People

Team Lead

Dr. Heather Kharouba

University Research Chair in Global Change Ecology 
Associate Professor 
Department of Biology  

Academic Experience 
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow 
Center for Population Biology Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Davis

Education 
PhD, University of British Columbia 
MSc, University of Ottawa 
BSc, University of Ottawa

Artist-in-residence

Valérie Chartrand

Valérie Chartrand’s practice focuses on the loss of biodiversity and reduction in insect populations due to climate change and human interference in insect life cycles. She primarily employs imprint techniques, using found insects and non-toxic materials. She has participated in several artist residencies and group exhibitions. Her first solo exhibition, Ghost Hives, took place at La Maison des artistes in Winnipeg in 2017. Her MFA thesis show, Inspiderations, was presented at Gallery 101 in Ottawa in 2021.

Grad students

Lily Charles

MSc candidate (2024-) 
Co-supervised by Dr. Greg Mitchell at Environment and Climate Change Canada 
lchar061[at]uottawa[dot]ca

Lily is interested in conservation research that has a broad impact. Her research is taking place within former agricultural properties in Norfolk County that have been restored to grassland habitats by the Nature Conservancy of Canada. She is looking to understand the use of different nectar resources by monarchs (Danaus plexippus) and other butterflies, and other restoration decisions on pollinator recovery.

Nicole Kester

MSc candidate (2024-) 
Co-supervised by Dr. Tyler Smith at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
nkest080[at]uottawa[dot]ca 

Nicole is interested in invasive species and understanding the patterns of their spread. She is expanding her Honours project and is quantifying niche shifts for over 250 species of invasive plants in North America, which will help inform predictions about the future distributions of these species in their introduced ranges.

Manon Veselosvky

MSc student (2022-) 
Co-supervised by Dr. Greg Mitchell at Environment and Climate Change Canada 
mvese092[at]uottawa[dot]ca

Manon is interested in conservation and the effects of climate change on species interactions. She is seeking to identify which nectar sources provide the greatest energy benefit to the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) to help inform monarch habitat restoration.

Honours students

Matthew Osborne

Honours student (2024-2025)

Matthew is interested in the ecological and spatial aspects of interactions between plants, insects, and pathogens. For his honours project, he will be combining field studies and citizen science data to better describe the distribution and characteristics of milkweed yellows phytoplasma. Check out his personal website: https://natthager.ca

Lab alumni

Spencer Karau

MSc student (2022-2024)
Co-supervised by Dr. Tyler Smith at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Thesis: Using key functional traits to explain variation in rates of spread among invasive plants in North America.

Katherine Peel

MSc student (2022-2024)

Thesis: Habitat restoration in a changing world: Determining the indirect effects of waring on monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) as mediated by changes in nectar quality.

Dr. Sarah Dolson

PhD student (2019-2024)

Thesis: The influence of spatiotemporal climate variation on insect species richness and traits

Jenna Boomhower

Honours student (2022-2023)

Jenna's project evaluated the nutritional role of non-native plants in the nectar diet of monarch butterflies.

Nicole Kester

Honours student (2022-2023)
Co-supervised by Dr. Tyler Smith at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Nicole developed current and future species distribution models for dog-strangling vine (Vincetoxicum rossicum) to evaluate its potential range across North America, and how this range could change in response to different climate scenarios.

Dr. Zoe Panchen

Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellow (2021-2023) with the Canadian Museum of Nature and UBC zpanche2[at]uottawa.ca

Zoe's project used herbarium specimens to investigate the evolutionary and life history trait patterns in Arctic plant phenological responses to climate change.

Dr. Nico Muñoz

Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-2023)
Co-supervised with Dr. Ilona Naujokaitis-Lewis (Environment and Climate Change Canada) and Dr. Christina Davy (Carleton University).

Nico investigated the importance of microrefugia and the potential for microclimatic buffers against climate change to be integrated within networks of protected areas.

Sarah Bell

Co-supervised by Nico Munoz
Honours student (2022-2023)

Thesis: Identifying potential sites of forest microrefugia for Ontario's terrestrial species at risk.

Marianne Busque

Co-supervised by Zoe Panchen
Honours student (2022-2023)

Thesis: Temporal and spatial variations in the flowering times of Arctic Ranunculaceae species.

Zoe Pekos

Honours student (2022-2023)

Thesis: The role of non-native plants in the nectar diet of a native butterfly community.

Maisy Roach-Krajewski

MSc student (2020-2023)
Co-supervised by Tyler Smith at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Thesis: Using invasion history to quantify equilibrium in over 250 invasive plant species in North America.

Dr. Stephanie Rivest

PhD student (2016-2022)

Thesis: Non-native species and urbanization in the context of butterfly communities.

Hannah Keefe

MSc student (2020-2022)

Thesis: The role of growing degree-days in explaining Lepidoptera species distributions at broad scales.

Katherine Peel

Honours student 2021-2022

Thesis: Body size responses to climate change of two butterfly species in Southern England.

Devin Empey

Honours student 2021-2022

Thesis: The impact of experimental warming on the growth and development of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) and common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

Dr. Felipe Dargent

NSERC Banting Fellow (2018-2020)

Felipe worked on how land-use changes influence the diversity of arthropod communities living on milkweed, and how this, in turn, affects monarch butterfly infections with a protist parasite (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha). He is now a postdoc with Clément Bataille. For more info, see Felipe's personal webpage

Sharla Foster

MSc candidate (2018-2021)
Co-supervised by Tyler Smith (Agriculture Canada)

Thesis: Quantifying the expansion of an invasive plant species, Dog-strangling Vine (Vincetoxicum rossicum), in environmental and geographic space over the past 130 years.

Sydney Gilmour

MSc student (2018-2021)

Thesis: The effect of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) quality on monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) oviposition preference and larval performance.

Samantha Beesley

MSc in Environmental Sustainability (2019-2021)

Thesis: Is climate change a threat to Canadian Species at Risk? A case study on the threat of climate change to Atlantic Canadian Species at Risk.

Darby Hooper

Honours student 2020-2021

Thesis: The effect of urbanization on butterfly communities around Ottawa, ON & Montreal, QC.

Benoit Lalande

Honours student 2020-2021

Thesis: The impact of disturbance-tolerant plants on the diversity of arthropod communities across an urbanization gradient.

Philippe Tremblay

MSc student (2017-2019)

Thesis: The role of cold tolerance in the geographic distribution of the Giant Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio cresphontes).

Samantha Lalonde

Honours student (2018-2019)

Thesis: Quantifying roadside decline and the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on common milkweed in the Ottawa region.