Carol Frost, PhD, MSc, BSc

Email

cmfrost@ualberta.ca

Phone

(780) 492-1227

Address

230D Earth Sciences Building

11223 Saskatchewan Drive NW

Edmonton AB

T6G 2E3

I am an arthropod community ecologist with an applied focus on biodiversity conservation. I study how arthropod biodiversity and species interactions confer ecosystem states and functions, and how anthropogenic activities affect biodiversity and species interactions to disrupt those functions. I focus on making contributions in three domains:

Conservation contributions: I aim to discover “low cost” ways in which human industrial and urban activities can be modified to generate large improvements in biodiversity conservation outcomes.

Basic ecology contributions: My research also aims to increase our ability to understand change and predict future states in complex ecological communities. A large focus is on doing this via ecological network approaches that describe interaction patterns at the community level.

Entomology contributions: Finally, I aim to increase entomological knowledge, including taxonomy and natural history, of the arthropod species of Alberta and the other regions where I work.

Education

2014 PhD in Ecology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

2009 MSc in Entomology, McGill University, Montréal, Canada

2006 BSc in Animal Biology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Daly, E.Z., Brock-Fisher, T.M., and Frost, C.M. 2025. A trophic and non-trophic seasonal interaction network reveals potential management units and functionally important species. Global Ecology and Biogeography 34:e13940. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13940                                    

Pizante, R., Acorn, J.H., Jiménez, I.P., and Frost, C.M. 2025. Treed field borders net-export over 82,000 more hoverflies per km every week into canola crops than herbaceous field borders, regardless of mass-flowering crop bloom. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 377: 109271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2024.109271

Worthy, S.H., Acorn, J.H., and Frost, C.M. 2024. Biodiversity measures of a grassland plant-pollinator community are resilient to the introduction of honey bees (Apis mellifera). PLoS ONE 19(10): e0309939. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0309939                                    

Pizante, R., Frost, C.M., and Acorn, J.H. 2024. New records for hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) in Alberta, Canada. The Canadian Entomologist 156: e27, 1-5. doi:10.4039/tce.2024.32                                    

Peralta, G., Resasco, J., Worthy, S., Frost, C.M., Guevara, A.T., Manning, I., Cagnolo, L., and Burkle, L.A. 2024. Pollinator intraspecific body size variation and sociality influence their interactions with plants. Functional Ecology 38(4): 875-882

Pizante, R., Acorn, J.H., Worthy, S.H., and Frost, C.M. 2023. Existing flower preference metrics disagree on best plants for pollinators: which metric to choose? Insect Conservation and Diversity 16: 745-757. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12682

Worthy, S.H., Acorn, J.H., and Frost, C.M. 2023. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions. PLoS ONE 18(7): e0287332.

Timóteo, S., Albrecht, J., Rumeu, B., Norte, A.C., Traveset, A., Frost, C.M., Marchante, E., López-Núñez, F.A., Peralta, G., Memmott, J., Olesen, J.M., Costa, J.M., da Silva, L.P., Carvalheiro, L.G., Correia, M., Staab, M., Blüthgen, N., Farwig, N., Hervías-Parejo, S., Mironov, S., Rodríguez-Echeverría, S., and Heleno, R. 2023. Tripartite networks show that keystone species can multitask. Functional Ecology 37:274-286.

Kotula, H.J., Peralta, G., Frost, C.M., Todd, J.H., and Tylianakis, J.M. 2021. Predicting direct and indirect non-target impacts of biocontrol agents using machine-learning approaches. PloS ONE 16(6), e0252448.

Nelson, C.J., Frost, C.M., and Nielsen, S.E. 2021. Narrow anthropogenic linear corridors increase the abundance, diversity, and movement of bees in boreal forests. Forest Ecology and Management 489, 119044.

Chai, L.L., Hernandez-Ramirez, G., Hik, D.S., Barrio, I.C., Frost, C.M., Soto, C.C., and Esquivel-Hernández, G. 2020. A methane sink in the Central American high elevation páramo: Topographic, soil moisture and vegetation effects. Geoderma 362, 114092.

Peralta, G., Frost, C.M., and Didham, R.K. 2018. Plant, herbivore and parasitoid community composition in native Nothofagaceae forests vs. exotic pine plantations. Journal of Applied Ecology (Online early).

Peralta, G., Frost, C.M., Didham, R.K., Rand, T.A., and Tylianakis, J.M. 2017. Non-random food-web assembly at habitat edges increases connectivity and functional redundancy. Ecology 98: 995-1005.

Frost, C.M., Peralta, G., Rand, T.A., Didham, R.K., Varsani, A., and Tylianakis, J.M. 2016. Apparent competition drives community-wide parasitism rates and changes in host abundance across ecosystem boundaries. Nature Communications 7:12644 doi: 10.1038/ncomms12644.

Rohr, R.P., Saavedra, S., Peralta, G., Frost, C.M., Bersier, L-F., Bascompte, J., and Tylianakis, J.M. 2016. Persist of produce: a community trade-off tuned by species evenness. American Naturalist 188: 411-422.

Frost, C.M., Didham, R.K., Rand, T.A., Peralta, G., and Tylianakis, J.M. 2015. Community-level net spillover of natural enemies from managed to natural forest. Ecology 96: 193-202.

Peralta, G., Frost, C.M., Didham, R.K., Varsani, A., and Tylianakis, J.M. 2015. Phylogenetic diversity and coevolutionary signals among trophic levels change across a habitat edge. Journal of Animal Ecology 84: 364-372.

Peralta, G., Frost, C.M., Rand, T.A., Didham, R.K. and Tylianakis, J.M. 2014. Complementarity and redundancy of interactions enhance attack rates and spatial stability in host-parasitoid food webs. Ecology 95: 1888-1896.

Frost, C.M., Graham, A.K., and Spence, J.R. 2013. Abiotic conditions rather than resource availability cues determine aerial dispersal behaviour in spiderlings of Dolomedes triton (Araneae: Pisauridae). Canadian Entomologist 145: 29-39.