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Jacinta Kong

Postdoctoral Fellow

Carleton University

Biography

I want to know where animals live and how they persist in their environment. My interests lie at the intersection between ecology, evolutionary biology and experimental biology.

My research centers on characterising diversity in traits and understanding the consequences of this diversity for abundances and distributions of species. I answer these questions through an integrative combination of field and natural history observations, manipulative laboratory experiments, and quantitative analysis and modelling, grounded within conceptual frameworks.

Interests

  • Ecological & evolutionary physiology
  • Microclimate
  • Life history
  • Mechanistic niche modelling of distribution & phenology

Education

  • PhD in Ecophysiology (Zoology), 2020

    University of Melbourne, Australia

  • BSc (Hons I, University Medal) in Zoology, 2013

    University of Queensland, Australia

  • BSc in Ecology & Zoology, 2012

    University of Queensland, Australia

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Postdoctoral Fellow

Carleton University

Jan 2023 – Present Canada
Manipulating diet and rearing context for improving insect farming yields. NSERC Alliance-Mitacs Accelerate postdoctoral fellowship in partnership with Entomo Farms.
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching and Research Fellow

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

May 2019 – Jan 2023 Ireland
Investigating the implications of the relationship between temperature and biological rates for the thermal adaptation of ectotherms and macrophysiological patterns
 
 
 
 
 

PhD

The University of Melbourne

Jan 2015 – Mar 2019 Australia
Predicting ectothem life cycles: Physiological diversity of egg development and its ecological implications
 
 
 
 
 

BSc(Hons I) in Zoology (University Medal)

University of Queensland

Mar 2013 – Oct 2013 University of Queensland, Australia
Testing metabolic theories in ecology: Effects of temperature on body mass-metabolic rate scaling relationships
 
 
 
 
 

BSc in Ecology & Zoology

University of Queensland

Mar 2010 – Dec 2012 University of Queensland, Australia

Recent Publications

Heating tolerance of ectotherms is explained by temperature’s non-linear influence on biological rates

Abstract The capacity of ectotherms to adjust their thermal tolerance limits through evolution or acclimation seems relatively modest …

Parthenogenesis without costs in a grasshopper with hybrid origins

Abstract The rarity of parthenogenetic species is typically attributed to the reduced genetic variability that accompanies the absence …

Best practices for building and curating databases for comparative analyses

Abstract Comparative analyses have a long history of macro-ecological and -evolutionary approaches to understand structure, function, …

Linking thermal adaptation and life-history theory explains latitudinal patterns of voltinism

Abstract Insect life cycles are adapted to a seasonal climate by expressing alternative voltinism phenotypes—the number of generations …

Projects

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Insect farming for food and feed

Improving insect mass-rearing practice for food and feed

Statistical Modelling Practicals

Learning statitical modelling with functional responses

colRoz - A colour package for the land down under

Installation 1. List of palettes Understanding the structure of the palette 2. Defining and using a palette 3. Visualise a palette …

NERD club tutorials

My contributions to the Zoology & Botany NERD Club at Trinity College Dublin

A toolbox for trait-based forecasting

Forecasting the environmental physiology of ectotherms

Biostatistics tutorials

learnr tutorials for teaching undergraduate biostatistics

Predicting ectotherm life cycles

How are ectotherm life cycles adapted to seasonal climate cycles?

Thermal dependence of biological rates

Temperature affects biological processes on many levels of biological organisation

Teaching

At Trinity College Dublin, I taught Animal Diversity I (ZOU33003, third year, ~35 students, 5 credits), Animal Diversity II (ZOU33004, third year, ~35 students, 5 credits), and Statistics and Computation (BYU22S01, second year, ~250 students, 5 credits). My teaching integrates hands-on experiences through practicals with lectures.

Blog posts (external)

BYU22S01 Statistics and Computation course notes

Other

Recent Posts

R exams template

Make an exam paper (with optional solutions) with the R package exams

LaTeX exam templates with R & Rmarkdown

Make an exam paper (with optional solutions) in R Studio with R code and LaTeX {exam}

Knitting an interactive document

Using interactive functions with an Rmarkdown document

December update

Made it to the end of the year.

Gifs keep on giving

Two ways of making gifs in R using {animation} and {gganimate}

Recent & Upcoming Talks

ICE 2024

Leveraging insect physiology for mass rearing practices

BES 2022

Can we improve our ability to identify climate vulnerability in ectotherm life cycles?

Society for Experimental Biology Annual Meeting

Thermal adaptation and plasticity of egg development generates latitudinal patterns in insect life cycles under seasonal climates

BES Macro 2021

Ectotherm heat limits track biological rates

IEA2021

The Irish Ecological Association Conference

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