Jennifer Sunday, McGill University

Research

climate change species interactions evolution biogeography ecology conservation environmental DNA range shifts

Latest papers

Species range shifts often speed ahead of their modeled climatic niches.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
Bringing traits back into the equation: A roadmap to understand species redistribution.
Global change biology · 2024
Climate drives global functional trait variation in lizards.
Nature ecology & evolution · 2023 · senior author

All 6 publications

Latest funding

Global Change Ecology
NSERC · 2021 · Principal investigator
$310,000
NSERC CREATE in ecology, evolution and environmental science: The Living Data Project
NSERC · 2020 · Co-investigator
$1,350,000
Changing species interactions along environmental gradients
NSERC · 2018 · Principal investigator
$12,500

All 4 grants and awards

6 publications.

01

Species range shifts often speed ahead of their modeled climatic niches.

Oliveira BF, Bertrand R, Pinsky ML, Casajus N, Wolfe BW, Scheffers BR, Villalobos F, Grenouillet G, Pecl GT, Chen IC, Baecher JA, Lawlor JA, Sunday J, Murienne J, Rolland J, Thompson LM, Lancaster LT, Rubenstein MA, Moore NA, Bandara RMWJ, Diamond SE, Weiskopf SR, Lenoir J, Comte L

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2026

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2515903123 PMID: 41911461

02

Bringing traits back into the equation: A roadmap to understand species redistribution.

Comte L, Bertrand R, Diamond S, Lancaster LT, Pinsky ML, Scheffers BR, Baecher JA, Bandara RMWJ, Chen IC, Lawlor JA, Moore NA, Oliveira BF, Murienne J, Rolland J, Rubenstein MA, Sunday J, Thompson LM, Villalobos F, Weiskopf SR, Lenoir J

Global change biology2024

DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17271 PMID: 38613240

03

Climate drives global functional trait variation in lizards.

Rubalcaba JG, Gouveia SF, Villalobos F, Olalla-Tárraga MÁ, Sunday J

Nature ecology & evolution2023Senior author

DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02007-x PMID: 36878986

04

The evolution of critical thermal limits of life on Earth.

Bennett JM, Sunday J, Calosi P, Villalobos F, Martínez B, Molina-Venegas R, Araújo MB, Algar AC, Clusella-Trullas S, Hawkins BA, Keith SA, Kühn I, Rahbek C, Rodríguez L, Singer A, Morales-Castilla I, Olalla-Tárraga MÁ

Nature communications2021

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21263-8 PMID: 33608528

05

When do fish succumb to heat?

Sunday J

Science (New York, N.Y.)2020First author

DOI: 10.1126/science.abd1272 PMID: 32631884

06

Thermal tolerance patterns across latitude and elevation.

Sunday J, Bennett JM, Calosi P, Clusella-Trullas S, Gravel S, Hargreaves AL, Leiva FP, Verberk WCEP, Olalla-Tárraga MÁ, Morales-Castilla I

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019First author

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0036 PMID: 31203755

Global Change Ecology

Principal investigatorNSERC2021Canada Research Chairs

Principal investigators: Sunday, Jennifer

Keywords: climate change; biogeography; ecology; conservation; environmental DNA; range shifts; species interactions; environmental physiology; evolution; marine

$310,000

NSERC CREATE in ecology, evolution and environmental science: The Living Data Project

Co-investigatorNSERC2020Collaborative Research and Training Experience

Principal investigators: Srivastava, Diane DS

Keywords: archival science; collaboration skills; data management; ecology; environmental science; evolution; intergenerational knowledge exchange; open science; reproducible research; synthesis science

$1,350,000

Changing species interactions along environmental gradients

Principal investigatorNSERC2018Discovery Launch Supplement

Principal investigators: Sunday, Jennifer

$12,500

Changing species interactions along environmental gradients

Principal investigatorNSERC2018Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Sunday, Jennifer

Keywords: climate adaptation; climate change; competition; evolution; macroecology; metabolic temperature scaling; ocean acidification; resource management; species interactions

$196,000

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Frequent collaborators

Piero Calosi

Biologie, chimie et géographie

2 shared papers, latest 2021

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their NSERC grant from 2021

Subject: Prospective PhD student: climate change Dear Professor Sunday, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "Species range shifts often speed ahead of their modeled climatic niches." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your NSERC-funded project "Global Change Ecology" (2021), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]