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Professor Andrew Jackson

Professor In (Zoology)
      
Profile Photo

Professor Andrew Jackson

Professor In (Zoology)

 a.jackson@tcd.ie

 


My background is in zoology and ecology although I have always been interested in science more generally. My research interests lie in understanding ecological systems or processes from an evolutionary perspective which I tend to approach using computational / mathematical models. Traditionally, ecology is the study of the interactions between living organisms and their environment. During my Phd I focused on understanding interactions between individual animals living in close proximity which are determined by their behavioural rules. These rules are functions both of an individual's genotype and the local physical/ chemical/ biological environment. I am currently working on a diverse range of systems including vulture foraging, anti-predator behaviour in bird flocks and generating new statistical models for re-constructing food-webs.
  Animal Behaviour   Behavioural and evolutionary ecology   Bioengineering   Biological Modeling   Biomechanics, Biomedical Engineering   Cognitive Development/Processes   Comparative/Animal Psychology   COMPUTER MODELING AND SIMULATION   Computer Modelling   COMPUTER SIMULATION   COMPUTER SIMULATIONS   Developmental biology   Ecological Modelling   Ecology   ECOSYSTEM   ECOSYSTEMS   Evolution   Evolutionary Biology   Mathematical Modelling   Morphology   Population Biology   Theoretical Ecology   THEORY & MODELLING   Zoology
Project Title
 Linking ecological processes to community patterns using stable isotopes
From
2011
To
2015
Summary
Novel methods to quantify differences in community structure: development of stable isotope metrics in a Bayesian framework. There is an overwhelming need for the ability to accurately and rapidly quantify the trophic niches of species within their ecological communities. A holistic approach which takes account of the multidimensional and variable nature of interactions within and among species and with the wider ecosystem as a whole is required to meet this challenge. In recent years, stable isotope techniques have revolutionised the study of trophic ecology. However, although they also hold much promise for the elucidation and description of trophic structure, we lack the mathematical tools that will allow us to make quantitative comparisons of these structures. The main aim of this project is to develop novel methods for describing the structure of ecological communities. These "isotopic community metrics" will be based on established stable isotope methods (Layman et al 2007a, Layman et al 2007b), but will be underpinned by a statistically robust quantitative framework. The newly-developed models will allow us to compare different communities directly and in an ecologically relevant manner, for instance before and after a disturbance such as species invasion, eutrophication or climate change. Equally, the niche width of organisms is inherently tied to their diversification and ultimately their speciation, giving this project an additional evolutionary aspect.
Funding Agency
HEA
Programme
PRTLI5
Project Type
4-year PhD Programme in Earth and Natural Sciences
Project Title
 How Conflict and Cooperation Shape the Evolution of Social Behaviour: From Individual Interactions to Group Structure
From
2010
To
2013
Summary
Funding Agency
IRCSET
Programme
INSPIRE IRCSET-Marie Curie Mobility Fellowship
Project Type
Fellowship awarded to Dr Colby Tanner.
Project Title
 The evolution and maintenance of cooperative behaviour
From
Oct 2009
To
Sep 2012
Summary
The evolution and maintenance of cooperative behaviour is central to our understanding of biological systems, from gene/protein interaction networks, to bacterial colonies, all the way up to complex societies such as human civilisation and its components such as financial markets. The fundamental challenge to understanding these systems is how cooperation emerges and is retained when evolutionary pressure will drive individual components to selfishly cheat on their honest counter-parts. Ultimately, such cheating or defection is predicted to lead to collapse and failure of the higher level functioning of the group. It is quite clear that human society has developed mechanisms such as judiciary concepts involving policing and punishment for keeping cheaters at a tolerably low level within the group. What is entirely unclear is how our society developed in the first place, or how apparently more primitive systems lacking higher level cognitive abilities or recourse to emergent legislative judiciary can moderate against invasion by cheaters. The main research method of this project will be the creation of detailed mathematical and computational models of cooperative systems. The models will be novel in their approach by combining artificial neural networks, game theory and genetic algorithms to determine the cognitive and/or non-cognitive requirements necessary for effective policing. The models will also incorporate spiteful interactions between individuals and differences in competitive abilities between these individuals to investigate how these factors affect cooperation. Supplementary to these models, public goods games will be carried out with students in order to elucidate the principles underlying cooperation and policing in financial markets in particular.
Funding Agency
IRCSET
Programme
Postgraduate Scholarship
Project Type
Research
Project Title
 The Ecological Implications of Context Dependent Aggression in Urban Environments
From
Jun 2009
To
Aug 2009
Summary
Ecosystems across the globe are becoming progressively more urbanized (United Nations 2006), as humans present an increasingly formidable evolutionary force on the rest of the planet (Palumbi 2001). Therefore, the effects of urbanization are becoming increasingly important on a global scale (Grimm et al. 2008). Urbanization is known to have remarkable effects on ecosystem form and function, as well as on species' distributions and abundances (Alberti 2005; Shochat et al. 2006). Relatively little, however, is known about what effect urbanization has on the behaviors of interacting species. For example, urbanization is known to alter community composition through the introduction of new species (Holway & Suarez 2006), and such changes are in part due to the behavioural differences between species (Holway & Suarez 1999), yet there is no clear evidence for how urbanization affects the behaviours of species (native or exotic). This project used shore crabs (Carcinus maenas) as a model system in which to study the complex competitive interactions that arise in urban-like systems.
Funding Agency
SFI
Programme
UREKA
Project Type
undergraduate internship
Project Title
 Individual and Group Aggressive Behaviour in Social Organisms
From
01/12/2008
To
31/11/2010
Summary
Aims 1) Develop mathematical and computational models to investigate how aggressive group behaviour during a competitive interaction between cooperative social organisms (e.g. ants) emerges from the information transfer between individuals using context-dependent behavioural rules. 2) Extend models to include social organisms with intra-group competing interests in addition to between-group competition (e.g. bumblebees). 3) Develop empirical laboratory and field experiments to test individual behavioural rules and mechanisms of information transfer, as well as model assumptions and predictions.
Funding Agency
IRCSET
Programme
Postdoctoral Fellowships

Page 1 of 2
Details Date
I sat on the expert panel for ecology and evolution for the Norwegian Institute for Science 2013-2015. This involves reviewing approximately 28 proposals and sitting on a panel discussion to rank them over 3 days in Oslo. I have also reviewed grants for NERC UK, Leverhulme 2015
Associate Editor for the British Ecological Society's international peer-reviewed Journal of Animal Ecology (impact factor 4.5). 2018
Associate editor for Elsevier's journal Food Webs (cite score 4.0) 2018
Details Date From Date To
Fellow, Trinity College Dublin - an academic honour awarded for "scholarship or research achievement of a high order" 2012 present
British Ecology Society member 2006 Present
Irish Ecological Association member 2015 Present
Jean-Francois Arnoldi, Andrew Lloyd Jackson, Ignacio Peralta-Maraver & Nicholas Leslie Payne, A universal thermal performance curve arises in biology and ecology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122, (43), 2025, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Adam Kane, Ricardo Correia, Kevin Healy, Andrew Jackson, Generative AI - Signal to Noise, Digital Society, 4, (2), 2025, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Nicholas L. Payne, Jacinta D. Kong, Andrew L. Jackson, Amanda E. Bates, Simon A. Morley, James A. Smith, Jean"François Arnoldi, Heat limits scale with metabolism in ectothermic animals, Journal of Animal Ecology, 2025, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
James A. Orr, Jeremy J. Piggott, Andrew L. Jackson, Michelle C. Jackson, Jean-François Arnoldi, Variability of functional and biodiversity responses to perturbations is predictable and informative, Nature Communications, 15, (1), 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Haarlem, C.S. and Mitchell, K.J. and Jackson, A.L. and O'Connell, R.G., Individual peak alpha frequency correlates with visual temporal resolution, but only under specific task conditions, European Journal of Neuroscience, 2024, Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
McNicholas, Grace E and Jackson, Andrew L and Brodie, Stephanie and O'Neill, Ross and {\'O, Seasonal variability of high-latitude foraging grounds for Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), Diversity and Distributions, 2024, pe13865 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Bortoluzzi, Jenny R and McNicholas, Grace E and Jackson, Andrew L and Kl{\"o, Transboundary movements of porbeagle sharks support need for continued cooperative research and management approaches, Fisheries Research, 275, 2024, p107007 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Haley R. Dolton, Andrew L. Jackson, Robert Deaville, Jackie Hall , Graham Hall , Gavin McManus , Matthew W. Perkins , Rebecca A. Rolfe , Edward P. Snelling , Jonathan D. R. Houghton , David W. Sims Nicholas L. Payne, Regionally endothermic traits in planktivorous basking sharks Cetorhinus maximus, Endangered Species Research, 51, 2023, p227 - 232, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ian Donohue, Luca Coscieme, Gabriel Gellner, Qiang Yang, Andrew L. Jackson, Ida Kubiszewski, Robert Costanza, Kevin S. McCann, Accelerated economic recovery in countries powered by renewables, Ecological Economics, 212, 2023, p107916 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Lucy Harding, Andrew L Jackson, Nicholas Payne, Energetic costs increase with faster heating in an aquatic ectotherm, Conservation Physiology, 11, (1), 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

Page 1 of 10
Kevin Healy, Seán B.A Kelly, Thomas Guillerme & Andrew Jackson, 'SIDER: Stable Isotope Discrimination Estimation in R', Github, Github, 2017, -, Notes: [Associated with the accompanying peer reviewed paper: Healy, K., Guillerme, T., Kelly, S. B. A., Inger, R., Bearhop, S. and Jackson, A. L. (2017), SIDER: an R package for predicting trophic discrimination factors of consumers based on their ecology and phylogenetic relatedness. Ecography. doi:10.1111/ecog.03371 This paper also has a pre-print in PeerJ which can be found here: https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1950v1], Software, PUBLISHED
Brice Semmens, Brian Stock, Eric Ward, Andrew Parnell, Donald Phillips, & Andrew Jackson., 'MixSIAR', Github, 2016, -, Software, PUBLISHED
Jackson, A.L. & Parnell, A.C., 'SIBER', CRAN and GitHub, 2015, -, Notes: [Methodology published in Jackson, A.L., Parnell, A.C., Inger R., & Bearhop, S. 2011. Comparing isotopic niche widths among and within communities: SIBER - Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses in R. Journal of Animal Ecology, 80, 595-602 doi], Software, PUBLISHED
Parnell, A.C. & Jackson, A.L., siar: Stable Isotope Analysis in R, 2009, -, Notes: [Although not directly subject to peer-review, the underlying methodology was peer-reviewed in the associated papers: Jackson, A.L., Inger, R., Bearhop, S. & Parnell, A. 2009. Erroneous behaviour of MixSIR, a recently published Bayesian isotope mixing model: a discussion of Moore & Semmens, Ecology Letters, 2008. Ecology Letters, 12, E1-E5. Parnell, A.C., Inger R., Bearhop, S. & Jackson, A.L. 2010. Source partitioning using stable isotopes: coping with too much variation. PLoS ONE, 5(3), e9672. Jackson, A.L., Parnell, A.C., Inger R., & Bearhop, S. 2011. Comparing isotopic niche widths among and within communities: SIBER - Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses in R. Journal of Animal Ecology, 80, 595-602. Parnell, A.C., Phillips, D.L., Bearhop, S., Semmens, B.X., Ward, E.J., Moore, J.W., Jackson, A.L. & Inger, R. 2013. Bayesian stable isotope mixing models. Environmetrics, 24(6), 387-399. ], Software, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Fulbright Scholarship June 2017
Research Scholarship (PhD) - University of Glasgow 2002-2005
MacRobertson Travel Scholarship - University of Glasgow / University of Strathclyde Sept 2004
My broad research topic is ecology and evolution, and specifically theoretical ecology. I am interested in how interactions between individual organisms of the same and different species generate macroscopic patterns we observe as ecosystems or food-webs. I have a developed a research group that is a leader in quantitative ecology in Ireland and with demonstrable global impact and renown with a portfolio of highly cited research papers in top journals. Several graduates from my lab have set up their own successful groups as PIs in internationally recognised institutions. The current focus of my research is a four-year project funded by the Irish Research Council which aims to develop a new set of quantitative tools that will allow us to maximise our ability to monitor and predict the response of ecosystem food-webs to a world that is changing and ever more managed or impacted by societies. A food-web in some senses is simple: it describes how energy and biomass flows up from primary producers (plants) through to consumers and up to higher level predators. The challenge is to manage better these systems on which we rely for health and wealth. My project is developing dynamic mathematical models to generate food-webs of various structure and behaviour, and coupled with new statistical models that might allow us to monitor these systems in the real world. We have recently identified new links between empirical data and fundamental properties of food-webs that will allow us to change the way we monitor and manage ecosystems. I am currently using this new research momentum to help mentor new junior colleagues and to win further funding by using the outputs to solve real world problems in marine ecosystems with a particular focus on large marine predators and ecosystem based fisheries management.