Welcome to the McCauley Lab!

We are freshwater ecologists working on a range of research questions in order to better understand the processes shaping ecological communities.

Our research focuses on the processes that shape community structure and species distributions in lakes and ponds. In particular we focus on predator-prey interactions and dispersal, two powerful drivers of community structure. This research combines long-term surveys of natural habitats with comparative and experimental approaches to address questions about how processes acting at different scales, and interacting across scales, affect community structure and shape species distributions.

Most of the work in the lab is with aquatic insects which are ideal study organisms.  In particular, odonates (dragonflies) have proven to be useful system for studying both predator-prey interactions and dispersal biology.  We have on-going projects in California and Ontario.  Please see the current research page for more information and to see what other folks in the lab work on check out the people page.