Professor ASHTON, Louise Amy
Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, HKU
BSc (Griffith University); PhD (Griffith University)
Teaching Areas
- Ecology and evolution
- Community ecology
- Conservation ecology
- Field ecology
Research Interests
- Tropical rainforest ecology
- Biodiversity and the role of insects in ecosystem function
- Ecological responses to environmental change
- Canopy ecology
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Current Research
- Insect declines in the tropics
- The impact of drought on tropical rainforests
- Restoration of Hong Kong’s biodiversity
- Canopy food web responses to climate change
Fellowship and Awards
- 2021 Excellent Young Scientist Award
- 2020 HKU Outstanding Research Output Award
- 2020 Griffith University Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
Research Team
Post-doctoral Fellows:
Michael J W Boyle, Adam Sharp, Alexey Reschchikov, Birhanu Sisay, Martha J Ledger, Michel Dongmo
Postgraduates:
Coskun Güçlü, Victoria Amaral, Xiaoyi Zeng, Clara Park, Nok Lam (Chloe) Yuen, Bartosz Majcher, Theodora Chan, Ruiming Nie
News
- News updates can be found here: http://louiseashton.net/newsandupdates
Recent Selected Publications
- Zeng, X., Gao, H., Wang, R., Machjer, B., Woon, J., Wenda, C., Eggleton, P., Griffiths H. & Ashton, L.A.* 2024. Global contribution of invertebrates to forest litter decomposition.Ecology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14423.
- Wenda, C., Nakamura, A., & Ashton, L. A.* 2023. Season and herbivore defence trait mediate tri-trophic interactions in tropical rainforest. Journal of Animal Ecology, 92, 446-476.
- Wenda, C., Gaitán-Espitia, J.D., Solano-Iguaran, J.J., Nakamura, A., Majcher, B.M. & Ashton, L.A.* 2023. Heat tolerance variation reveals vulnerability of tropical herbivore–parasitoid interactions to climate change. Ecology Letters, 26, 278 290– 13.
- H. M. Griffiths*, Ashton, L. A*., Catherine L Parr, Paul Eggleton. 2021. The impact of invertebrate decomposers on plants and soil. New Phytologist 231: 2142-2149.
- Timothy C Bonebrake, Fengyi Guo, Caroline Dingle, David M Baker, Roger L Kitching, Ashton, L. A.* 2019. Integrating Proximal and Horizon Threats to Biodiversity for Conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 34: 970-971.
- H. M. Griffiths^, Ashton, L. A.*^, T. A. Evans, C. L. Parr, P. Eggleton. 2019. Termites can decompose more than half of deadwood in tropical rainforest. Current Biology 29: 118-119. ^co-first author, *corresponding author
- Ashton, L. A., H. M. Griffiths*, C. L. Parr, T. A. Evans, R. K. Didham, F. Hasan, Y. A. Teh, H. S. Tin, C. S Vairappan, P. Eggleton. 2019. Termites mitigate the effects of drought in tropical rainforest.Science 363: 174-177.