Nicholas Fountain-Jones

Current research

Nick is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota looking at pathogen community ecology in big cats. For more information, see his website at nickfountainjones.wordpress.com.

Past research

I’m a doctoral candidate with the School of Plant Science and the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania. I commenced my doctoral studies in 2011 on a project titled “The effects of forest influence and successional stage on beetle diversity.” My project will rely heavily on DNA barcoding to aid identification and analyse the phylogenetic relationships between these species. Furthermore we will test the General Yule Coalescent Model of species delimitation using these barcodes and comparing the results to traditional morphological classification. My other research interests include; beetle taxonomy, plant/invertebrate interactions, impacts of climate change on biodiversity and invertebrate biogeography.

Education

• Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours (2007). Thesis title: The effects of forest influence and successional stage on beetle diversity.

Publications

Fountain-Jones N, Grove, S & McQuillan, P (in press): Beetle communities associated with the tree fern Dicksonia antarctica Labill. in Tasmania’ Australian Journal of Entomology

Fountain-Jones N, Baker S & Jordan J (under review) Moving Beyond the guild concept: Using functional traits of terrestrial arthropods to understand ecology.

Funding

• ELITE Scholarship for Doctoral candidates (2011)
• APA Doctoral Scholarship (2011)
• Warra Long Term Ecological Area Small Projects Grant (2011)
• Maxwell Ralph Jacobs Award (2011)
• Warra Long Term Ecological Area Small Projects Grant (2006)

Presentations

Poster presentation at the Ecological Society of Australia (2011)

Curriculum vitae