My research broadly focuses on how plant and insect communities reassemble, persist and function following human land-use change. My research falls into three categories:

1. 1)  Theoretical plant community ecology.
   

2. 2)  Effects of agricultural production on native plants, insects and their interactions.
   

3. 3)  Improving restoration approaches using ecological and evolutionary theory. 
   

Within my first research area my work involves the development of community ecological theory, and meta-analyses and field studies on plant functional diversity. These studies aim to improve understanding of community assembly following sudden, large-scale disturbances.

Work in my second research area focuses on macadamia-dominated agricultural landscapes in New South Wales. Here we are studying how the structure of agricultural landscapes impacts crop pollination and native bio-pest control agents.

Within my third research area, I am working to advance ecological and evolutionary knowledge of direct use for plant community restoration. Currently, I am running a fully replicated experiment to test the importance of tree diversity and tree density for the rapid recovery of rainforest biodiversity while making a profit on the carbon market. In Western Australia, Richard Hobbs, Robert Holt and I are studying the ecological and evolutionary processes involved in the reassembly of annual plant communities following major land use change in remnant wheat-belt woodlands.

Collaborators

1. •Stephen Bonser (The University of New South Wales)
   

2. •Corey Bradshaw (The University of Adelaide)
   

3. •David Chittleborough (The University of Adelaide)
   

4. •Peter Erskine (The University of Queensland)
   

5. •Rod Fensham (The University of Queensland/Queensland Herbarium)
   

6. •Janneke Hille Ris Lambers (University of Washington)
   

7. •Richard Hobbs (The University of Western Australia)
   

8. •Robert Holt (University of Florida)
   

9. •Michael Lawes (Charles Darwin University)
   

10. •Jonathan Levine (ETH, Zurich)
    

11. •Rosa Menéndez (Lancaster University)
    

12. •Dan Metcalfe (CSIRO)
    

13. •John Morgan (La Trobe University)
    

14. •Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos (The University of Queensland)
    

15. •Peter Vesk (The University of Melbourne)