My research combines fieldwork and experimental approaches with modelling and statistical analysis. I have worked on a range of taxa (plants, invertebrates and vertebrates) in freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, in many different countries (including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, and the UK) and have collaborations with researchers in five continents. I have also investigated the evolution of biological diversity through reproductive isolation and speciation, and explored the role of adaptation and behaviour in the maintenance of biological diversity. In this I worked on populations and assemblages in habitats ranging from the Scottish highlands to the Amazon.  Most recently my focus has been on biological diversity in our rapidly changing world, and, supported by my ERC AdG BioTIME, my colleagues and I have shown that biodiversity change (restructuring of assemblages alongside high levels of compositional turnover) is a more pressing problem for contemporary environmental managers than biodiversity loss.

I am an ecologist investigating biological diversity. My goal is to quantify the patterns, and understand the processes, linked to change in ecological communities over space and time, and to use this research to protect and manage natural capital.

Aims: To improve understanding of the processes that shape patterns of biodiversity over space and time, and to support the BioTIME data base (biotime.st-andrews.ac.uk), a key resource in elucidating and managing biodiversity change.

B.Sc.; D.Phil., University of Ulster; FRSE; Honorary Doctorate (University of Bergen)

Fisheries Society of the British Isles (honorary life member);

British Ecological Society (member);

Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (member and former Hon. Secretary)