Michelle Fountain | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of Reading (PhD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | East Malling Research Station |
Michelle Fountain is a British entomologist and ecologist, she is Head of Pest and Pathogen Ecology at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany's East Malling Research Station. [1]
Fountain studied her doctorate at the University of Reading, her focus was on springtails (Collembola) in urban soils. [2]
Fountain's research looks at integrated pest management techniques to reduce pest insects on temperate fruit, such as using pheromones to reduce insect pests in commercial crops. [3] She led some of the first work to quantify the role of [hoverflies] in [pollinating] [strawberry] crops, she showed that hoverflies can reduce pests by predating on aphids as larvae and then pollinating fruit flowers as adults. [4]
Fountain has researched control methods for the pest insect spotted wing drosophila in the UK. [5] She researched how earwigs could be beneficial in orchards, as they can eat pest of fruit trees such as wooly aphid and codling moth. [6] Fountain contributed to research on ecological managemnt of fruit orchards to help control insect pests,. [7] especially through floral mangemnt.
She appeared on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme in 2014 talking about the unusual abundance of fruit flies and explained this was likely due to a mild winter. [8]
In 2019 she edited a book 'Integrated management of diseases and insect pests of tree fruit' with Professor Xiangming Xu, published by Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing. [9]