Research interests

Complex systems

My interest in complex systems goes back as far as I can remember. My father was great at helping me with school maths. He would sit calmly for hours, across the table I used to do my homework on, explaining concepts and techniques in ways that were engaging and fun – it’s no surprise to me that I’ve always loved maths. Luckily, he had developed at the time an enthusiastic passion for something he told me was called chaos. So, after finishing my maths assignments my father would reward me with mini presentations on the butterfly effect, the Lorentz attractor, and fractals. I’ve a treasured memory of visually learning about self-similarity by playing with a Mandelbrot set that he’d coded for me.

Later on, I continued to feed my curiosity for these and other fascinating facets of complex systems by reading books such as James Gleick’s Chaos, Stuart Kaufman’s Investigations, and, more recently, Geoffrey West’s Scale. Despite this old interest and ongoing curiosity, I’ve never really had any formal training on complex systems. In retrospective, I can see that I’ve tried at various stages to incorporate brushstrokes of it in my research. During my master’s degree, for example, I quantified the fractal dimension of a series of landscapes in an attempt to establish links between insect species richness and landscape complexity. Similarly, during my PhD I developed a fond appreciation for the hierarchical structure of ecological data. Ever since I’ve been exploring how ecological communities respond to environmental gradients across multiple temporal and spatial scales. I’ve also become increasingly intrigued by some aspects of complex social systems. For example, I’m thrilled by the thought of being able to empirically demonstrate the positive role that community champions may be playing in the efficient diffusion of pro-sustainability innovations across social networks – an idea that I touched on conceptually in a recent perspective article about how to bring nature back into cities.

Diving more deeply into the world of complexity science is bound to be difficult. Luckily, I recently had the opportunity to rise to this challenge by participating in the first Santa Fe Institute Complexity Interactive. The course, and the interactions with fellow participants and faculty that were forged through it, have had a tremendous positive effect in my work, particularly in the potential to focus my research through a more polished transdisciplinary lens.

I’m currently collaborating with fellow Complexity Interactive alumni Amanda Laubmeier, Fanqi Zeng, Marilia Bergamo and Naveen Srivatsav, and SFI researcher Stefani Crabtree, in a project looking at feedbacks between social and ecological networks. Our contribution to the ArtScience event Panoramas 2021 can be seen here.

Urban environments

Remnant bushland, parks, gardens, golf courses, greenroofs, pop-up parks and other types of greenspace support a great diversity of microbial, fungal, plant and animal species.

But how exactly do they do that?

I’m particularly interested in understanding how plants best support animal primary, secondary and apex consumers?

Is it whether they grow as a grass, forb, shrub or tree?

Does it matter if they’re locally indigenous or an introduced ornamental variety?

I’ve have explored these and other related questions using insect species, communities and functional groups as model systems. I’ve also contributed to research that has explored the responses of birds and bats.

By engaging in this line of research I’ve been lucky to collaborate with an outstanding group of researchers and practitioners, including Ale Morán-Ordóñez, Amy Hahs, Amy Rogers, Anna Backstrom, Ash Olson, Caragh Threlfall, Cecily Maller, Chris Ives, Christina Renowden, Cristina Ramalho, Dan Bickel, Esti Palma, Kate Cranney, Ken Walker, Kirsten Parris, Ian Shears, Jade Kennedy, Laura Mumaw, Leonie Valentine, Linda Semeraro, Lingna Zhang, Maddie Miller, Mali Malipatil, Micha Plein, Natasha Pauli, Nick Porch, Nick Williams, Nigel Stork, Richard Hobbs, Sarah Hurley, Steve Livesley, Tessa Smith, Tyler King and Zena Cumpston.

The main themes that I’ve a interest in – including relevant publications that I’ve led or collaborated in – are listed below:

1. Links between greenspace attributes and biodiversity

Indigenous plants promote insect biodiversity in urban greenspaces

Conserving herbivorous and predatory insects in urban green spaces

Increasing biodiversity in urban green spaces through simple vegetation interventions

The Little Things that Run the City – Insect ecology, biodiversity and conservation in the City of Melbourne

The conservation value of urban green space habitats for Australian native bee communities

2. Species-specific responses to environmental gradients

Indigenous plants promote insect biodiversity in urban greenspaces

Conserving herbivorous and predatory insects in urban green spaces

Increasing biodiversity in urban green spaces through simple vegetation interventions

Conserving insect assemblages in urban landscapes: accounting for species-specific responses and imperfect detection