Henry Legett
Overview
Henry Legett is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Washington, D.C.
Research Interests
NSF INTERN project: The life-history strategies of many plants and animals depend on specific environmental conditions and resource levels that fluctuate with seasons. Annual migratory and reproduction events, for example, are often timed to match periods of peak food abundance. Changes in climate, however, can result in the disruption of such phenological linkages due to shifts in natural cycles and patterns. As different species in a community respond differently to climate change, mismatches can occur between the timing of life-history events and seasonal abundance of necessary resources, which can ultimately have impacts that affect the entire ecosystem. Thus, it is critical that we understand the occurrence, magnitude, and direction of phenological shifts in plants and animals assess the impact of climate change on natural communities and potential adaptation strategies to conserve them. At the NE CASC I worked on two projects related to climate change ecology with Dr. Michelle Staudinger: 1) investigating changes in the migration patterns of anadromous river herring, Alosa pseudoharengus, and 2) investigating changes in the foraging ecology of multiple species of migratory terns and alcids.
