Evelyn Lessard

Expertise: Harmful algal bloom dynamics and prediction, biological responses to ocean change

Evelyn Lessard is a biological oceanographer who studies the ecology of marine microzooplankton and phytoplankton (tiny single-cell organisms also called protists) in ecosystems ranging from the subtropics to the polar oceans. Through laboratory, field and modeling studies, she is working to understand the ways in which climate-driven ocean change (e.g., temperature and ocean acidification) alter interactions between smaller species that form the base of the food web, and how these changes affect larger organisms such as krill and fish. Current projects in her group include studies on the population biology of harmful algal blooms off the Pacific Northwest Coast to try and predict where and when they will appear, and how the feeding and reproduction of krill may be altered with changing sea-ice conditions in the southeastern Bering Sea.