About Us

We are a team of researchers based at the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford. We study a broad range of interrelated questions in community ecology, with a strong emphasis on empirical work. Our research interests include tropical forest diversity, ecological networks, ecosystem functioning, inter-specific interactions, conservation biology, agro-ecology and the impact of human activities on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. On this website you can find information about our research, the people involved, and our collaborators in Oxford and more widely.

Recent Publications

• Chen, J. & Lewis, O.T. (2025). A cryptic host-parasitoid interaction reduces the impact of heatwaves on Drosophila host populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in press.

• Wong, M, Choi, Y.H., Brassard, F., Leong, C.M., Tsang, T.P.N., Lewis, O.T., Guénard, B (2025). Functional trait dissimilarity drives arboreal ant community assembly while competitive trait hierarchies shape colony performance in experimental mesocosms. Functional Ecology, in press.

• Boyle, M., Williamson, J., Rossiter, S.J., Pfeifer, M., Drinkwater, R., Woon, J.S., Ashton, L.A., van Breugel, M.J., Eggleton, P., Evans, T.A., Lewis, O.T., Sethi, S., Slade, E.M., Chung, A.Y.C., Ewers, R.M. (2025). Narrow thresholds of canopy disturbance determine the microclimate buffering potential of tropical forests. iScience, in press.

• Duffus, N.E., Atkins, T.B., zu Ermgassen, S.O., Grenyer, R., Bull, J.W., Castell, D.A., Stone, B., Tooher, N., Milner-Gulland, E.J. and Lewis, O.T., (2025). A globally influential area-condition metric is a poor proxy for invertebrate biodiversity. Journal of Applied Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70166.

   

News

• Job opportunity: Research Assistant
• New paper on optimising oil palm landscapes for biodiversity in Nature Sustainability
• Congratulations to Jamal!
• Paper accepted: Diversity, duplication and genomic organisation of homeobox genes in Lepidoptera