About

Will Petry is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at North Carolina State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Irvine, earned in 2016, and a B.S. in Biology from Truman State University obtained in 2010. His research focuses on biodiversity, population dynamics, and species interactions, particularly in the context of changing environments. Petry's work includes studying how pollination rates influence plant life history strategies, the impact of plant species on microbially induced carbonate precipitation, and the effects of climate change on plant populations and ecosystem processes. His contributions aim to enhance understanding of ecological responses to environmental change, with a particular emphasis on plant and microbial interactions.

Research topics

• Biology
• Demography
• Ecology
• Evolutionary biology
• Genetics
• Computer Science
• Geography
• Database
• Data science

Selected publications

• Demographic trade-offs decouple pollination services from plant population growth

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Most plants require animal pollination to reproduce, prompting concern that pollinator declines immediately threaten plant populations. This concern is warranted if pollinator-mediated seed losses cause declines in plant population growth rates (λ). However, demographic trade-offs might reduce the risk of population decline if seed loss improves performance elsewhere in the life cycle. We conducted a multi-year pollination manipulation on four species and measured how demographic vital rates and λ responded. Seed responses did not predict net changes in λ. Reduced pollination decreased seed production, but only caused a net decrease in λ in one species; in the others, improved survival buffered λ. Increased pollination boosted seed production, but at a cost to survival that caused a net reduction in λ in three species. Our results highlight the importance of demographic trade-offs for understanding the impacts of pollinator declines on plant biodiversity and, more broadly, the population-level impacts of changing mutualisms.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Changing pollination rates affect plant life history strategies

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-02-14

  articleOpen access

  Abstract An organism’s life history strategy is an attempt to optimize fitness, given environmental constraints and inherent demographic tradeoffs. As such, life history helps to shape an organism’s ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental change. However, life history can also be shaped by the environment, as the organism’s demographic rates respond—directly or through tradeoffs—to the new conditions. This feedback between life history and environment remains poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict the outcomes of environmental change. Here, we studied the effects of environmental change – specifically altered pollination services – on four perennial plant species. We conducted a field-based demography experiment that subjected naturally occurring populations of Delphinium nuttallianum, Hydrophyllum fendleri, Potentilla pulcherrima and Erigeron speciosus to three pollination treatments: ambient (control), reduced, or increased pollination. We estimated population growth rate (λ) and 11 metrics describing life history strategy and demographic resilience from an Integral Projection Model we constructed for each species and parameterized with 4–5 years of census data. Although most life history metrics responded idiosyncratically to pollination treatment, we found consistent effects of pollination on generation time, longevity and, in three of four species, recovery time. Specifically, reduced pollination led to increased longevity, generation time, and recovery time, and increased pollination led to the opposite. These changes in life history resemble shifts along the slow-fast continuum; reduced pollination led to slower lives and increased pollination led to faster lives. This is consequential because generation time and longevity influence short- and long-term population dynamics – for example, by affecting demographic stochasticity and sensitivity to environmental stochasticity, or rates of adaptation to novel conditions. Notably, these changes occurred largely independent from changes in population growth. Altogether, our results highlight changes in life history as an important but underappreciated consequence of environmental change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Plant Species Influence on Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation: X-Ray Diffraction Analysis of Mineral Formation and Composition

  2026-03-05

  articleCorresponding

  While microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) shows promise for soil stabilization, the potential interactions between vegetation and mineral formation processes represent an unexplored opportunity for bio-enhanced ground improvement. This study investigates how plant species affect MICP mineral composition through X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of treated soils. Eleven plant species representing grasses and legumes were grown in silty sand treated with three MICP recipes of varying concentration. XRD analysis revealed that all treatments, including controls, produced detectable calcium carbonate polymorphs, with significant discrepancies between XRD and gasometric quantification methods. Plant germination success varied dramatically across MICP treatments, with high-concentration recipes (MICP 1) preventing germination in most species except wheat and rye, while phosphate-supplemented recipes (MICP 2 and 3) improved plant tolerance. Species-specific mineral formation patterns emerged, with certain grasses showing more consistent carbonate precipitation across conditions. However, the study revealed critical limitations in current analytical approaches, as XRD consistently detected higher carbonate content than gasometric methods, indicating potential interference from soil organic matter or analytical artifacts. These findings highlight the need for improved quantification methods and suggest that successful plant-MICP integration requires careful optimization of treatment chemistry to balance mineral formation with plant viability.

  PublisherDOI

• Spring ephemeral <i>Erythronium umbilicatum</i> may not be vulnerable to phenological mismatch with overstory trees

  American Journal of Botany · 2026-03-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  PREMISE: The defining life history strategy of spring ephemeral wildflowers is their avoidance of shading by trees during the brief, high-light period before canopy leaf out. Studies suggest that spring ephemerals will experience increased light competition because canopy leaf out is more sensitive to warming than is the phenology of spring ephemerals. However, it remains unclear how longer durations of shade will alter the population dynamics of spring ephemerals and whether all populations are at risk. METHODS: We experimentally shaded Erythronium umbilicatum for one to six additional weeks before canopy leaf out to test for immediate and lagged effects of early shading on the timing of senescence and the probability of survival and flowering. To predict the potential for earlier shading, we combined long-term time series of spring air temperature, remotely sensed tree leaf out, and E. umbilicatum flowering phenology in North Carolina, United States. RESULTS: Early shading did not alter E. umbilicatum until the following year, when more-shaded plants senesced later. Year-to-year survival did not change, and the probability of flowering was reduced only when plants experienced extremely early shading. Moreover, E. umbilicatum phenology was more sensitive than tree leaf out to warming temperatures. We project that, under climate warming, E. umbilicatum is unlikely to experience shortened periods of high light. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that a plant species' defining life history strategy does not necessarily predict their sensitivity to phenological mismatches. This incongruity complicates, but also underscores the importance of identifying the most vulnerable species and directing our research efforts accordingly.

  PublisherDOI

• Linking climate and demography to predict population dynamics and persistence under global change

  2025-07-16

  article

  Predicting the effects of climate change on plant and animal populations is an urgent challenge for understanding the fate of biodiversity under global change. At the surface, quantifying how climate drives the vital rates that underlie population dynamics appears simple, yet many decisions are required to connect climate to demographic data. Competing approaches have emerged in the literature with little consensus around best practices. Here we provide a practical guide for how to best link vital rates to climate for the purposes of population projection and forecasting. We first describe the sources of demographic and climate data underlying population models. We then focus on best practices to model the relationships between vital rates and climate, highlighting what we can learn from mechanistic and phenomenological models. Finally, we discuss the challenges of prediction and forecasting in the face of uncertainty about climate-demographic relationships as well as future climate. We conclude by suggesting ways forward to build this field of research into one that makes robust forecasts of population persistence, with opportunities for synthesis across species.

  PublisherDOI

• Several candidate size metrics explain vital rates across multiple populations throughout a widespread species' range

  Journal of Ecology · 2025-09-12

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Individual plant size often determines the vital rates of growth, survival and reproduction. However, size can be measured in several ways (e.g. height, biomass, leaf length). There is no consensus on the best size metric for modelling vital rates in plants. Demographic datasets are expanding in geographic extent, leading to choices about how to represent size for the same species in multiple ecological contexts. If the choice of size variable varies among locations, inter‐population comparative demography increases in complexity. Here, we present a framework to perform size metric selection in large‐scale demographic studies. We highlight potential pitfalls and suggest methods applicable to diverse study organisms. We assessed the performance of five different size metrics for the perennial herb Plantago lanceolata , across 55 populations on three continents within its native and non‐native ranges, using the spatially replicated demographic dataset PlantPopNet. We compared the performance of each candidate size metric for four vital rates (growth, survival, flowering probability and reproductive output) using generalized linear mixed models. We ranked the candidate size metrics based on their overall performance (highest generalized R 2 ) and homogeneity of performance across populations (lowest total magnitude of, and variance in, population‐level error). While all size variables performed well for modelling vital rates, the number of leaves (modelled as a discrete variable, without transformation) was selected as the best size metric, followed by leaf length. We show how to interrogate potential trade‐offs between overall explanatory power and homogeneity of predictions across populations in any organism. Synthesis . Size is an important determinant of vital rates. Using a dataset of unprecedented spatial extent, we find (a) consistent size‐based models of growth, survival and reproduction across native and non‐native populations of this cosmopolitan plant species and (b) that several tested size metrics perform similarly well. This is encouraging for large‐scale demographic studies and for comparative projects using different size metrics, as they may be robust to this methodological difference.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Spring ephemeral <i>Erythronium umbilicatum</i> may not be vulnerable to phenological mismatch with overstory trees

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-05-16

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Premise The defining life history strategy of spring ephemeral wildflowers is their avoidance of shading by trees during the brief, high-light period before canopy leaf-out. Studies suggest that spring ephemerals will experience increased light competition because canopy leaf-out is more sensitive to warming than is the phenology of spring ephemerals. However, it remains unclear how longer durations of shade will alter the population dynamics of spring ephemerals and whether all populations are at risk. Methods We experimentally shaded Erythronium umbilicatum for one to six additional weeks prior to canopy leaf-out to test for immediate and lagged effects of early shading on the timing of senescence and the probability of survival and flowering. To predict the potential for earlier shading, we combined long-term time series of spring air temperature, remotely-sensed tree leaf-out, and E. umbilicatum flowering phenology in North Carolina, USA. Key results Early shading did not alter E. umbilicatum until the following year, when more-shaded plants senesced later. We found no change in year-to-year survival, and a reduction in the probability of flowering only when plants experienced extremely early shading. Moreover, E. umbilicatum phenology was more sensitive than tree leaf-out to warming temperatures. Under climate warming, we project that E. umbilicatum is unlikely to experience shortened periods of high light. Conclusions Our findings show that a plant species’ defining life history strategy does not necessarily predict their sensitivity to phenological mismatches. This complicates, but also underscores the importance of identifying the most vulnerable species and directing our research efforts accordingly.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nutrient niche dynamics among wild pollinators

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2025-08-01

  article

  Food underpins fitness and ecological interactions, yet how nutrient availability shapes species interactions in natural communities remains poorly understood. Most nutritional ecology research focuses on laboratory or single-species systems, limiting insight into how nutrient use and nutrient niche dynamics occur in complex, multispecies assemblages in the wild. We combined long-term plant-pollinator interaction data with pollen macronutrient analyses to examine how wild bumble bees exploit macronutrients and whether they occupy distinct nutrient niches. Pollen macronutrient composition varied across plant species and over the season, with protein-rich pollen peaking in spring and lipid- and carbohydrate-rich pollen increasing by late summer. Across this nutrient landscape, bumble bee species occupied two distinct macronutrient niches: one high in protein and low in lipid and carbohydrate, and the other lower in protein but moderate in lipid and carbohydrate. Nutrient niche partitioning was associated with differences in feeding morphology and colony life stage (but not phenology). We found little evidence that nutrient niche breadth differed among species or was explained by feeding morphology or colony life stage. Our results extend nutritional ecology to a multispecies context, provide evidence for nutrient niche partitioning among wild pollinators and highlight the need to consider species-specific nutritional requirements in pollinator conservation.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Linking climate and demography to predict population dynamics and persistence under global change"

  2025-10-27

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Linking Climate and Demography to Predict Population Dynamics and Persistence Under Global Change

  Ecology Letters · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Predicting the effects of climate change on plant and animal populations is an urgent challenge for understanding the fate of biodiversity under global change. At the surface, quantifying how climate drives the vital rates that underlie population dynamics appears simple, yet many decisions are required to connect climate to demographic data. Competing approaches have emerged in the literature with little consensus around best practices. Here we provide a practical guide for how to best link vital rates to climate for the purposes of inference and projection of population dynamics. We first describe the sources of demographic and climate data underlying population models. We then focus on best practices to model the relationships between vital rates and climate, highlighting what we can learn from mechanistic and phenomenological models. Finally, we discuss the challenges of prediction and forecasting in the face of uncertainty about climate-demographic relationships as well as future climate. We conclude by suggesting ways forward to build this field of research into one that makes robust forecasts of population persistence, with opportunities for synthesis across species.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Roberto Salguero‐Gómez

  University of Oxford

  23 shared

• Kailen A. Mooney

  University of California, Irvine

  20 shared

• Paul J. CaraDonna

  Center for Plant Conservation

  18 shared

• Nathan J. Sanders

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  12 shared

• Amy M. Iler

  Northwestern University

  12 shared

• Cyrille Violle

  Centre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive

  10 shared

• Vojtěch Novotný

  Institute of Entomology

  10 shared

• Yves Basset

  Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

  10 shared

Labs

• Plant and Microbial BiologyPI

Education

• Ph.D., Plant Pathology

  University of California, Berkeley

  2008

• M.S., Plant Pathology

  University of California, Berkeley

  2003

• B.S., Botany

  University of California, Davis

  2001