Dr Michelle Fountain

Dr Michelle Fountain
Head of Pest and Pathogen Ecology
07890 168934

Research interests

Michelle specialises in the minimisation of pesticide use in fruit horticulture, improving pollination in fruit crops and incorporating modern fruit growing practices with Integrated Pest Management. The former includes research on improving pest monitoring by developing semiochemical manipulation of insects, optimising the use of biological control agents and enhancing and fostering local landscape ecology to provide the ecosystem service of pest control.

Her pollination research focuses on the delivery of insect pollinators to fruit crops through identification of key species and enhancement of habitat in and around crops, including wildflower and nesting resource establishment. She leads research on invasive pest species, such as, Drosophila suzukii, Halyomorpha halys and Anthonomus sp. and is a taxonomic specialist of Collembola, Araneae and fruit crop fauna.

She communicates research to growers and agronomists and presents papers at national and international conferences. She also authors best practice guidelines and factsheets for pest control in fruit crops and edits books and papers in specialist areas of fruit entomology and is Convenor of the Expert Group: "Integrated Protection of Fruit Crops"

Research projects

Publications

Recent publications

Full publication list on Google Scholar and ResearchGate