Academic career
2018: Visiting researcher, Harvard Forest, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.
2018: Loughborough University Research Fellow
2015-present: Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Loughborough University
2007-2015: Lecturer in Physical Geography, Loughborough University
2005-2007: Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow in Geography and Environmental Management, Department of Geography, Liverpool Hope University.
Professional responsibilities
2014-present: Member of British Council Researcher Links grants panel
2014-present: Member of the British Ecological Society Meetings Committee.
2012-present: Member of the British Ecological Society peer review college.
Prizes and awards
2015: Loughborough University Research Informed Teaching Award.
Jonathan's research focuses on understanding how plants and plant communities respond to environmental variability. The purpose of this is to understand the fundamentals of how plants work, and how they combine into communities; he also wants to establish how ecosystems respond to drivers of global environmental change such as climate change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition.
To achieve this, Jonathan uses a variety of approaches. He investigates how and why plants and plant communities vary geographically; he manipulates ecosystems experimentally and he investigates plant responses outside of their natural environment. A key tool for him has been the use of stable isotopes to interrogate the nitrogen cycle.
A current key part of Jonathan's research is understanding how local processes such as plant-plant interactions, plant-insect interactions, plant-soil interactions, nutrient use and cycling vary across large (regional and continental) scales. His primary study system is peat bogs. In these he has focused on the small carnivorous sundew Drosera rotundifolia. He also studies sand dune slack plant communities, and the carnivorous pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea, which has been introduced into Europe and can be invasive on some bogs.
Jonathan's interests are very broad, and he has collaborated widely on projects including sand dune geomorphology, stream-bed geomorphology, zoogeomorphology, and aquatic ecology.
Jonathan's teaching examines biogeographical and ecological patterns and processes.
Current postgraduate research students
- Sarah Evans: "The invasive Asian clam in the UK"
- Jonathan Slessor: "Using UAS (drones) to measure spatial variability on peatlands"
- Ellen Goddard: "Invasive alien carnivorous plants: ecology, function and management of the purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) in Europe"
- Ciara Sugrue: "Using plant functional and community traits to predict the sensitivity of coastal dune wetlands to climate change and eutrophication"
- Chris Hatcher: "Environmental impacts on carnivory in sundews"
Recent postgraduate research students
- Atish Vadher (2018) "The hyporheic zone as a refugium for aquatic macroinvertebrates"
- Joni Cook (2014) "Following Darwin's footsteps using 'the most wonderful plants in the world': the ecophysiological responses of the carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia to nitrogen availability"
- Andrew Pledger (2014) "Foraging fish as zoogeomorphic agents: their effects on the structure and composition of gravel-bed river sediments with implications for bed material transport"
- Millett J, Foot GW, Thompson JC, Svensson BM. (2017). Geographic variation in sundew (Drosera) leaf colour: plant-plant interactions counteract expected effects of abiotic factors. Journal of Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13141
- Millett J, Edmondson S. 2015. The impact of 36 years of grazing management on soil nitrogen (N) supply rate and Salix repens N status and internal cycling in dune slacks. Plant and Soil 396: 411-420. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12113
- Millett J, Foot G, Svensson B. 2015. Nitrogen deposition and prey nitrogen uptake control the nutrition of the carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia. Science of the Total Environment 512-513: 631-636. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.01.067
- Foot G, Rice S, Millett J. 2014. Red trap colour of the carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia does not fulfil a prey attraction or trap camouflage function. Biology Letters 10: 20131024. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.1024
- Millett, J and Edmondson, S (2013) The impact of 36 years of grazing management on vegetation dynamics in dune slacks, Journal of Applied Ecology, ISSN: 0021-8901. DOI:10.1111/1365-2664.12113.
- Millett, J, Svensson, BM, Newton, J, Rydin, H (2012) Reliance on prey-derived nitrogen by the carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia decreases with increasing nitrogen deposition,New Phytologist, 195(1), pp.182-188, ISSN: 0028-646X. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2012.04139.x. See also: BBC: ‘Pollutant turns fly-traps veggie’ and National Geographic: ‘Meat eating plants getting “full” on pollution’
- Millett, J, Godbold, D, Smith, AR, Grant, H (2012) N 2 fixation and cycling in Alnus glutinosa, Betula pendula and Fagus sylvatica woodland exposed to free air CO 2 enrichment, Oecologia, 169(2), pp.541-552, ISSN: 0029-8549. DOI: 10.1007/s00442-011-2197-4.
- Millett, J, Millard, P, Hester, AJ, McDonald, AJS (2005) Do competition and herbivory alter the internal nitrogen dynamics of birch saplings?, New Phytologist, 168(2), pp.413-422, ISSN: 0028-646X. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2005.01510.x.