Australian ecologist researching plants and their pollinators, from the birds and the bees to beetles and bats. My work combines rigorous data science and immersive field observation, and I believe science should be open, reproducible, and shared widely.
My diverse research interests span the ecology and evolution of plants and pollinators, and the conservation of native biodiversity. I like to test common assumptions with high-quality data and reproducible analyses, and ground-truth these tests in the field.
Publications
Media
Grants
Awards
Research Activities
Engagement
Teaching and Supervision
Journal articles | 2026
Gallagher RV; Andres SE; Stephens RE; Hewitt C; Wintle BA; van Leeuwen S; Smith B; Adams VM, 2026, 'Impacts of the renewable energy transition on global plant diversity: A review', Plants People Planet, 8, pp. 87 - 115, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.70082
Journal articles | 2025
Gallagher R; Roger E; Packer J; Slatyer C; Rowley J; Cornwell W; Ens E; Legge S; Simpfendorfer C; Stephens R; Mesaglio T, 2025, 'Incorporating citizen science into IUCN Red List assessments', Conservation Biology, 39, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14329
Journal articles | 2025
Stephens RE; Sauquet H; Laugier B; Gosper CR; Gallagher RV, 2025, 'Birds, Bats or Climate? Eucalypt Floral Traits Reflect Pollination Over Abiotic Environment', Ecology and Evolution, 15, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71449
Journal articles | 2024
Stephens RE; Gallagher RV; Méndez M; Sauquet H, 2024, 'Zygomorphic flowers last longer: The evolution of floral symmetry and floral longevity', Biology Letters, 20, http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0082
Journal articles | 2024
Wenk EH; Cornwell WK; Fuchs A; Kar F; Monro AM; Sauquet H; Stephens RE; Falster DS, 2024, 'APCalign: an R package workflow and app for aligning and updating flora names to the Australian Plant Census', Australian Journal of Botany, 72, http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/bt24014
Journal articles | 2023
Stephens RE; Gallagher RV; Dun L; Cornwell W; Sauquet H, 2023, 'Insect pollination for most of angiosperm evolutionary history', New Phytologist, 240, pp. 880 - 891, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.18993
Journal articles | 2022
Stephens RE; Sauquet H; Guerin GR; Jiang M; Falster D; Gallagher RV, 2022, 'Climate shapes community flowering periods across biomes', Journal of Biogeography, 49, pp. 1205 - 1218, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14375
Journal articles | 2021
Falster D; Gallagher R; Wenk E; Wright I; Indiarto D; Baxter C; Andrew SC; Lawson J; Allen S; Fuchs A; Adams MA; Ahrens CW; Alfonzetti M; Angevin T; Atkin OK; Auld T; Baker A; Bean A; Blackman CJ; Bloomfield K; Bowman D; Bragg J; Brodribb TJ; Buckton G; Burrows G; Caldwell E; Camac J; Carpenter R; Catford JA; Cawthray GR; Cernusak LA; Chandler G; Chapman AR; Cheal D; Cheesman AW; Chen S-C; Choat B; Clinton B; Clode P; Coleman H; Cornwell WK; Cosgrove M; Crisp M; Cross E; Crous KY; Cunningham S; Curtis E; Daws MI; DeGabriel JL; Denton MD; Dong N; Duan H; Duncan DH; Duncan RP; Duretto M; Dwyer JM; Edwards C; Esperon-Rodriguez M; Evans JR; Everingham SE; Firn J; Fonseca CR; French BJ; Frood D; Funk JL; Geange SR; Ghannoum O; Gleason SM; Gosper CR; Gray E; Groom PK; Gross C; Guerin G; Guja L; Hahs AK; Harrison MT; Hayes PE; Henery M; Hochuli D; Howell J; Huang G; Hughes L; Huisman J; Ilic J; Jagdish A; Jin D; Jordan G; Jurado E; Kasel S; Kellermann J; Kohout M; Kooyman RM; Kotowska MM; Lai HR; Laliberté E; Lambers H; Lamont BB; Lanfear R; van Langevelde F; Laughlin DC; Laugier-Kitchener B-A; Lehmann CER; Leigh A; Leishman MR; Lenz T; Lepschi B; Lewis JD; Lim F; Liu U; Lord J; Lusk CH; Macinnis-Ng C; McPherson H; Manea A; Mayfield M; McCarthy JK; Meers T; van der Merwe M; Metcalfe D; Milberg P; Mokany K; Moles AT; Moore BD; Moore N; Morgan JW; Morris W; Muir A; Munroe S; Nicholson Á; Nicolle D; Nicotra AB; Niinemets Ü; North T; O’Reilly-Nugent A; O’Sullivan OS; Oberle B; Onoda Y; Ooi MKJ; Osborne CP; Paczkowska G; Pekin B; Pereira CG; Pickering C; Pickup M; Pollock LJ; Poot P; Powell JR; Power SA; Prentice IC; Prior L; Prober SM; Read J; Reynolds V; Richards AE; Richardson B; Roderick ML; Rosell JA; Rossetto M; Rye B; Rymer PD; Sams MA; Sanson G; Schmidt S; Schulze E-D; Sendall K; Sinclair S; Smith B; Smith R; Soper F; Sparrow B; Standish R; Staples TL; Taseski G; Thomas F; Tissue DT; Tjoelker MG; Tng DYP; Tomlinson K; Turner NC; Veneklaas E; Venn S; Vesk P; Vlasveld C; Vorontsova MS; Warren C; Weerasinghe LK; Westoby M; White M; Williams N; Wills J; Wilson PG; Yates C; Zanne AE; Ziemińska K, 2021, 'AusTraits – a curated plant trait database for the Australian flora', Scientific Data, 8, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-01006-6
Journal articles | 2021
Gloag R; Smith JP; Stephens RE; Heard TA; Beekman M, 2021, 'Australian stingless bees detect odours left at food sources by nestmates, conspecifics and honey bees', Insectes Sociaux, 68, pp. 151 - 159, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-021-00823-7
Journal articles | 2019
Gloag RS; Christie JR; Ding G; Stephens RE; Buchmann G; Oldroyd BP, 2019, 'Workers' sons rescue genetic diversity at the sex locus in an invasive honey bee population', Molecular Ecology, 28, pp. 1585 - 1592, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mec.15031
Journal articles | 2017
Stephens RE; Beekman M; Gloag R, 2017, 'The upside of recognition error? Artificially aggregated colonies of the stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria tolerate high rates of worker drift', Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 121, pp. 258 - 266, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/BIOLINNEAN/BLW048
Journal articles | 2016
Sewell T; Stephens RE; Dominey-Howes D; Bruce E; Perkins-Kirkpatrick S, 2016, 'Disaster declarations associated with bushfires, floods and storms in New South Wales, Australia between 2004 and 2014', Scientific Reports, 6, pp. 36369, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36369
Preprints |
Stephens RE; Gallagher RV; Dun L; Cornwell W; Sauquet H, Insects pollinated flowering plants for most of angiosperm evolutionary history, http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.31.526530
Wenk E; Cornwell W; Fuchs A; Kar F; Monro A; Sauquet H; Stephens R; Falster DS, APCalign: an R package workflow and app for aligning and updating flora names to the Australian Plant Census, http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.02.578715
Preprints |
Wenk EH; Cornwell WK; Stephens RE; Coleman D; Mesaglio T; Towers I; Yang S; Falster DS, Contrasting climate signals between native and introduced annual and perennial floras, http://dx.doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.31.741935
Preprints |
de Frens D; Bakker FT; Sauquet H; Stephens RE; Onstein RE, Rampant transitions between dispersal syndromes during angiosperm evolution, http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2025.05.26.656093
Ongoing projects include work with industry partners (government and renewable energy companies) on management of biodiversity in the renewable energy transition, and pollination research investigating pollination dynamics at large scales across ecosystems and biomes.
My Research Supervision
PhD student Malan Bothma's project investigating the effect of wind farms on Australian birds, and ways to mitigate these effects.
