Publications
For a complete list of team publications please see the external profile links at Google Scholar, ResearchGate and ResearcherID provided for team members on the people page. You can also read more about our team publications between 2009-2019, for 2020, for 2021, and for 2022.
If you would like a PDF of any of our papers, we would be more than happy to provide you with a copy, please just get in touch!
Selected team publications:
• Berson, J.D., Edwards, P.B., Ridsdill-Smith, T.J., Taylor, C.K., Anderson, D.J., Andrew, N.R., Barrow, R.A., Cousins, D.A., Emery, R.N., Fagan, L.L., Foster, R.M., Harwood, L.G., Hemmings, Z., Lewis, M.J., Lukehurst, S.S., Manger, J., Matthiessen, J.N., Vieira, M.D.C., Weston, P.A., Didham, R.K. & Evans, T.A. (2024) Deliberately introduced dung beetles in Australia: 12 years of occurrence and abundance records from 2001 to 2022. Ecology, 105, e4328. [View Article]
This review of the Australian Dung Beetle Project documents more than 20 years of effort to quantify the current distribution and spatiotemporal abundance of 43 deliberately introduced dung beetle species, brought in for the biological control of livestock dung and dung-breeding pests.
• Ewers, R.M., Webber, B.L., Döbert, T.F., Didham, R.K., & 133 other co-authors. (2024) Thresholds for adding degraded tropical forest to the conservation estate. Nature, 631, 808-813. [View Article]
Synthesising 127 biodiversity surveys collected over 11 years at the SAFE project in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, this paper identified two empirically defined thresholds for categorizing the conservation value of logged forests.
• Bell, K.L., Campos, M., Hoffmann, B.D., Encinas-Viso, F., Hunter, G.C. & Webber, B.L. (2024) Environmental DNA methods for biosecurity and invasion biology in terrestrial ecosystems: progress, pitfalls, and prospects. Science of The Total Environment, 926, 171810. [View Article]
This review paper brings together a systematic review of eDNA applications relevant to biosecurity and invasion biology and uses the invasion curve concept to structure how existing and future applications of eDNA methods can play an important role in the early detection and adaptive management of biological invasions.
• Webber, B.L., Didham, R.K., Yeoh, P.B., Clarke, R.H., Cowie, I.D., Hoffmann, B.D., Kenneally, K.F., Leach, G.J., Ota, N., Pettit, M., Pike, D., Ruscoe, W.A., Somaweera, R. & Zhou, J.W. (2023) Ashmore Reef Marine Park: terrestrial ecosystem characterisation and restoration plan. pp. 255. CSIRO, Perth, Western Australia. [View Article]
The first comprehensive management plan for the Ashmore Reef islands, using detailed surveys and network theory. The report recommends a combination of explicitly timed active control and restoration to build ecosystem resilience and mitigate threats to ensure that the global conservation values of these islands are maintained.
• Wong, M.K.L., Economo, E.P., & Guénard, B. (2023). The global spread and invasion capacities of alien ants. Current Biology, 33, 566-571 e563 [View Article].
A global review of ant invasions that revealed 520 introductions globally, with 60% of these naturalising in the introduced region.
• Webber, B.L., Cousens, R., & Atwater, D.Z. (2023). Assumptions: respecting the known unknowns. In R. Cousens (Ed.), Effective ecology: seeking success in a hard science (pp. 97-126). London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis [View Article].
A detailed deconstruction of how assumptions are ubiquitous across science and allow for the development and application of understanding. Using niche theory and its applicability to the modelling of species distributions, the chapter illustrates the importance of being aware of the assumptions we make, both explicit and implicit, and to rigorously check their validity.
• Schultheiss, P., Nooten, S.S., Wang, R., Wong, M.K.L., Brassard, F., & Guénard, B. (2022). The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119, e2201550119. [View Article]
This significant review produced the first ‘bottom up’ estimate of global ant abundance and revealed that there are around 20 quadrillion ants on the planet.
• Somaweera, R., Nifong, J., Rosenblatt, A., Brien, M.L., Combrink, X., Elsey, R.M., Grigg, G., Magnusson, W.E., Mazzotti, F.J., Pearcy, A., Platt, S.G., Shirley, M.H., Tellez, M., van der Ploeg, J., Webb, G., Whitaker, R., and Webber, B.L. (2020) The ecological importance of crocodylians: towards evidence-based justification for their conservation. Biological Reviews 95, 936-959. [View Article]
This review provides the first insight into the role that crocodylians play in ecosystem structure and functioning. With global coverage, five criteria are assessed within the context of modern ecological concepts: as indicators of ecological health, as ecosystem engineers, apex predators, keystone species, and as contributors to nutrient and energy translocation across ecosystems. The review prioritises future research to address the current paucity of knowledge in this field.
• Didham, R. K., Basset, Y., Collins, C.M., Leather, S.R., Littlewood, N.A, Menz, M.H.M., Müller, J., Packer, L., Saunders, M.E., Schönrogge, K., Stewart, A.J.A., Yanoviak, S.P. and Hassall, C. (2020). Interpreting insect declines: seven challenges and a way forward. Insect Conservation and Diversity 13, 103-114. [View Article]
A much needed contribution to the conversation around the evaluation of evidence for population trends in insects and identifying drivers of those trends. The paper identifies seven key challenges in drawing robust inference about insect population declines: establishment of the historical baseline, representativeness of site selection, robustness of time series trend estimation, mitigation of detection bias effects, and ability to account for potential artefacts of density dependence, phenological shifts and scale‐dependence in extrapolation from sample abundance to population‐level inference.
• Cámara-Leret, R., and 98 others, including Webber, B.L. (2020) New Guinea has the world’s richest flora. Nature, 584, 579–583. [View Article]
The first expert-verified checklist of the vascular plants of mainland New Guinea and surrounding islands. A checklist of 13,634 species (68% endemic), 1,742 genera and 264 families suggests that New Guinea is the most floristically diverse island in the world.
• Ashton, L.A., Griffiths, H.M., Parr, C.L., Evans, T.A., Didham, R.K., Hasan, F., Teh, Y.A., Tin, H.S., Vairappan, C.S. and Eggleton, P. (2019) Termites mitigate the effects of drought in tropical rainforest. Science, 363, 174-177. [View Article] [including cover image]
Using a large-scale termite suppression experiment, we found that termite activity and abundance increased during drought in a Bornean forest, revealing how an invertebrate group enhances ecosystem resistance to drought, and providing evidence that the dual stressors of climate change and anthropogenic shifts in biotic communities will have various negative consequences for the maintenance of rainforest ecosystems.
• Tsen, E.W.J., Sitzia, T. and Webber, B.L. (2016). To core, or not to core: the impact of coring on tree health and a best-practice framework for collecting dendrochronological information from living trees. Biological Reviews, 91, 899–924. doi:10.1111/brv.12200
The first paper to synthesise evidence for the impact of tree coring on tree health. The review also sets out a best practice framework for ensuring this dendrochronological practice does not negatively impact on conservation outcomes.
• Webber, B.L., Raghu, S. and Edwards, O.R. (2015) Is CRISPR-based gene drive a biocontrol silver bullet or global conservation threat? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112, 10565-10567. [View Article]
The first paper to draw attention to the significant challenges of social licence when applying CRISPR-based gene drive to biological control. In the top 5% of all research papers ever scored by Altmetric.
• Long, R.L., Gorecki, M.J., Renton, M., Scott, J.K., Colville, L., Goggin, D.E., Commander, L.E., Westcott, D.A., Cherry, H., and Finch-Savage, W.E. (2015). The ecophysiology of seed persistence: a mechanistic view of the journey to germination or demise. Biological Reviews, 90, 31-59. [View Article]
Clarivate ‘Highly Cited Paper’. A much needed insight into the ecophysiology of plant seeds and the processes that lead to germination or mortality.
• Rangan, H., Bell, K.L. , Baum, D., Fowler, R., McConvell, P., Saunders, T., Spronck, S., Kull, C.A. and Murphy, D.J. (2015) New genetic and linguistic analyses show humans shaped baobab evolution in Australia over thousands of years. PLoS One, 10, e0119758 [View Article]
This interdisciplinary paper was a collaboration with linguists working on terms for boab trees in Aboriginal languages of the Kimberley, generating substantial interest and attention across many disciplines.
• Webber, B.L. and Scott, J.K. (2012) Rapid global change: implications for defining natives and aliens. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 21, 305-311. [View Article] [Cover Image] [The Conversation article]
The most downloaded paper in 2012 for Global Ecology and Biogeography, this paper provides the basis for radical change on how we consider appropriate species movements with rapid global change and is the first paper to explicitly consider the issue of range shifts in response to rapid global change for defining native and non-native status.
• Tscharntke, T., Tylianakis, J.M., Rand, T.A., Didham, R.K., Fahrig, L., Batary, P., Bengtsson, J., Clough, Y., Crist, T.O., Dormann, C.F., Ewers, R.M., Fründ, J., Holt, R.D., Holzschuh, A., Klein, A.M., Kleijn, D., Kremen, C., Landis, D.A., Laurance, W.F., Lindenmayer, D.B., Scherber, C., Sodhi, N., Steffan-Dewenter. I., Thies, C., van der Putten, W. H. and Westphal, C. (2012) Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes ‐ eight hypotheses. Biological Reviews, 87, 661-685. [View Article]
Clarivate ‘Highly Cited Paper’. A comprehensive synthesis of the hypotheses underpinning land use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, produced with an international consortium of researchers.
• Didham, R.K., Kapos, V. and Ewers, R.M. (2012) Rethinking the conceptual foundations of habitat fragmentation research. Oikos, 121, 161-170. [View Article]
New synthesis that challenges accepted paradigms in habitat fragmentation research, and provides the basis for much of the current international development of the discipline.
• Webber, B.L., Yates, C.J., Le Maitre, D.C., Scott, J.K., Kriticos, D.J., Ota, N., McNeill, A., Le Roux, J.J. and Midgley, G.F. (2011) Modelling horses for novel climate courses: insights from projecting potential distributions of native and alien Australian acacias with correlative and mechanistic models. Diversity and Distributions, 17, 978-1000. [View Article]
One of the top cited manuscripts for 2012 from Diversity and Distributions, this paper takes an ecophysiological approach to the modelling of species distributions in regions of novel climate space. The work challenges the validity of the widespread approach of applying correlative modelling to novel climate questions and provides significant advances in obtaining meaningful model output when considering novel environments.
• Webber, B.L., Scott, J.K. and Didham, R.K. (2011) Translocation or bust! A new acclimatization agenda for the 21st century? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 26, 495-496. [View Article]
Drawing upon insight from invasion science, this paper challenges the notion that managed relocation (MR) is a desirable first choice for conservation management in the face of global environmental change and frames measures of successful MR in the context of what might be considered appropriate with rapid climate change.
• Webber, B.L. and Woodrow, I.E. (2009) Chemical and physical plant defence across multiple ontogenetic stages in a tropical rain forest understorey tree. Journal of Ecology, 97, 761-771. [View Article]
The most comprehensive study of ontogenetic variation in plant defence mechanisms to date, one of the few studies that adequately deals with the difference between plant-and tissue-level ontogenetic variation, and the first study to test recently proposed ontogenetic defence trajectory theory.
• Didham, R.K., Tylianakis, J.M., Gemmell, N.J., Rand, T.A. and Ewers, R.M. (2007) Interactive effects of habitat modification and species invasion on native species decline. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 22, 489-496. [View Article]
Clarivate ‘Highly Cited Paper’. Paradigm-shift in interpreting the net impact of multiple drivers of global environmental change through quantitative discrimination of numerically-mediated versus functionally-moderated interaction pathways.
• Ewers, R.M. and Didham, R.K. (2006) Confounding factors in the detection of species responses to habitat fragmentation. Biological Reviews, 81, 117-142. [View Article]
Clarivate ‘Highly Cited Paper’. Ground-breaking synthesis, and touch-stone for dissatisfaction with single-factor explanations for species responses to fragmentation. The 8th most highly-cited of all Biological Reviews articles ever published.
• Didham, R.K., Tylianakis, J.M., Hutchison, M.A., Ewers, R.M. and Gemmell, N.J. (2005) Are invasive species the drivers of ecological change? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 20, 470-474. [View Article]
Clarivate ‘Highly Cited Paper’. Research-focus article highlighting experimental manipulations required to discriminate cause versus correlation in invasive species impacts, establishing interacting-drivers model for impacts of multiple drivers.
• Laurance, W.F., Lovejoy, T.E., Vasconcelos, H.L., Bruna, E.M., Didham, R.K., Stouffer, P.C., Gascon, C., Bierregaard, R.O., Laurance, S.G. and Sampaio, E. (2002) Ecosystem decay of Amazonian forest fragments: a 22-year investigation. Conservation Biology 16, 605-618. [View Article]
The most significant review, and the standard reference source, for the impacts of habitat fragmentation on tropical forest fragments. The 7th most highly-cited of all Conservation Biology articles ever published.
• Pavri C., Ridsdill-Smith J. (2002) A TIMERITE® issue: testing importance of spray timing. In: Jacobsen L. (ed) Facing the Future, Grassland Society of Victoria 43rd Annual Conference. Grassland Society of Victoria, Morwell, Victoria, Australia, pp. 123-126. [View Article]
The first major demonstration of the flexibility of spray timing using the TIMERITE® website. This approach reveals the most appropriate time for herbicide spraying to target the significant polyphagous pest, redlegged earth mite.