Carla Cáceres is a professor at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

known for her research in

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

and

evolutionary ecology Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them. Conversely, it can ...

, focusing on the origins, maintenance, and functional significance of

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

within ecosystems. She is a

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

, the

Ecological Society of America The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. I ...

, and the

Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), formerly known as the Limnological Society of America and the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, is a scientific society established in 1936 with the goal of advan ...

Education and career

Cáceres' interest in freshwater ecology was evident by the age of eight when she was collecting organisms from bodies of water near her house and looking at them under a microscope. While an undergraduate at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

she did her honor's thesis in John Lehman's laboratory on plankton found in Lake Michigan which led to co-authorship on a paper that was published in 1993. She earned her B.S. in biology from the

(1991) and earned her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1997. From 1996 until 2001, she was an assistant professional scientist at the Illinois Natural History Survey. Cáceres started at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1997, where she was promoted to full professor in 2012. From 2012 to 2019, she co-directed the Orpheum Children's Museum Day Camp--"Girls Do Science!", an outreach program designed to engage young girls, grades 2nd-6th, in science activities.Cáceres, Carla E. "Carla Eva Cáceres." The Cáceres Lab. University of Illinois, Web. 26 Nov. 2013.

Research

Cáceres conducts research into eco-evolutionary feedbacks on community assembly, especially in stormwater habitats, and the community ecology of disease. Her graduate research was the first quantify the

storage effect The storage effect is a coexistence mechanism proposed in the ecological theory of species coexistence, which tries to explain how such a wide variety of similar species are able to coexist within the same ecological community or guild. The storag ...

, an ecological theory defining the co-existence of species within an ecological community. Cáceres assessed how the storage effect impacted the survival of two species of water fleas, Daphnia galeata mendotae and ''

Daphnia pulicaria ''Daphnia pulicaria'' is a species of freshwater crustaceans found within the genus of ''Daphnia,'' which are often called "water fleas," and they are commonly used as model organisms for scientific research. Like other species of ''Daphnia'', th ...

-'' a paper which in 1999 was awarded the Raymond L. Lindeman Award by the

. She has also examined the role of dormancy on the survival of ''

Daphnia ''Daphnia'' is a genus of small planktonic crustaceans, in length. ''Daphnia'' are members of the Order (biology), order Anomopoda, and are one of the several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called water fleas because their Saltation (gait), ...

'' eggs, how genetic diversity in water fleas contributes to their survival in newly-colonized ponds, and variability in dispersal rates across species of zooplankton. A portion of Cáceres' research considers how disease is spread across organisms, particularly how predation increases the spread of disease and the role of increasing temperature on the growth and transmission of parasites. In 2020, Cáceres was involved in research using Dapnia pulex to assess the role of host exposure to parasitic diseases, a topic noted by the press as of potential relevance during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

given the potential transmission of disease across animal species.

Selected publications

* * * * *

Awards and honors

*Raymond L. Lindeman Award,

(1999) for Cáceres (1997) paper *

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. T ...

(PECASE) (2003) *Sustaining fellow,

(2015) *Fellow,

(2016) *Fellow,

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

(2017)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cáceres, Carla Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Cornell University alumni University of Illinois faculty Fellows of the Ecological Society of America University of Michigan alumni Women ecologists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers