Contact Information
505 S. Goodwin Ave
Urbana, IL 61801
Biography
I have had a long interest in evolution and ecology. Prior to starting at the University of Illinois, I worked for a decade managing natural history collections at the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Botanical Garden in New York City.
Research Interests
Ecological interactions of insects and flowering plants, especially Depressariidae (webworm moths) and Apiaceae (carrot family); Insect systematics, alpha-level taxonomy of Drosophilidae and other Diptera; chemical ecology, phytochemistry.
Research Description
I am currently working on the interactions of various Depressaria moths with native and introduced Apiaceae like parsnips (Pastinaca sativa). This work is exploring classic studies in the context of climate change, the loss of winter, and phenotypic mismatch.
Other lines of research focus on the taxonomy and distributions of fruit flies (Drosophilidae). I am currently working on a checklist of the family for the state of Illinois, which has uncovered new species in three genera. Work has also begun on revising the Neotropical species of Amiota, a strange drosophilid group with interesting life histories and bizarre behaviors. This is an extension of recently published work on the genus (Jones and Grimaldi, 2022).
I also volunteer time curating the Diptera (true flies) of the collections at the Illinois Natural History Survey.
Education
B.A. in Biology (2011), Blackburn College
M.S. in Biology (2020), City College of New York (affiliated with American Museum of Natural History)
Courses Taught
IB 103, Introduction to Plant Biology
IB 104, Animal Biology
IB 335, Plant Systematics
Additional Campus Affiliations
Technician- Medical Entomology Laboratory, Illinois Natural History Survey
Collections Associate- Insect Collection (Diptera), Illinois Natural History Survey
Recent Publications
Hale, K.R.S, J.D. Curlis, G.G. Auteri, S. Bishop, R.L.K. French, L.E. Jones, K.L. Mills, B.G. Scholtens, M. Simons, C. Thompson, J. Tourville, and F.S. Valdovinos. 2024. A highly resolved network reveals the role of terrestrial herbivory in structuring aboveground food webs. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379 (1909): 1-14. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0180
Jones, L.E. and D.A. Grimaldi. 2022. Revision of the Nearctic species of the genus Amiota Loew (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 458: 1-177. https://doi.org/10.1206/0003-0090.458.1.1
Rozen, J.G., E.A.B. Almeida, C.S. Smith, and L.E. Jones. 2021. Intratribal variation among mature larvae of stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) with descriptions of the eggs of 11 species. American Museum Novitates, 3971: 1-47. https://doi.org/10.1206/3971.1
Jones, L.E., A.B. Berkov, and D.A. Grimaldi. 2021. Saproxylic fly diversity in a Costa Rican forest mosaic. Journal of Natural History, 55 (19-20): 1251-1265. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2021.1943031
Grimaldi, D.A. and L.E. Jones. 2020. A revision of the Drosophila spinipes species group (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Zootaxa, 4809 (1): 1-28. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4809.1.1