About
Editors and people

Editors for Ecology

We aim to review studies that provide new insights into the different types of interactions that shape the distribution and abundance of organisms on Earth, including everything from new natural history observations to genomic analyses conducted on landscape scales (see also “Ecology in the genomics era of a degraded planet”). We also welcome functional analyses of the traits that matter for an organism’s Darwinian fitness. Read the latest research in this subject area.

Type

Senior editors

George H Perry

Pennsylvania State University, United States

George Perry received his PhD in 2008 from Arizona State University, and did postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago. In 2011, he began a faculty position at Penn State University, where he is now Associate Professor of Anthropology and Biology, Chair of the Bioinformatics and Genomics Graduate Degree Program, and member of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. His research interests focus on human evolution, evolutionary ecology, and evolutionary medicine, and how human behavior and biology have affected non-human evolutionary biology. Research methods and theory from anthropology, evolutionary biology, parasitology, and population, comparative, functional, and paleo (ancient DNA) genomics are integrated in this work. He has received the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation, among others.

Expertise
Evolutionary Biology
Ecology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
evolutionary biology
population genomics
evolutionary ecology
paleogenomics
ancient DNA
human evolution

Experimental organism
human
non-human primates
parasites

Competing interests statement
George Perry has received research support from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. He is currently an Associate Editor of Evolutionary Anthropology.
Sergio Rasmann

University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Sergio Rasmann is a plant chemical ecologist who obtained his PhD in 2006 from the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), during which he discovered that herbivore-damaged maize roots emit volatile signals in the soil that attract predatory nematodes near the site of wounding. After a post‐doc at Cornell University, a research fellowship at the University of Lausanne, and an assistant professorship at the University of California, Irvine, he is now Full Professor at the University of Neuchâtel, head of the Laboratory of Functional Ecology. His current research interests focus on addressing the mechanistic, ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences of chemically mediated interactions between plants and their biotic and abiotic environment. This broad theme is split into studying the effects of climate change on plant-herbivore interaction, improving biological control methods using beneficial microbes, and conservation biology practices. He has been awarded the early career award by the International Society of Chemical Ecology in 2014.

Expertise
Ecology
Plant Biology

Research focus
chemical ecology
functional ecology
community ecology
soil science

Competing interests statement
Sergio has been receiving continuous funding mainly from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and occasionally from the European Union (Horizon 2020). He is an active member of several scientific commissions at the Swiss National Science Foundation, and at CITES. He is associate editor for Functional ecology, and Frontiers in Plant Science, and has served as Reviewing Editor for eLife.
Meredith C Schuman

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Meredith Schuman (Merry) is an Assistant Professor in Spatial Genetics, Departments of Geography and Chemistry, University of Zurich and a member of the Remote Sensing Laboratories and the University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity at the University of Zurich. Her background is in the chemical ecology and functional genetics of plant interactions, and plant ecophysiology. She works on projects combining direct analyses of plant tissue, and remote sensing techniques with the aim of developing approaches to assess genetic and chemotypic variation, plasticity, and adaptive potential within plant species, and their interactions in the context of global change. She was previously a Group Leader in the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (MPICE) in Jena and a Junior Group Leader in the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) on the ecological functions of plant genes.

Expertise
Ecology
Plant Biology

Research focus
chemical ecology
spatial ecology
plant interactions
functional genetics
intraspecific diversity

Competing interests statement
Merry's position and her research is currently supported by the NOMIS foundation (grant to Michael Schaepman, University of Zurich, project: Remotely Sensing Ecological Genomics) and the University of Zurich, including the Departments of Geography and Chemistry and the University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity in which she is a PI. From November 2020 her work will also be funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 program (UPSCALE consortium, grant number 861998, co-PI and work package lead).

Reviewing editors

Yuxin Chen

Xiamen University, China

Expertise
Ecology

Research focus
community ecology
forest
demography
biodiversity
Barnabas Daru

Stanford University, United States

Expertise
Ecology

Research focus
biogeography
natural history collections
vascular plants
phyloregions
phylogeny
Alok Dhawan

Centre of Biomedical Research, India

Expertise
Medicine
Ecology

Research focus
molecular epidemiology
DNA damage and repair
genetic toxicology
nanomaterial toxicology
environmental health
Rosalyn Gloag

University of Sidney, Australia

Expertise
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Ecology

Research focus
invasive species
population genetics
brood parasitism
social parasitism
eusociality

Experimental organism
birds
bees
Emilia Huerta-Sanchez

Brown University, United States

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
natural selection
population demography
Nizar Ibrahim

University of Portsmouth, United States

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
vertebrate palaeontology
morphology anatomy
dinosaur evolution
Yaroslav Ispolatov

Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Physics of Living Systems

Research focus
evolution
diversification
adaptive dynamics
ecology
systems biology
CRISPR
Youngsung Joo

Seoul National University, South Korea

Expertise
Ecology

Research focus
plant-mediated insect interactions
plant-herbivore interactions
volatile-mediated interactions
plant defense
climate changes
endophytic herbivores

Experimental organism
plants
Ammie K Kalan

University of Victoria, Canada

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
acoustic monitoring
animal communication
animal behaviour
conservation
primatology
Merijn R Kant

University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Expertise
Ecology
Plant Biology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
plant defense
biological control
adaptation
co-evolution
pest formation
effectors
susceptibility
resistance
defense suppression

Experimental organism
insects
mites
plants
David Marjanovic

Museum für Naturkunde, Germany

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
vertebrate palaeontology
morphology
James M McCaw

The University of Melbourne, Australia

Expertise
Epidemiology and Global Health
Microbiology and Infectious Disease
Ecology
Immunology and Inflammation

Research focus
mathematical epidemiology
virus dynamics
infectious diseases
mathematical modelling
pandemics
influenza
malaria
COVID-19
Sara Mitri

University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Microbiology and Infectious Disease

Research focus
microbial ecology and evolution
mathematical modelling
synthetic ecology
interspecies interactions
Chima Nwaogu

University of Cape Town, South Africa

Expertise
Ecology

Research focus
seasonality
breeding
moult
eco-immunology
body mass variation
David A Paz-Garcia

Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste (CIBNOR), Mexico

Expertise
Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology and Infectious Disease
Plant Biology

Research focus
marine life
coral reefs
phylogenomics
population genomics
morphometrics
gene expression
statistics
coding
Bernhard Schmid

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Expertise
Ecology
Plant Biology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
plant ecology
evolutionary ecology
biodiversity
ecosystem functioning
community ecology
experimental ecology

Experimental organism
seed plants
grassland
forest
Wenying Shou

University College London, United Kingdom

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
quantitative biology
mathematical biology
evolutionary biology
synthetic biology
molecular genetics
evolution of cooperation
computer simulations

Experimental organism
S. cerevisiae
Daniel Y Takahashi

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Neuroscience
Physics of Living Systems

Research focus
social interaction
vocal learning
neurophysiology
computational modeling
ontogeny of behavior
Kristin Tessmar-Raible

University of Vienna, Austria

Expertise
Cell Biology
Developmental Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Neuroscience

Research focus
chronobiology
marine
photobiology
rhythms
clocks
physiology

Experimental organism
platynereis
clunio
danio
medakafish
oryzias
Jenny Tung

Duke University, United States

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
social behaviour
evolutionary ecology
evolutionary functional genomics
hybridization

Experimental organism
primates
Yuuki Y Watanabe

Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, Japan

Expertise
Ecology

Research focus
biologging
behavioral ecology
marine biology

Experimental organism
fish
seabird
marine mammal
Justin Yeakel

University of California, Merced, United States

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
theoretical ecology
population dynamics
macroevolution
paleobiology
complex systems
Min Zhu

Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Expertise
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
paleobiology
vertebrate paleontology
evolutionary biology
systematics
morphology
paleobiogeography
ichthyology

Experimental organism
E. primordialis
G. oneiros
Q. rostrata