Chloé Schmidt

Chloé Schmidt's picture
Postdoctoral Associate
Bio: 

I’m an evolutionary ecologist interested in spatial patterns of genetic diversity and how they relate to macroecological patterns at higher levels of biodiversity. My research leverages accumulated molecular genetic data available in public repositories to understand how environments shape population demography across taxa and geographic scales, and the implications of these relationships for evolution and conserving genetic diversity. Repurposing open genetic data in multi-species, macrogenetic analyses brings new opportunities to explore previously hidden levels of biodiversity and link population processes to broad-scale ecological phenomena. To address these types of questions I combine ideas and approaches from population and landscape genetics, macroecology, and community ecology. During my PhD with Colin Garroway at the University of Manitoba I studied the effects of urbanization on genetic diversity and evolution in terrestrial vertebrates, and links between gradients in genetic diversity and species richness in North America. Previously I studied the role of a chromosomal inversion in facilitating local adaptation in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster for my MSc with Thomas Flatt at the University of Lausanne. Alongside research, I’m also involved in science communication and run the blog Pineapples and Whales where I use art and graphic design to distill ecology and evolution research papers to their essentials for broad audiences.

Area of Interest: 
macrogenetics, macroecology, population genetics, spatial modeling, conservation