Highlighted Early-career Member – Plant Population Ecology

May 2025

Nadejda Sero

Nadejda Sero is a Ph.D. student working in Orou Gaoue’s lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Nadejda was a recipient of the PPE Student Travel Award in both 2023 and 2024. At the 2023 meeting in Portland, OR, she presented her research on how plant diversity shapes population persistence in competitive systems. At the 2024 meeting in Long Beach, CA, she presented on the influence of community diversity on the demography of African mahogany.

Can you tell us a bit about your graduate research? What are you hoping to find out, and how did you decide on the questions and study systems?

I am interested in population ecology, theoretical ecology, and conservation biology. My Ph.D. research integrates community and population ecology to advance our understanding of how community-level processes shape population-level processes and the implications for conservation. Biodiversity conservation is a significant global challenge. Increasing plant diversity is often associated with higher community productivity, stability, and ecosystem services. However, the consequences of biodiversity are mainly studied at higher scales in terms of community and ecosystem responses. In my research, I ask if the results at the community level also apply at the population scale. I explore the underlying mechanisms of this relationship by focusing on the mediating role of bottom-up and top-down drivers in shaping community influence on population properties. Specifically, I focus on how community diversity, by modifying the strength of biotic interactions such as competition and mutualism, can alter population dynamics.

First, using ordinary differential equation (ODE)-based models, I hope to find if and how increased pairwise competition associated with increasing plant community diversity will limit the population of a focal species. Second, using a combination of integral projection models (IPM) and structural equation models (SEM), I hope to find how community diversity can buffer focal plant populations against mutualism disruption by anthropogenic disturbance. For this part of my project, I use data from one of the longest (20 years) and most detailed plant demography studies in Africa, on Khaya senegalensis (Meliaceae). I am particularly excited about this project because the demographic data is collected in my home country, Benin. My motivation to focus on these research questions and study systems stems from observations of the paucity of population ecology studies in tropical Africa. Given the high threat to species in the region, our understanding of the population viability of these species is fundamental to conservation efforts.

What are your career goals?

I primarily want to do research and teach population and theoretical ecology at the university level or in a research institution. I am also open to positions in the professional world related to these areas. Besides, inspired by my mentors, I am deeply interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) mentoring. I would not be at this point in my career if I had not met my incredible mentor, Dr. Orou Gaoue, 10 years ago. I also gained from my other mentors at different stages of my journey. In academia, we often forget that scientists are humans first. Mentors can sometimes better see and listen to the human behind the researcher than the academic supervisor can. Using my personal experiences, I want to contribute to making academia more welcoming and safer by participating in mentoring programs or young scientists, especially from underrepresented groups.

What is one unexpected pleasure you’ve derived from working in plant population ecology?

I chose to pursue a Ph.D. because I fell in love with population dynamics modeling during my master’s studies. I was fascinated by how we could predict the persistence of populations with complex but advanced tools. At the time, I was struggling to connect my degrees, a B.S. in Forestry and Natural Resources Management and an M.S. in Biostatistics. However, after taking that population dynamics modeling class, I found my path. Interestingly, this was just the tip of the iceberg, because population ecology as a field embraces much more and provides a deep understanding of the consequences of individual interactions. Since then, I have work on projects using a mix of field observations, experiments, and statistical and mathematical modeling. Some projects include phylogeny and community ecology. In my opinion, the availability of these different approaches gives a certain flexibility to the field. For example, I had to adjust fieldwork plans due to chronic illness. I was grateful I could use other methods to answer the same questions. Long live population ecology!

Past PPE Highlighted Early-career Members

Click here for past interviews

Maddie Wallace, February 2025
Grant Yu Liu, January 2022
Charlotte Brown, February 2019
Becky Dalton, December 2018
Karin Burghardt, June 2018
Georgia Fredeluces (Hart), January 2018
Josh Lynn, December 2017
Aubrie James, November 2017
Rachel Spigler, June 2017
Matt Tye, March 2017
Nicole Rafferty, November 2016
Anny Chung, October 2016
Robert K. Shriver, September 2016
Martina Treurnicht, June 2015
Roberto Salguero-Gomez, January 2015
Eugenio Larios Cárdenas, December 2014
Gerardo Arceo Gomez, November 2014
Billie Gould, 2013
Scott McArt, 2013