Natalie Jones

I use lab and field experiments, synthesis, and modelling to test predictions generated from theory describing the complex ways that species persist locally, when they colonise new environments and when global changes alter how they interact. Prior to working at Griffith, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Queensland with Prof. Margie Mayfield where I received an early career research grant to explore how plant interactions change across an aridity gradient in Western Australia. Before moving to Australia, I worked at the University of California San Diego with Prof. Jonathan Shurin testing how trophic interactions mediate the assembly of novel communities. That work received the 2020 Elton Prize from the British Ecological Society, which recognises the best paper published by an early career researcher in the Journal of Animal Ecology; I am now an Associate Editor for that journal. I completed my PhD at the University of Toronto in Canada, working with Prof. Ben Gilbert, exploring how freshwater communities change over space and time.