Yew tree

The plant ecology research group deals with all aspects of plant ecology and is led by Lindsay Turnbull and Andy Hector. We are based at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, UK.

Vacancies: Oxford University received funding from NERC to host a doctoral training programme in environmental research. Funding is available for a 4-year D.Phil programme, and eligible applicants interested in our research group are strongly encouraged to apply. Click here for more details of the programme.

The New Statistics with R (2nd Edition) is fresh off the press! Get it here

 

Updates (up to July 2021):
  • July 2021: Congratulations to Sara and her team for winning the Best Initiative Award at the MPLS Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Awards. Sara and her team created the BIPOC STEM network. Well done, Sara!
  • Oct 2019: Fantastic outcome from the Aldabra Clean-Up Project: Seychelles has decided to sign into law four Annexes of the Marine International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships as a direct result of the project. This will mean no dumping of plastic waste from ships in Seychelles’ territorial waters.
  • Oct 2019: Lindsay’s new paper is out in Journal of Ecology. Read now in open access.
  • July 2019: Elsa’s new paper is out now in Ecology and Evolution. Read now on open access.
  • Emily’s latest blog post on her field work adventures is up now!
  • June 2019: We are now on Twitter as a lab! Follow us @oxplantecology
  • Congratulations to Chris Woodham, PhD student in our lab, whose paper on the ecosystem impacts of oil palm reforestation has just been published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Read it here.
  • Emily is conducting further fieldwork in the Scottish highlands this summer, looking at the effect of native reforestation on bird and soil microbe communities.
  • May 2019: Louise Hill, who completed her PhD with us in 2017, has recently published some more of her findings: “The £15 billion cost of ash dieback in Great Britain” is out now in Current Biology. Read it here.
  • ALDABRA CLEAN UP PROJECT UPDATE – The final numbers are in…and we are incredibly pleased to announce that the team removed a grand total of 25,750 kg (25.75 tonnes) of marine debris from Aldabra during our 5 week expedition! Watch the short documentary produced by Sky News during their trip to the atoll to visit the team. The team are now working to compile the data, report and footage to share more of their findings with the world. April will present some results at the Island Biology Conference in July, and both Lindsay and April will also present at a roundtable meeting at Lamberth Palace in June.
  • March 2019: The Aldabra Clean Up team have reached their half way point! Keep up to date on the project Facebook page. 
  • Emily’s next “Rewilding Diary” on her field work adventures in the Scottish highlands is out, over at Little Toller.
  • February 2019: The Aldabra Clean Up team have arrived on Aldabra and have been on Sky News! Follow the updates over on the Facebook page and find out more about the project here.
  • January 2019: A new blog post from “The Rewilding Diary” by Emily Warner, 2nd year DPhil student, charting her adventures on field work in the Scottish highlands.
  • November 2018: Congratulations to Louise Hill, whose recent paper “Maintaining ecosystem properties after the loss of ash in Great Britain” has been selected as the Editor’s Choice for the latest edition of the Journal of Applied Ecology. Read it here.
  • The first in a new series of blog posts by Emily Warner, 2nd year DPhil student in our group, is online here. This series will chart Emily’s adventures on field work in Scotland, researching upland forest regeneration with conservation charity Trees for Life.
  • October 2018: Welcome to Christian Howard Norton who is joining the group from the Oxford-NERC Doctoral Training Partnership in Environmental Science. Christian is still working out what he wants to do, and is meanwhile enjoying the programme!
Latest papers
  • Guerrero-Ramirez, N. R. ; Craven, D.; Reich, P.B.; Ewel, J. J.; Isbell, F.; Koricheva, Julia; Parrotta, J. A.; Auge, H.; Erickson, H. E.; Forrester, D. I.; Hector, A.; Joshi, J. ; Montagnini, F.; Palmborg, C.; Piotto, D. ; Potvin, C.; Roscher, C.; van Ruijven, R. ; Tilman, D.; Wilsey, B.; Eisenhauer, N. (2017). Diversity-dependent temporal divergence of ecosystem functioning in experimental ecosystems. Nature Ecology and Evolution. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0325-1
  • Westhoek, A., Field E., Rehling F., Mulley, G., Webb, I., Poole, P.S., and Turnbull, L.A. (2017) Policing the legume-Rhizobium symbiosis: a critical test of partner choice. Scientific Reports 7: article no. 1419. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-01634-2
  • Isbell, F., Gonzalez A., Loreau, M., Cowles, J., Díaz, S., Hector, A., Mace, G.M., Wardle, D.A., O’Connor, M., Duffy, J.E., Turnbull, L.A., Thompson, P.L. (2017) Linking the influence and dependence of people on biodiversity across scales. Nature 546: 65-72.
  • French, K., Tkacz, A. and Turnbull, L.A. (2017).  Conversion of grassland to arable decreases microbial diversity and alters community composition. Applied Soil Ecology, 110: 43-52.
  • Chamagne, J., Tanadini, M., Frank, D., Matula, R., Paine, C. E. T., Philipson, C. D., Svátek, M., Turnbull, L. A., Volařík, D. and Hector, A. (2017), Forest diversity promotes individual tree growth in central European forest stands. J Applied Ecology, 54: 71-79.
  • Turnbull, L.A., Isbell, F, Loreau, M. and Hector, A. (2016). Understanding the value of plant diversity for ecosystem functioning through niche theory. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B. 283. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.0536