Amy Angert

Angert co-authored one of the most influential reviews of the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that limit species geographic ranges.^[1] Her synthesis of climate-driven range shifts highlighted the difficulty in predicting which species will be able to track climate change.^[2]

She has pioneered creative experimental approaches to studying range limits. She was the first to use experimental evolution to test evolutionary mechanisms for species range limits in the field,^[3] showing that adaptive trade-offs could limit evolution at range edges. Experiments with Seema Sheth showed that range-edge populations can harbour substantial adaptive variation and responded to artificial selection. Much of her work involves plant in the genus Mimulus as ecological and evolutionary models.^[4]

Angert did her PhD with evolutionary biologist Doug Schemske at the University of Washington and Michigan State University. She was hired as a professor of biology at Colorado State University in 2008, and moved to the University of British Columbia in 2012. She won a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair which was renewed for a second term.^[5] In 2023 she was elected vice-president to the American Society of Naturalists.^[6] In 2025, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[7]