Kelly Carscadden
PhD Student
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

I aim to understand how genes and environments interact to shape the dynamics of populations across variable landscapes like the Colorado Rockies. Local cinquefoil species (in the rose family) commonly hybridize and are abundant in the Colorado subalpine. I am undertaking monitoring and experimental work in cinquefoil populations to unveil the ecological factors driving hybrid formation, address longstanding questions about the origins of evolutionary novelty, and infer how hybrid formation and persistence may impact parent taxa in changing environments.