Joe Atkinson

Research Interests

Community ecology (excl. invasive species ecology) Global Change Biology Invasive Species Ecology Ecosystem Function

Dr Joe Atkinson

Lecturer

School of Biological Sciences

College of Science

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD (as Co-Supervisor) - email supervisor to discuss availability.

I was born in Tasmania and completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Tasmania, graduating with Honours under the expert and kind supervision of Jamie B. Kirkpatrick, where I developed a love of plants, biogeography, and curiosity-driven research. After a period working in the private sector as a consultant ecologist, I undertook a PhD at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, supervised by Prof. Stephen Bonser and Prof. Angela Moles. My PhD focused on understanding the long-term effectiveness of ecological restoration across Australia and the world, and aimed to integrate classic ecological theories that could help us better understand and therefore predict future restoration outcomes. I then moved to Aarhus, Denmark (which now has a Tasmanian queen), where I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Danish National Research Foundation-funded Centre for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO) under the guidance of Jens-Christian Svenning and Robert Buitenwerf. I started as a Lecturer in Botany at the University of Adelaide in April 2025 and am beginning to build my lab with a focus on some of the themes explored below.

I am a plant community ecologist particularly interested in restoration, conservation, and functional traits. In particular, the work in my lab covers a few key themes: 

  • Improving terrestrial ecological restoration across the whole lifecycle from planning to evaluation 

Two researchers stand in looking at a grassland restoration experiment in Michigan, USA. Large tussocks of dying big blustem stand amongst a green field. The field is an old airstrip and still resembles this shape, surrounded by forest.

  • Using functional traits of plants and animals to better predict ecosystem response to global change 

A researcher stands in a field with a large firefighting rake disturbing soil in a quadrat that is part of a larger experimental grid. The landscape is flat and expansive with a large sky and only scattered grasses and small chenopod shrubs.

 

  • Semi-arid and arid zone responses to grazing of native and feral herbivores 

A dryland with scattered chenopod shrubs with a large billy goat standing in the foreground and Eucalyptus on the slopes behind. A clear blue sky and a very dry looking landscape.

 

I am available to supervise Honours projects and am broadly interested in projects covered in the above themes whether it is a macroecological, big data-driven approach or using detailed and intense fieldwork. I work with a number of large environmental NGOs with whom it may be possible to collaborate with for your project. I am also involved in the 100-year old vegetation exclosure experiment at Koonamore established by T. G. B. Osborne and am eager to support students to undertake projects at this site.

I have range of ongoing experiments, including a contributing site to the global network experiment DRAGNet (Disturbance and Resources Across Global grasslands), as well as TraitDivNet and BugNet.

Date Position Institution name
2023 - 2025 Postdoctoral Researcher Aarhus University
2018 - 2020 Ecological consultant North Barker Ecosystem Services

Date Institution name Country Title
UNSW Sydney Australia PhD

Year Citation
2025 Gould, E., Fraser, H. S., Parker, T. H., Nakagawa, S., Griffith, S. C., Vesk, P. A., . . . Gilles, M. (2025). Same data, different analysts: variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology. BMC Biology, 23(1), 35.
DOI Scopus20 WoS20 Europe PMC14
2025 Kerr, M. R., Ordonez, A., Riede, F., Atkinson, J., Pearce, E. A., Sykut, M., . . . Svenning, J. C. (2025). Widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 9(4), 589-598.
DOI Scopus10 WoS7 Europe PMC6
2025 Le Breton, T., Ooi, M. K. J., Hay, S., Atkinson, J., Bickerton, D., Cerato, S., . . . Auld, T. D. (2025). Rapid assessments accurately identify threatened Australian flora under IUCN Red List Criteria after megafires. Biological Conservation, 307, 111183.
DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2025 Vandvik, V., Halbritter, A. H., Macias-Fauria, M., Maitner, B. S., Michaletz, S. T., Telford, R. J., . . . Enquist, B. J. (2025). Plant traits and associated ecological data from global change experiments and climate gradients in Norway.. Sci Data, 12(1), 1477.
DOI Scopus1 WoS2 Europe PMC1
2025 Halbritter, A. H., Atkinson, J., Maré, C., Ahler, S. J., Andersen, E. A. S., Bradler, P. M., . . . Vandvik, V. (2025). Effects of Warming, Nitrogen and Grazing on Plant Functional Traits Differ Between Alpine and Sub-Alpine Grasslands. Journal of Vegetation Science, 36(5), 15 pages.
DOI
2025 Kempel, A., Adamidis, G. C., Anadón, J. D., Atkinson, J., Auge, H., Avtzis, D., . . . Allan, E. (2025). The Bug-Network (BugNet): A Global Experimental Network Testing the Effects of Invertebrate Herbivores and Fungal Pathogens on Plant Communities and Ecosystem Function in Open Ecosystems.. Ecol Evol, 15(10), e72111.
DOI
2025 Trepel, J., Atkinson, J., le Roux, E., Abraham, A. J., Aucamp, M., Greve, M., . . . Buitenwerf, R. (2025). Large herbivores are linked to higher herbaceous plant diversity and functional redundancy across spatial scales.. J Anim Ecol, 13 pages.
DOI
2024 Atkinson, J., & Freudenberger, D. (2024). Young woodland restoration plantings can be resilient to uncontrolled bushfires. Ecological Management and Restoration, 25(3), 177-181.
DOI
2024 Andres, S. E., Atkinson, J., Coleman, D., Brazill-Boast, J., Wright, I. J., Allen, S., & Gallagher, R. V. (2024). Constraints of commercially available seed diversity in restoration: Implications for plant functional diversity. Plants, People, Planet, 6(6), 1341-1357.
DOI Scopus6 WoS6
2024 Atkinson, J., Gallagher, R., Czyżewski, S., Kerr, M., Trepel, J., Buitenwerf, R., & Svenning, J. C. (2024). Integrating functional traits into trophic rewilding science. Journal of Ecology, 112(5), 936-953.
DOI Scopus16 WoS16
2023 Earle, R. A. D., Atkinson, J., & Moles, A. T. (2023). British species that are present in Australia have different traits from British species that are not present in Australia. Diversity and Distributions, 29(10), 1289-1298.
DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2023 Atkinson, J., Groves, A. M., Towers, I. R., Catano, C. P., & Brudvig, L. A. (2023). Trait-mediated community assembly during experimental grassland restoration is altered by planting year rainfall. Journal of Applied Ecology, 60(8), 1587-1596.
DOI Scopus6 WoS6
2023 Atkinson, J., Simpson-Young, C., Fifield, G., Schneemann, B., Bonser, S. P., & Moles, A. T. (2023). Species and functional diversity of direct-seeded vegetation declines over 25 years. Ecological Management and Restoration, 23(3), 252-260.
DOI Scopus7 WoS7
2023 Flores-Moreno, H., Dalrymple, R. L., Cornwell, W. K., Popovic, G., Nakagawa, S., Atkinson, J., . . . Moles, A. T. (2023). Is Australia weird? A cross-continental comparison of biological, geological and climatological features. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11, 1073842-1-1073842-10.
DOI Scopus6 WoS6
2022 Atkinson, J., Brudvig, L. A., Mallen-Cooper, M., Nakagawa, S., Moles, A. T., & Bonser, S. P. (2022). Terrestrial ecosystem restoration increases biodiversity and reduces its variability, but not to reference levels: A global meta-analysis. Ecology Letters, 25(7), 1725-1737.
DOI Scopus107 WoS94 Europe PMC31
2022 Atkinson, J., Freudenberger, D., Dwyer, J. M., Standish, R. J., Moles, A. T., & Bonser, S. P. (2022). Plant size and neighbourhood characteristics influence survival and growth in a restored ex-agricultural ecosystem. Ecological Solutions and Evidence, 3(1), 12 pages.
DOI Scopus5 WoS5
2022 Mallen-Cooper, M., Atkinson, J., Xirocostas, Z. A., Wijas, B., Chiarenza, G. M., Dadzie, F. A., & Eldridge, D. J. (2022). Global synthesis reveals strong multifaceted effects of eucalypts on soils. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 31(8), 1667-1678.
DOI Scopus14 WoS14
2021 Wijas, B., & Atkinson, J. (2021). Termites in restoration: the forgotten insect?. Restoration Ecology, 29(8), 5 pages.
DOI Scopus6 WoS5
2021 Falster, D., Gallagher, R., Wenk, E. H., Wright, I. J., Indiarto, D., Andrew, S. C., . . . Ziemińska, K. (2021). AusTraits, a curated plant trait database for the Australian flora. Scientific data, 8(1), 254-1-254-20.
DOI Scopus151 WoS156 Europe PMC72
2020 Atkinson, J., & Kirkpatrick, J. B. (2020). A short distance to the last glacial coast best explains a Tasmanian centre of endemism. Frontiers of Biogeography, 12(4), 1-11.
DOI
2020 Atkinson, J., & Bonser, S. P. (2020). “Active” and “passive” ecological restoration strategies in meta-analysis. Restoration Ecology, 28(5), 1032-1035.
DOI Scopus91 WoS89
2019 Harrison-Day, V., Atkinson, J., & Kirkpatrick, J. B. (2019). The origin and persistence of alpine vernal ponds in mineral soils. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 44(11), 2202-2210.
DOI Scopus3 WoS3

Year Citation
2023 Andres, S., Atkinson, J., Coleman, D., Boast, J. B., Allen, S., Wright, I., & Gallagher, R. (2023). Constraints of commercially available seed diversity in restoration: implications for plant functional diversity.
DOI

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