Stacy Krueger-Hadfield
William & Mary, VA·Ecology & Evolution·Early-career
Every multicellular organism passes through different stages in its life cycle. In humans, these are the haploid stage, eggs or sperm with one set of chromosomes, and the diploid stage, with two sets, from embryo to adult.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
life cycle evolution
haploid-diploid life cycles
alternation of generations
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Test whether haploid and diploid life stages of an invasive seaweed respond differently to intertidal conditions such as salinity and temperature, using common garden experiments to compare ecological and genetic models.
- Determine whether the relative length of the haploid and diploid stages affects whether the seaweed outcrosses, self-fertilizes or spreads asexually, using population genetic analysis of DNA from native and introduced populations.
- Assess how the seaweed's life cycle has changed during invasion, when the diploid stage comes to dominate, to test links between life cycles and reproductive strategies.
More about the research
Across nature, life cycles vary widely in how long each stage lasts and how complex the cycle is. Species also differ in how they reproduce: by mating with others (outcrossing), by fertilizing themselves, or by cloning. How life cycles and reproduction shape each other is poorly understood. This matters for predicting how species respond to environmental challenges.
Why it matters
This basic research adds to understanding of how two fundamental traits, the life cycle and reproduction, depend on each other across the diversity of life. Knowing how an invasive seaweed's life cycle and mating system shift after introduction could eventually inform predictions of how species, including invaders, respond to environmental challenges.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
John Heine
Jacksonville University, FL·Ecology & Evolution
Quantify percent cover, biomass, blade length and reproductive characteristics of the red algae Phyllophora antarctica and Iridaea cordata across depth and light gradients at seven sites in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.
Nathaniel Sharp
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether yeast cells of a species' rarer type, haploid or diploid, have higher mutation rates, by measuring ploidy-specific mutation patterns in haploid- and diploid-dominant yeast species.
Nathaniel Hardy
Auburn University, AL·Ecology & Evolution
Estimate evolutionary relationships among aphid lineages by sequencing target-enriched genomic data from about 700 aphid species, advancing aphid classification.
The school
William & Mary: 11 labs on PI Pages, $95M a year on research, 67 research doctorates a year.
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