Polar Biology

Climate change is transforming polar ecosystems faster than any other parts of the globe, creating unprecedented challenges and opportunities for biodiversity. Our research investigates how plants and their associated microbiomes adapt to environmental change across the Arctic and Antarctica, two polar regions that represent contrasting ecological futures. In the Arctic, warming drives habitat contraction and forces cold-adapted species to track suitable climates toward higher latitudes, where their persistence depends on adaptation to novel combinations of temperature, seasonal light regimes, and biotic interactions. In Antarctica, rapidly expanding ice-free areas are creating new habitats for colonization and community assembly, while increasing risks from biological invasions. Building on our internationally recognized work in plant evolutionary ecology and plant-microbe symbioses, we study how photoperiod, introgressive hybridization, microbial mutualisms, and species interactions shape adaptation, range expansion, and biodiversity responses to climate change. By integrating ecological and evolutionary processes from genes and microbiomes to communities and ecosystems, our research advances a new understanding of how species persist, diversify, and assemble in a rapidly changing world.