This summer, we’re pleased to welcome both a new Associate Editor, Kate Pereira Maia, and a new Research Highlights Editor in Mariano A. Rodriguez-Cabal. Get to know them here.

Research Highlights Editor: Mariano A. Rodriguez-Cabal

Grupo de Ecologia de Invasiones, INIBIOMA – CONICET – Universidad del Comahue, Patagonia, Argentina.

Mariano is a community ecologist with broad interests in the factors that generate, maintain and threaten biodiversity. He uses observational, experimental, meta-analytical and theoretical approaches to understand how the loss of some species and the gain of others influence plant-animal interactions, vertebrate and ant seed dispersers, the diversity and structure of communities, and ecosystem processes.

Recently an Associate Editor on our board, Mariano moves into the role of Research Highlights Editor, in which he will work to commission and edit the Research Highlight features published in each issue of the journal.

Keywords: community ecology, invasive species, frugivory, seed dispersal by animals

Associate Editor: Kate Pereira Maia

University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Kate is interested understanding the mechanisms affecting the structure of ecological communities, and the effects of such structures on ecological dynamics, community resilience and coevolution. She does so using network tools and empirical data on interactions between species. Kate is also interested in combining these tools with applied questions on species invasions, restoration, habitat loss and fragmentation.

If Kate seems familiar, you may recognise her as the winner of our 2021 Elton Prize early career researcher award.

Keywords: community ecology, species interactions, ecological networks, mutualisms, empirical data analysis, modelling, networks, terrestrial, pollination, herbivory, seed dispersal

See the full Journal of Animal Ecology Editorial Board here.