Nicholas J Clark
School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland (UQ)
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Postdoctoral Fellow Studying Disease Ecology
My name is Nicholas (Nick) Clark, and I am a disease ecologist exploring new ways to (1) understand how natural communities are formed and (2) predict how they will change over time. I completed my PhD with Dr Sonya Clegg and the Griffith University Wildlife Disease Ecology Group. This work blended ideas from disease ecology, evolution and biogeography to yield new insights into how avian malaria and microfilaria parasites disperse and evolve. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Veterinary Science at the University of Queensland (UQ), I develop computational phylogenetic tools and adapt techniques from statistical network theory to study how parasites interact with their hosts and how these interactions change across urbanisation gradients. This work covers a broad range of host-pathogen systems, and so the pages on this site have been dedicated to describing my research themes as well as providing a repository for free access to publication PDFs and open-source statistical software. Please have a look at this website for project details and read my full CV here to learn more about my work.
My research focuses on integrating community ecology, evolutionary ecology and epidemiology to better understand host-pathogen interactions. This work can broadly be categorised into three main research interests:
(1) The epidemiology of wildlife pathogens and their ecological roles across the human-wildlife interface
Key examples:
(2) Developing statistical approaches to unravel how species interact in natural communities to influence biodiversity patterns, and how these interactions respond to global change
Key examples:
(3) The macroecology and biogeography of infectious disease, and what roles host community composition play in driving emergence of disease-causing pathogens
Key examples:
Primary Research Themes
Clark et al; estimating how wildlife mammal functional traits determine the spread of parasitic fleas
Clark et al; identifying influences of host migratory behaviour on malaria infection dynamics in wild birds
Clark et al; applying Markov Random Fields to co-occurrence data to detect changing biotic interactions
Clark et al; using Joint Species Distribution Models to understand how coinfections and environmental conditions drive parasite epidemiology
Clark; identifying global drivers of avian malaria phylogenetic diversity and community composition
Clark et al; building a statistical framework to study mechanisms driving community assembly of vector-borne parasites
Dr Nicholas J Clark
Contact Details
School of Veterinary Science
University of Queensland
Gatton, Queensland, Australia 4343
Email: nicholas.j.clark1214’at’gmail.com
Curriculum Vitae