Declerck Group

The Declerck Group focuses on how environmental change affects the biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of aquatic biota, especially freshwater zooplankton. Work in the Declerck group addresses both responses at the intraspecific genetic level and the community level. With an experimental evolution approach, we explore how populations adapt genetically to (combinations of) stressors and how such evolutionary change affects ecological trajectories. In this work we consider a variety of stressors, with a special focus on the consequences of stoichiometric mismatch. The Declerck group also studies the effects of environmental change on the biodiversity and functioning of aquatic communities and ecosystems and the role microevolution may have in mediating these responses. Our work mainly involves experimental approaches in the laboratory as well as in outdoor mesocosms but occasionally involves field survey work as well.

Expertise

• Zooplankton ecology and evolutionary ecology
• Freshwater biodiversity
• Experimental evolution
• Ecological stoichiometry
• (Meta)community ecology
• Cryptic diversity

Former group members

• Casper van Leeuwen (postdoctoral researcher)
• Wei Zhang (PhD student)
• Libin Zhou (PhD student)
• Kimberley Dianne Lemmen (PhD student)
• Sven Teurlincx (PhD student)
• Xianling Xiang (associate professor)
• Shuaying Zhang (postdoctoral researcher)
• Spiros Papakostas (postdoctoral researcher)
• Paloma Marinho Lopes (PhD sandwich; postdoctoral researcher)
• Bjorn Rall (postdoctoral researcher)
• Scott Peacor (visiting professor, Michigan State University, USA)