Marie-Josée Fortin is a University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Spatial Ecology. Fortin is a world-renowned expert in spatial ecology, landscape ecology, and conservation biology.
Her research program examines how global changes (land use and climate) affect species’ spatial dynamics at the landscape and geographic range levels, both in multi-use forested ecosystems and in aquatic networks, to maintain biodiversity and species conservation.
Fortin’s timely contributions have revolutionized the prediction of species dispersal and persistence in dynamic, fragmented landscapes, providing needed knowledge for a global issue requiring urgent attention: biodiversity conservation. Fortin’s work has transformed how ecologists and environmentalists understand the spatial ecology of populations, communities, and species across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, and underpins initiatives by researchers, government agencies, and conservation authorities to tackle threats to biodiversity posed by climate change and habitat loss. Her work serves a dual function, offering both tools to measure the impacts of climate change, but also to build evidence-based strategies to mitigate these impacts.
She has also served as a key advisor and scientific leader on regional and national initiatives, including the selection of ecological corridors (TRCA), Networks of Protected Areas (ECCC), Marine Protected Areas Network (DFO), the establishment of a woodland caribou critical habitat recovery strategy plan (ECCC), and the prioritization of climate refugia for freshwater species (OMNR).
Fortin’s contributions have changed the paradigms of fundamental knowledge and applied practice, and raised spatial ecology to a powerful and impactful discipline with critical applications for our understanding and conservation of our planet’s ecosystems.
