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

• Wong, M., Choi, Y.H., Brassard, F., Leong, C.M., Tsang, T., Lewis, O.T. and Guenard, B. (preprint). Functional traits drive the competitive assembly of mangrove ant communities and influence colony performance in competition mesocosms. EcoEvoRxiv, https://doi.org/10.32942/X2563C

• Viswanathan, A., Bagchi, R., Ghazoul, J., Honwad, G. and Lewis, O.T. (2025). Impacts of forest fragmentation on interactions between plants and their insect herbivores and fungal pathogens. Ecological Applications, in press.

• Marsh, C., Turner, E., Blonder, B. W., Bongalov, B., Both, S., Cruz, R., . . . Hector, A. (2025). Tropical forest clearance impacts biodiversity and function, whereas logging changes structure. Science 387, 171-175. doi:10.1126/science.adf9856

• Ashton, L., Boyle, M., Dias-Silva, K., Dongmo, M., França, F.M., Gregory, N., Kitching, R.L., Ledger, M., Lewis, O.T., Sharp, A., Stork, N.E., Williamson, J., Bonebrake, T.  (2025). Causes and consequences of insect decline in tropical forests. Nature Reviews Biodiversity, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00038-9.

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