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Karen Alofs

Assistant Professor
Ecosystem Science and Management
Water
Conservation + Restoration
[email protected]
(734) 615-9282
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About

Assistant Professor Alofs studies how ecological concepts can be used to address conservation concerns in freshwater environments. Her recent work, as a postdoctoral fellow with the National Science Foundation International Research Fellowship Program, focused on the impacts of climate-facilitated range expansions on lake fish communities. In addition to climate change, she is interested in understanding the effects of environmental stressors including invasive species, habitat fragmentation and habitat degradation on biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability.

Alofs research is framed by three ecological questions: How are ecological communities changing across spatial scales and over time? What are the impacts of species interactions versus environmental factors on community structure, population persistence and invasion? And can we make general ecological predictions (e.g. predictions relevant in terrestrial and aquatic or temperate and tropical communities)? Moreover, she is interested in how ecological studies can contribute to the conservation of aquatic ecosystems and the sustainable management of fisheries.

Publications

Alofs KM. 2016. The influence of variability in species trait data on community level ecological prediction and inference. Ecology and Evolution. 6: 6345–6353.

Alofs KM and DA Jackson. 2015. The vulnerability of species to range expansions by predators can be predicted using historical species associations and body size. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 282: 20151211.

Alofs KM and DA Jackson. 2015. The role of abiotic and biotic factors in the establishment of predatory fishes at their expanding northern range boundaries in Ontario, Canada. Global Change Biology 21: 2227-2237.

Melles SJ, Chu C, Alofs KM and DA Jackson. 2015. Potential spread of Great Lakes fishes given climate change and proposed dams; an approach using circuit theory to evaluate invasion risk. Landscape Ecology 30: 919-935.

Alofs KM and DA Jackson. 2014. Meta-analysis suggests biotic resistance in freshwater environments is driven by consumption rather than competition. Ecology 95: 3259-3270.

Alofs KM, Jackson DA and N Lester. 2014. Ontario freshwater fish demonstrate differing range-boundary shifts in a warming climate. Diversity and Distributions 20: 123-136. 

Alofs KM, Liverpool EA, Taphorn DC, Bernard CR and H López-Fernández. 2014. Mind the (information) gap: the importance of exploration and discovery for assessing conservation priorities for freshwater fish. Diversity and Distributions 20: 107-113. 

Education

PhD, The University of Texas at Austin (ecology, evolution, and behavior)

BA, University of Chicago (biology, ecology and evolution)

In the News
SEAS master's student Anna Davies: Water was the heart of her summer in northern Michigan
November 13, 2024

SEAS master's student Anna Davies: Water was the heart of her summer in northern Michigan

For Anna Davies (MS ’25), water was the heart of her summer in northern Michigan. But it wasn’t all swimming and stunning beach sunsets, though there was that too. Based...

Jennifer Fuller
November 27, 2023

Jennifer Fuller (MS ’21)

As the project coordinator at the National Audubon Society, Jennifer Fuller (MS ’21) recalls that her childhood dream of becoming a wildlife biologist was kindled by a love of nature. As a graduate student, she discovered how that dream would take flight.

SEAS Professor of Practice Paul Seelbach retires
July 10, 2023

SEAS Professor of Practice Paul Seelbach retires

Six years after joining the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) as a professor of practice—a role he described as the “wrapping” on a...

Offshore trawling in Suttons Bay.
October 25, 2022

Protecting the Diversity of Fish in the Great Lakes

SEAS Assistant Professor Karen Alofs has been co-teaching Biology & Ecology of Fishes to U-M undergraduate students for years. And the one thing she never tires of seeing is how excited students get when they hold a fish for the first time.

GL climate change
July 21, 2022

Saving our pleasant peninsula: How Michigan’s long-admired natural resources are being threatened by climate change and what U-M researchers are doing to help

This story was originally published on the Leaders & Best Impact site From the Great Lakes to its inland rivers and streams, hiking trails to golf courses, and lakeside...

Great Lakes invasive species: controlling sea lamprey populations
December 15, 2021

Great Lakes invasive species: controlling sea lamprey populations

What methods are most effective in sustainably controlling sea lamprey populations? For more than 60 years, control efforts and millions of dollars have been invested in...

flood plains map

Research Highlights

Research highlights from SEAS faculty.

Institute for Fisheries Research survey crew collecting water samples from Bawbeese Lake in Michigan’s Hillsdale County, June 1931. Image credit: Michigan Department of Natural Resources
March 17, 2021

New crowdsourced project to digitize Michigan lake and fish records, looking for climate trends

University of Michigan researchers will enlist the help of citizen scientists in a new project to digitize thousands of historical records—some dating back more than a...

In the Media
11/01/2023
Karen Alofs
Great Lakes Fish Are Moving North With Climate Change, But Can They Adapt Fast Enough? (Scientific American)
10/04/2023
Karen Alofs
Climate change threatens fish in Michigan’s Great Lakes. Watch video (Bridge Michigan)
04/07/2021
Karen Alofs
Researchers need help transcribing 100-year-old fish records (Great Lakes Echo)
04/06/2021
Karen Alofs
New crowd-sourced UM project digitizes years of lake and fish records (Michigan Radio)
10/30/2020
Karen Alofs
Self-Cloning Crayfish Have Taken Over a Cemetery in Belgium (Vice)
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