Dr. Will Ryan

Selected publications:
Plasticity & Partial clonality:
2021    Ryan WH, Aida J, Krueger-Hadfield SA.The contribution of clonality to population genetic structure in the sea anemone Diadumene lineata. Journal of Heredity. 112: 122 – 139.
2019    Ryan WH, Adams L*, Bonthond G*, Mieszkowska N, Pack KE*, and Krueger-Hadfield SA. Environmental regulation of individual body size contributes to geographic variation in clonal life cycle expression. Marine Biology 166: 157 - 173.
2019    Ryan WH and Miller TE. Reproductive strategy changes across latitude in a clonal sea anemone. Marine Ecological Progress Series. 611: 129 – 141.
2018    Ryan WH. Seasonal patterns and geographic variation in temperature dependent fission rate plasticity in a clonal sea anemone. The American Naturalist 191(2): 210-219.
Mating system & life cycle diversity:
2021    Olsen KC, Ryan WH, Kosman ET, Moscoso JA, Levitan DR, Winn AA. Lessons from the study of plant mating systems for exploring the causes and consequences of inbreeding in marine invertebrates. Marine Biology.168: article 39.
2020    Olsen K, Ryan WH, Winn AA, Kosman ET, Moscoso JA, Krueger-Hadfield SA, Burgess SC, Carlon D, Grosberg RK, Kalisz S, and Levitan DR. Inbreeding shapes the evolution of marine invertebrate mating systems. Evolution 74(5): 871 – 882.
2020    Krueger-Hadfield SA and Ryan WH. Influence of exogenous nutrients on ploidy-specific performance in an invasive, haplodiplontic red macroalga. Journal of Phycology 56(4): 1114 – 1120.

Postdoctoral researcher
Website
wryan@uab.edu
​
​Bio: I am an NIH IRACDA-MERIT postdoctoral researcher at UAB. I grew up in Southern California where I earned BS (2007) and MS degrees (2010) in Biology at California State University, Northridge. Before I found my intellectual home in Ecology and Evolution, I spent time as a Molecular/Cellular/Developmental Biology major at UC Santa Cruz and an Art/Animation major at a College of the Canyons (community college). I earned a PhD from Florida State University (2017) where I worked out the biogeographic consequences of temperature-dependent fission in the partially clonal and non-native sea anemone Diadumene lineata. My dissertation projects laid the groundwork for ongoing research using this species as a model for understanding how plasticity and clonality contribute to patterns of local adaptation in spatially and temporally variable habitats, and how these capabilities contribute to invasion success. I joined the Krueger-Hadfield Lab as a postdoc in Fall 2017. Since then, our list of projects has since expanded to include work on the evolution of haplodiplontic life cycles in red algae, community assembly dynamics in host-associate microbes, and mating system variation in sessile marine organisms, among other themes.
 
I also make animated short films about Ecology: Ecomotion studios (http://tinyurl.com/pzzoqs6)
 
 
Research: I study how plastic and genetic variation interact with environmental gradients (e.g., temperature, salinity) to shape biogeographic patterns of population growth and genetic structure in marine environments. I use clonal and fragmentable organisms (like sea anemones and macroalgae) as models to experimentally isolate genotypic from plastic variation in order to answer general questions in evolutionary ecology. Using these same systems, I also seek to understand the abiotic and biotic forces that drive the evolution of life cycle complexity (e.g., partially clonality or haplodiplonty). My questions tend to require a mix of molecular bench work, wet lab culturing work, and field work to explore basic eco-evolutionary questions in natural populations.