Jason S. McLachlan
Associate Professor
574-631-1850
Email
Photo: Barbara Johnston
Welcome! Research in the McLachlan Lab focuses on the dynamics of plant populations faced with large scale environmental change. The abundance, distribution and, in many cases, survival of species in the next century will be shaped by an unprecedented combination of human land-use, climate change, and changing atmospheric chemistry. Anticipating these trends is difficult, but we can often gain insight by examining how populations have responded to similar environmental perturbations in the past. Evidence for past population shifts comes from the physical traces individuals leave behind (in paleoecological data such as fossil pollen in sediments and tree-rings) and from the genetic structures of modern and past populations. The McLachlan Lab gathers these fragmentary records of population change and links them to environmental and biological processes using statistical models. Explore our research, lab members, and publications pages to learn more about us and the work we do.
Congratulations to our lab!
- 2025-05-01: Alyssa Willson won two student awards! Alyssa is the recipient of the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award in Science by the College of Science and the Exemplary Graduate Research Career which recognizes a student who best personifies the department’s mission of advancing biological knowledge by demonstrable excellence in research, educating the next generation of leaders in the life sciences, and applying their findings to solve the grand challenges that will shape the future of human health and the environment. Congratulations Alyssa!
- 2025-04-14: Congratulations to graduate student Hannah O’Grady who received an Honorable Mention for her NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program submission.
- 2025-03-28: Congratulations to Alyssa Willson for the successful defense of her PhD on “The ecological time machine: Towards an understanding of vegetation-climate relationships across scales.”
- 2024-08-26: Congratulations to Nate Kroeze for the successful defense of his Master’s work on “Environmental and Genetic Influences on Species Composition and Belowground Biomass Dynamics in Coastal Marshes.”
- See other lab successes HERE