Jacquelyn Gill

I use the natural experiments of the past to help understand a warming world. I aim to engage in research that's of broad relevance to modern ecologists, conservationists, and land managers. I also seek to improve diversity in science, science communication, and public science literacy.

Jacquelyn Gill holds a joint appointment in CCI and the School of Biology & Ecology. As a paleoecologist and biogeographer, she is interested in using the natural experiments of the past to inform conservation in the Anthropocene. Jacquelyn applies an interdisciplinary approach combining paleoenvironmental reconstructions from lake sediments, modern field ecology, and modeling. Research in the Gill Lab focuses on climate change, extinction, and biotic interactions through time, from species to communities to ecosystems. Current projects include 1) the causes of novel plant communities and ecostystems in North America at the end of the last ice age, 2) the ecological consequences of the extinction of Pleistocene megaherbivores, 3) the conservation lessons of climate-driven extinctions in the last 2.5 million years, 4) the sensitivity of penguin-vegetation relationships to abrupt climate change in the Falkland Islands, and 5) the ability of New England plants to keep pace with climate change.