Ellen Waddle

I am a Ph.D. student in the EBIO department and  am interested in trying to understand how underlying physical terrain affects upslope movement rates in montane plant communities. For locally adapted populations to respond to warming, adaptive alleles must move upslope, but models of seed dispersal typically ignore even simple terrain effects, such as slope angle. Nor do we understand how pollinators alter foraging patterns in uneven terrain. 

My work combines field work and modeling approaches to better characterize seed and pollen movement with the ultimate goal of predicting movement rates of montane plant populations in the face of changing conditions.