Journal of Ecology is thrilled to welcome four new Associate Editors. Jane Catford (University of Southampton, UK), Han Chen (Lakehead University, Canada), Emily Farrer (Tulane University, USA) and Julieta Rosell (UNAM, Mexico) all join the Editorial Board and you can find out more about them below.

Jane Catford

Jane is based at the University of Southampton in the Environmental Biosciences Research Group. Jane’s research centres on community assembly and invasion ecology. She is particularly interested in how environmental, biological and geographic factors affect the functional composition of plant communities. Current research foci include the causes and consequences of invasion; species invasiveness and ecosystem invasibility; the role of human activities in facilitating invasion and vegetation change. Her work covers both the practical and theoretical aspects of biological invasions and native vegetation restoration. She has ongoing field experiments in Australia, the US and UK, and mostly conducts field research in grasslands, wetlands, rivers and riparian ecosystems. While rooted in community and invasion ecology, her work extends to succession, species coexistence, disturbance, ecosystem restoration, vegetation management, novel ecosystems, assisted colonization, river health, impacts of flow regulation and climate change.

Jane has consistently reviewed for the Journal and published the inaugural Harper Review paper earlier this year with fellow Associate Editor Yvonne Buckley. The paper, titled ‘Does the biogeographic origin of species matter? Ecological effects of native and non-native species and the use of origin to guide management,’ discussed to what extent the origin of non-native species matter when looking at their ecological impact and subsequent management decisions.

Han Chen

Professor Chen runs the Forest Ecology Lab which is part of the Natural Resources Management department at Lakeland University, Canada. Han’s research focuses mainly on forest ecology, particularly plant diversity, ecosystem functioning, succession, climate change and nutrient dynamics, often involving large spatial and long temporal scales. Much of his work is designed to provide under-pinning for ecological sustainability of forest ecosystems in a changing environment.

Han has been an active reviewer for Journal of Ecology over the last few years as well as authored several papers for the Journal including ‘Individual size inequality links forest diversity and above-ground biomass’ and ‘Tree species diversity increases fine root productivity through increased soil volume filling.’

Emily Farrer

Emily is an Assistant Professor at Tulane University, New Orleans, USA. She runs a lab within the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a focus on the interactions that structure plant and microbial communities in space and time, and how global change alters these interactions with consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem function. She studies ecology using a framework that integrates across a variety of disciplines – community ecology, microbial ecology, ecosystem ecology, invasion biology – and utilises a broad range of statistical modelling, GIS, and molecular techniques. Emily has used this framework to ask questions about plant-soil feedbacks, plant population dynamics, woody encroachment, and invasive species spread.

Emily has published papers in Journal of Ecology such as ‘Indirect effects of global change accumulate to alter plant diversity but not ecosystem function in alpine tundra’ and ‘Patterns and mechanisms of conspecific and heterospecific interactions in a dry perennial grassland’ as well as acting as a reviewer for the Journal.

Julieta Rosell

Julieta is based in the Instituto de Ecología at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – one of the largest Universities in Latin America.

Julieta’s research focuses on plant ecology and evolution. She has worked on the functional ecology of woody stems, including mechanics, storage, conductivity, and structure of bark and wood, along with the evolution of life forms in diverse clades in the wet and dry tropics. She has recently started work on the functional ecology of maize and bean races of her native Mexico, plant-soil relationships in agroecosystems, and ecological issues in forest management and biodiversity conservation. We look forward to working with Julieta and  welcome her extensive knowledge of evolutionary biology and species based in Central America.

We are thrilled to welcome Jane, Han, Emily and Julieta to the Associate Editor Board and we look forward to working with them over the coming years. You can read about the rest of our Editorial Board on the Journal Website.