We are pleased to welcome Rachael Antwis, Jon Bielby, Fleur Ponton and Rafael L. G. Raimundo who have all recently joined the Journal of Animal Ecology Associate Editor Board.

Rachael Antwis

School of environment and life sciences. University of Salford, UK

Rachael is a microbial ecologist, broadly interested in genetic and environmental interactions that influence host microbiome composition, and the consequences of these for host functioning. Her research spans most taxonomic groups including invertebrates, amphibians, mammals and plants, in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. She has a particular interest in the role of host microbiomes in mediating infectious diseases in both animals and plants. To understand this, she uses a combination of genomics approaches, including metabarcoding and metatranscriptomics, in both experimental and wild systems.

Jon Bielby

Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Jon is broadly interested in population biology, epidemiology and conservation. His work includes a diversity of approaches and scales ranging from the response of individual animals to parasite exposure, right up to species-level analyses of how species ecology and life history interact with the threat levels where they live to determine their susceptibility to decline and extinction. He has a broad taxonomic interest, but am particularly interested in reptiles and amphibians.

Fleur Ponton

Macquarie University, NSW, Australia

Fleur is a physiological ecologist who studies the links between nutrition, disease, immunity and gut microbiota to provide a more comprehensive and robust understanding of the key determinants of the outcome of host–pathogen interactions. Her current research focuses on how nutrition promotes resistance after infection and the transgenerational effects of nutrition on offspring resistance. Fleur mainly works with insects.

Rafael L. G. Raimundo

Department of Engineering and Environment, Center for Applied Sciences and Education, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

Rafael combines conceptual synthesis, species-interaction data, and adaptive network models to investigate eco-evolutionary processes shaping ecological interactions that connect the structure of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. He is particularly interested in understanding the interplay between rapid evolution and ecological processes, focusing on how this interplay acts upon species-rich networks via adaptive interaction rewiring. He is also interested in applying network analyses and models to bridge eco-evolutionary principles to conservation strategies at the community and meta-community scales.

You can find out about all our Associate Editors here