of Toronto). In the summer of 2005, I started postdoctoral research at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria, under the guidance of Dr. Ulf Dieckmann in the Evolution and Ecology Program. My research at IIASA was part of The European Research Training Network on Fisheries-induced Adaptive Changes in Exploited Stocks. In fall 2006, I moved to Bergen, Norway to conduct postdoctoral research with Dr. Mikko Heino at the Institute of Marine Research and University of Bergen. My current research focuses on fisheries-induced evolution and is funded by the Norwegian research council project, “Sustainable harvesting of marine resources: interactions between demographic, ecological and evolutionary effects of fishing”.

I owe much of my foundation in fisheries science and aquatic ecology to the 10 summers I spent working as a student at the Harkness Laboratory of Fisheries Research in Alqonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.
 

Collaborators

In addition to researchers in EvoFish, past or present collaborators include:
Marissa L. Baskett, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, U.S.A.
Ulf Dieckmann, IIASA, Austria
Anne Maria Eikeset, University of Oslo, Norway
Heidi Pardoe, Marine Research Institute, Iceland
Mark Ridgway, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Canada
Helen Rodd, University of Toronto, Canada
Brian Shuter, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Canada
Geoffrey Steinhart, Lake Superior State University, U.S.A.
Nils Christian Stenseth, University of Oslo, Norway
Véronique Thériault, Laval University, Canada
Davnah Urbach, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

References cited above (for a full list of my publications and selected pdf's click here)

Dunlop, E.S., Orendorff, J.A., Shuter, B.J., Rodd, F.H., and Ridgway, M.S. 2005a. Diet and divergence of introduced smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieu, populations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 62:1720-1732.

Dunlop, E.S., Shuter, B.J., and Ridgway, M.S. 2005b. Isolating the influence of growth rate on maturation patterns in the smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieu. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 62:844-853.

Dunlop, E.S., Shuter, B.J.. 2006. Native and introduced populations of smallmouth bass differ in the concordance between climate and somatic growth. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 135:1175-1190.

Dunlop, E.S., Shuter, B.J., and Dieckmann, U. 2007. The demographic and evolutionary consequences of selective mortality: Predictions from an eco-genetic model for smallmouth bass. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 136:749-765.

Jackson, D.A. 2002. Ecological effects of Micropterus introductions: The dark side of black bass. Black Bass: Ecology, Conservation, and Management. D.P. Philipp and M.S. Ridgway eds. Bethesda, Maryland, American Fisheries Society.

Jørgensen, C., Dunlop, E.S., Opdal, A.F., Fiksen, Ø. The evolution of spawning migrations: The role of individual state, population structure, and fishing-induced changes. In press Ecology .

Lantry, B.F., and Eckert, T.H., Schneider, C.P., and Chrisman, J.R. 2002. The relationship between the abundance of smallmouth bass and double-crested cormorants in the eastern basin of Lake Ontario. Journal of Great Lakes Research 28: 193-201.

Steinhart, G.B., Dunlop, E.S., Ridgway, M.S., Marschall, E.A. 2008. Should I stay or should I go: Optimal parental care decisions of a nest-guarding fish. Evolutionary Ecology Research 10:351-371

Thériault, V., Dunlop, E.S., Dieckmann, U., Bernatchez, L., Dodson, J.J. 2008. The impact of fishing-induced mortality on the evolution of alternative life-history tactics in brook charr. Evolutionary Applications 1:409-423.