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| front_lab_name | Macroecology Lab | ||||||
| subtitle | <span class="affil-logos"> <a href="https://eeb.arizona.edu/" target="_blank" class="affil-logo-link" aria-label="University of Arizona"> <img src="/assets/img/logos/ua_block_a.svg" alt="UArizona block-A" class="affil-logo affil-logo--ua"> </a> Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, <a href="https://eeb.arizona.edu/" target="_blank">University of Arizona</a> | <a href="https://www.santafe.edu/" target="_blank" class="affil-logo-link" aria-label="Santa Fe Institute"> <img src="/assets/img/logos/sfi_logo.svg" alt="SFI" class="affil-logo affil-logo--sfi"> </a> External Professor, <a href="https://www.santafe.edu/" target="_blank">Santa Fe Institute</a> </span> | ||||||
| header_image | /assets/img/field/field_opening.jpeg | ||||||
| header_image_alt | Field research — forest dynamics plot survey, Costa Rica | ||||||
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"If you want to build a ship, do not drum up people to collect wood and assign tasks, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark — Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1613. Oil on panel, 54.6 × 83.8 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (92.PB.82). Public domain. Brueghel's encyclopaedic inventory — every known species arrayed from canopy to waterline, from the tropics of the Americas to the forests of northern Europe — is the earliest expression of what biodiversity science still seeks to do: observe, catalogue, and ultimately predict the distribution of life across scales and environments. The single tree at centre, organizing the assembly of species, is the same structure phylogenetic and trait-based ecology uses today.
We study one central question: how do the functional traits of organisms scale up to shape biodiversity, ecosystems, and the biosphere under rapid environmental change?
We live in a world of unprecedented climate and land-use change. A central goal of ecology and evolutionary biology is to understand the origin, maintenance, and fate of organismal form, function, and diversity — and then to predict how these processes scale up to influence ecosystem and biosphere function.
The Macroecology Lab is an international network of broadly trained ecologists, botanists, physiologists, evolutionary biologists, macroecologists, and informaticians. We seek to discover general processes of how organisms (mainly plants, though we often stray into other systems) work and interact with each other and their environment. Our shared goal is to synthesize and build a more predictive biodiversity science. We work in tropical and temperate forests and high alpine ecosystems, using combinations of theoretical, computational, informatics, biophysical, trait-based, physiological, and ecophysiological approaches.
Affiliations: University of Arizona | Santa Fe Institute | BIEN Network | OpenTraits Initiative
We test how allometric constraints shape growth, resource use, and ecosystem structure from leaves to landscapes. Our work connects organism size, vascular architecture, and metabolic scaling to forest productivity, population density, and climate sensitivity.
We use Trait Driver Theory to link trait distributions with community assembly, ecosystem function, and climate response. This includes field and synthesis tests of how trait means, variance, and skewness shift with temperature, water, and disturbance (Enquist et al. 2015; Enquist et al. 2017).
We integrate occurrence, trait, and environmental data into reproducible forecasts for plant biodiversity using the global BIEN network and open standards for trait sharing.
- Measure tree growth, physiology, and mortality in tropical forests, alpine meadows, and long-term forest monitoring plots
- Build and test scaling models that predict how organisms and ecosystems function across size, temperature, and environment
- Compile synthesis databases linking hundreds of millions of plant records to traits, climate, and species ranges
- Forecast how biodiversity and ecosystem function shift under alternative climate and land-use futures
- Create open conservation tools that partners use to compare protection strategies and assess extinction risk
- Integrate data: occurrences, traits, plots, taxonomy, and environmental layers
- Build theory-guided models: scaling and trait-based frameworks
- Quantify uncertainty: explicit assumptions, confidence bounds, and scenario contrasts
- Support decisions: conservation planning, risk assessment, and open tools
- Science and theory synthesis: [Selected publications]({{ '/publications/' | relative_url }}) spanning allometry, trait ecology, and biodiversity science.
- Open data infrastructure: BIEN and software resources for plant occurrence, range, and trait integration.
- Press and media coverage: [Lab in the news]({{ '/news/' | relative_url }}) — media features, interviews, and public-facing coverage.
- Open and reproducible ecological science: OpenTraits standards for accessible trait data and transparent workflows.
I am an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Ecological Society of America (ESA).
For opportunities to work with the lab, see [Join Us]({{ '/join/' | relative_url }}).
Enquist Macroecology Lab
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Room 310, Biological Sciences West
1041 E. Lowell St., Tucson, AZ 85721
📞 (520) 626-3336 · benquist@arizona.edu