Andrew Allen

Interests

I am a theoretical ecologist whose research interests lie at the interface of organismal physiology and community and ecosystem ecology. I have worked on mathematical models to describe a range of biological phenomena including broad-scale biodiversity gradients, rates of DNA evolution, and nutrient cycles in organisms and ecosystems. My current work is funded by the Australian Research Council. It entails developing and testing a new class of biodiversity models that relate contemporary biodiversity to speciation-extinction dynamics in the fossil record and ecologically induced changes in population abundance through time. This work aims to provide a better understanding of how environmental changes, including those induced by human activities, influence the numbers of species present in ecosystems.

Selected Publications

AP Allen, JF Gillooly, JH Brown (2005) Linking the global carbon cycle to individual metabolism. Functional Ecology 19: 202-213.

AP Allen, JF Gillooly, VM Savage, JH Brown (2006) Kinetic effects of temperature on rates of genetic divergence and speciation. PNAS 103: 9130-9135.

AP Allen, VM Savage (2007) Setting the absolute tempo of biodiversity dynamics. Ecology Letters 10: 637-646.

AP Allen, WT Pockman, C Restrepo, BT Milne (2008) Allometry, growth and population regulation of the desert shrub Larrea tridentata. Functional Ecology 22: 197-204.

AP Allen, JF Gillooly (2009) Towards an integration of ecological stoichiometry and the metabolic theory of ecology to better understand nutrient cycling. Ecology Letters 12: 369-384.

Teaching

I am currently developing a new unit entitled "Birds of Australia" (BIOL318), which will be offered starting in January of 2011. One component of the unit will entail having students collect data at selected sites in the Sydney region to help in evaluating the effects of urbanization and bush regeneration efforts on bird communities.