Stephen Jane
Dr. Stephen Jane is an ecosystem ecologist who has conducted work in a variety of aquatic systems from small streams, coastal estuaries, to lakes. His work is primarily focused on understanding global change impacts to these systems and the consequences for the animals and people who depend on them. Most of his work is currently conducted in lake ecosystems. Past work has explored whether and how dissolved oxygen across hundreds of lakes responds to warming surface temperatures, how concurrent warming and browning of lakes affects habitat for cold-water organisms, how declining lake dissolved oxygen may impact the toxicity of fishes in terms of contaminant load, and other topics. He is motivated both by an interest in discovery and by the desire to provide insight that can help better steward aquatic resources.
At Notre Dame, he is working under the mentorship of Dr. Stuart Jones to understand how changes affecting lakes, specifically in precipitation and dissolved oxygen, will interact to influence carbon cycling. Lakes are important processors of organic material, both burying large amounts of carbon and emitting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. This work will help understand how global change may alter these fluxes. He is supported by a Society of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Jane began his association with ECI in January 2024.