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Professor Barry Brook
To link to this page, please use the following URL: Biography/ Background
Professor Barry Brook is a leading environmental scientist, holding the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and is also Director of Climate Science at the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute. He has published three books, over 200 refereed scientific papers, is a highly cited researcher, and regularly writes popular articles for the media. He has received a number of distinguished awards for his research excellence (including the Australian Academy of Science Fenner Medal) and was awarded the 2010 Community Science Educator of the Year for his public outreach activities. His research interests are climate change impacts, species extinctions, simulation and statistical modelling, energy systems analysis (with a focus on modelling future nuclear and large-scale renewable energy scenarios), and synergistic human impacts on the biosphere. He runs a popular climate science and energy options blog at http://bravenewclimate.com. He has written a popular book on sustainable nuclear energy, is an International Award Committee member for the Global Energy Prize, and considers himself a ‘Promethean environmentalist' (seeking effective techno-fixes to solve entrenched sustainability problems). QualificationsB.Sc. (Hons I), Ph.D., Macquarie University, Sydney Awards and Prizes 2011: Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (Level 3) 2010: Community Science Educator of the Year, SA Excellence Awards 2007: Cosmos Bright Sparks Award: One of the top 10 young scientists in Australia 2007: H.G. Andrewartha Medal: Royal Society of SA. Awarded for outstanding research by a scientist under 40 years (any discipline) 2006: Fenner Medal: Australian Academy of Science. Awarded for distinguished research in biology by a scientist under 40 years 2006: Edgeworth David Medal: Royal Society of NSW. Awarded for outstanding research by a scientist under 35 years (any discipline) 2006: Who's Who in Australia? (Crown Content Publishing) bibliographic entry 2005: 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century, bibliographic entry (International Biographical Centre, Cambridge) 1999: Australian Flora Foundation Prize, Australian Flora Foundation Teaching Interests
Effective teaching, outreach and communication of the science of climate change, energy sustainability and biodiversity conservation is fundamental to providing policy makers with the type of evidence required to institute meaningful mitigation policy and to understand available adaptation options. Professor Brook has taken an active leadership role in the communication of the science of global change to government, industry and the community (directly, via public lectures and workshops and advisory committees, and indirectly via the media - including television, radio, the print media and popular science articles). It is his belief that presenting hard-won technical scientific evidence to a broad audience in an intelligible way is the surest path to provoking meaningful societal change towards long-term sustainability. At the Global Ecology Lab, a range of opportunities are available for Ph.D., Masters and Honours students for specific on-going research projects with existing funding. General inquiries for projects on topics of a student's own choosing, on research problems in climate change impacts on biodiversity, paleoecology, extinction modelling and energy generation systems (nuclear and renewable policy and modelling) are also welcome. Current Research Graduate Students: Ms Guanfang Su (PhD), Mr Michael Stead (PhD), Mr Salvador Herrando-Perez (PhD), Mr Tony Griffiths (PhD), Ms Nerissa Haby (PhD), Mr Bert Harris (PhD), Mr Dandong Zheng (PhD), Mr Jack Powell (MSc), Mr Tim Kelly (MA). Recently Graduated: Dr Lochran Traill (PhD 2010, now Marie Curie Fellow at Imperial College London), Dr Thomas Wanger (PhD 2011, now postdoc at Stanford University), Dr Siobhan de Little (PhD 2011, now research fellow at University of Melbourne). Potential Student Projects
Research Interests
Click here for Google Scholar research publication citation analysis for Brook, B.W. Topics: My research methods focus primarily on the statistical analysis, interpretation and computational modelling of complex systems, long-term data, and meta-analysis of large-scale databases. Scenarios for future impacts are modelled at global, regional and local scales, to provide a robust scientific underpinning for scientific management and government policy. My current work is aimed at determining the extent to which climate change amplifies other major anthropogenic threats to biodiversity (e.g., demographic and genetic stress, habitat degradation, introduced predator and competitor species), and developing new modelling systems which realistically captures this information and so can be used for the purposes of prediction, adaptation and ecosystem management and restoration and forecasts of extinction risk (using population viability analysis and metapopulation risk assessment). I also undertake systems modelling for sustainable energy, including scenario modelling of future low-carbon energy mixes (nuclear power and renewables) and the critical evalatuion of large-scale deployment options, energy backup, and variability control. My lab has comprehensive research facilities and professional development programmes available via the Environment Institute, its support staff, and the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences infrastructure. Through internal University grants and substantial ARC funding (e.g., Future Fellowship infrastructure and ARC Discovery grants), I have established a ‘supercomputer' cluster (Windows-64-bit OS, 64 x high-performance Intel processor cores, 32 GB RAM each, 10 TB RAID 0 storage). This facility has greatly increased the scope of computational analysis available to the Faculty, and is managed by eResearch SA. Current Postdoctoral Research Staff: Dr Damien Fordham, Dr Jeremy Austin, Dr Steve Delean,Dr Mike Watts, Dr Thomas Prowse, Dr Stephen Gregory, Dr Donna Harris. Major Collaborators: Prof Corey Bradshaw, Dr Phill Cassey, Prof Chris Johnson, Dr Miguel Araújo, Dr Tom Wigley, Dr Bob Lacy, Prof Resit Akçakaya, Members of the Science Council for Global Initiatives. Citation rates: According to Google Scholar (author: "brook bw"), my top 100 listed papers have 4,233 citations: 4 with > 200 cites, 9 with >100 cites and 26 with >50 cites (H-index of 35), and an average of 42 cites per paper. I am currently listed by ISI's Essential Science Indicators at #207 in the world for scientist rankings in environment/ecology based on 68 of my papers (out of 3,500 E/E scientists who qualify at the 1 % of cited scientists level, requiring at least 470 citations in the past 10 years). That is, I am in the top 6th percentile of the top 1 % highly-cited ecologists worldwide. Six of my papers are currently listed as top 0.01 % cited papers . Output type and quantity: In my career, I have published 201 peer-reviewed outputs, including 3 authored books. For just the 2011 peer-reviewed outputs, I have 6 book chapters and 28 journal papers published or in press. See below for my full publication list. Publication quality: My books have been published by Cambridge University Press and Wiley-Blackwell, two of the premier global academic book publishing houses with a rigorous pre-selection and review process. My papers have been published consistently in high-quality outlets, including the following notables (below I give the ISI 2010 Impact Factor [IF] and number of papers [n] in each outlet): Nature (IF = 36.1, n = 6), Science (IF = 31.4, n = 2), Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA (IF = 9.8, n= 3), as well as and the following ERA A* journals: Trends in Ecology & Evolution (IF = 14.5, n = 4), Quarterly Review of Biology (IF = 10.2, n = 4), Conservation Biology (IF = 4.9, n = 10),Proceedings of the Royal Society B (IF = 5.1, n = 3), Ecological Applications (IF = 4.2, n = 4),Ecology (IF = 5.1, n = 3), Ecology Letters (IF = 15.2, n = 1), Global Change Biology (IF = 6.4, n = 2), PLoS Biology (IF = 12.9, n = 3), Global Ecology & Biodiversity (IF = 5.3, n = 1), Quaternary Science Reviews (IF = 4.7, n = 4) and Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (IF = 8.8, n = 4). Other: I have given 100s of invited national and international keynote and plenary addresses, and have been awarded 16 competitive ARC research grants (7 Discovery, 7 Linkage, 1 Super Science, 1 Future Fellowship) as a Chief Investigator, totalling >$8 million (plus >$5M cash and in-kind contribution from industry partners). Editorial Board/Panel: Biology Letters (2011-), Biological Conservation (2009-), Sustainability (2009-), Ecological Research (2004-2011), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology (2003-), Faculty of 1000 Biology [Theoretical Ecology section] PublicationsBOOKS Brook, B.W. & Lowe, I. (2010) Why vs Why: Nuclear Power. Pantera Press, Sydney. ISBN 978-0-9807418-5-8. Sodhi, N.S., Brook, B.W. & Bradshaw, C.J.A. (2007) Tropical Conservation Biology. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK. ISBN 978-1-4051-5073-6.336, 344 p. Sodhi, N.S. & Brook, B.W. (2006) Southeast Asian Biodiversity in Crisis. Tropical Biology Series, Cambridge University Press, London, UK. ISBN 978-0-521-83930-3, 212 p. FIFTY SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (email: barry.brook@adelaide.edu.au for a PDF reprint; for a full PDF list of >200 publications and an Endnote Library, see bottom of page) 1. Brook, B.W. & Barnosky, A.D. (2011) Quaternary extinctions and their link to climate change. In: Saving a Million Species: Extinction Risk from Climate Change (ed. L. Hannah), Ch 11. Island Press, NY. ISBN 987-159-726-570-6. 2. Akçakaya, H.R. & Brook, B.W. (2009) Methods for determining viability of wildlife populations in large landscapes. In Models for Planning Wildlife Conservation in Large Landscapes (eds J.J. Millspaugh & F.R.I. Thompson), pp 449-472. Elsevier, New York. ISBN 978-0-12-373631-4. 3. Brook, B. W. (2008) Demographics versus genetics in conservation biology. In Conservation Biology: Evolution in Action (eds S. P. Carroll and C. W. Fox), pp 35-49. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-195-30678-1. 4. Brook B.W. (2011). Could nuclear fission energy etc. solve the greenhouse problem? The affirmative case. Energy Policy, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.11.041 5. Brook B.W. & Bradshaw C.J.A. (2011) Strange bedfellows? Techno-fixes to solve the big conservation issues in southern Asia. Biological Conservation, doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2011.10.007 6. Brooks, T.M., Brook, B.W., Koh, L.P., Pereira, H.M., Pimm, S.L., Rosenzweig, M.L. & Sodhi, N.S. (2011) Extinctions: consider all species. Nature 474, 284. doi: 10.1038/474284b 7. Clements, G.R., Bradshaw, C.J.A., Brook, B.W. & Laurance, W.F. (2011) The SAFE index: using a threshold population target to measure relative species threat. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 9, 521-525. doi: 10.1890/100177 8. Gibson, L., Lee, T.M., Koh, L.P., Brook, B.W., Gardner, T.A., Barlow, J., Peres, C.A., Bradshaw, C.J.A., Laurance, W.F., Lovejoy, T.E. & Sodhi, N.S. (2011) Primary forests are irreplaceable for sustaining tropical biodiversity. Nature, 478, 378-381 doi: 10.1038/nature10425 9. Johnson, C.N. & Brook, B.W. (2011) Reconstructing the dynamics of ancient human populations from radiocarbon dates: 10 000 years of population growth in Australia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London - Series B, 278, 3748-3754. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0343 10. Nicholson, M., Biegler, T. & Brook, B. W. (2011) How carbon pricing changes the relative competitiveness of low-carbon baseload generating technologies. Energy, 36, 305-313. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2010.10.039 11. McMahon, C.R., Brook, B.W., Collier, N. & Bradshaw, C.J.A. (2010) Spatially explicit spreadsheet modelling for optimizing the efficiency of reducing invasive animal density. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 1, 53-68. doi: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2009.00002.x 12. Roberts, R.G. & Brook, B.W. (2010) And then there were none? Science, 327, 420-422. doi: 10.1126/science.1185517. 13. Traill, L.W., Brook, B.W., Frankham, R. & Bradshaw, C.J.A. (2010) Pragmatic population viability targets in a rapidly changing world. Biological Conservation, 143, 28-34. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.09.001 14. Brook, B.W., Akçakaya, H.R., Keith, D.A., Mace, G.M., Pearson, R.G. & Araújo, M.B. (2009) Integrating bioclimate with population models to improve forecasts of species extinctions under climate change. Biology Letters, 5, 723-725. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0480 15. Anderson, B.J., Akçakaya, H.R., Araujo, M.B., Fordham, D.A., Martinez-Meyer, E., Thuiller, W. & Brook, B.W. (2009) Dynamics of range margins for metapopulations under climate change. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London - Series B, 276, 1415-1420. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1681 16. Bradshaw, C.J.A. & Brook, B.W. (2009) The Cronus hypothesis - extinction as a necessary and dynamic balance to evolutionary diversification. Journal of Cosmology 2, 201-209. http://journalofcosmology.com/Extinction100.html 17. Bradshaw, C.J.A., Sodhi, N.S. & Brook, B.W. (2009) Tropical turmoil - a biodiversity tragedy in progress. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7, 79-87. doi: 10.1890/070193 18. Haile, J., Froese, D., MacPhee, R., Roberts, R., Arnold, L., Reyes, A., Rasmussen, M., Nielsen, R., Brook, B.W., Robinson, S., Demuro, M., Gilbert, T., Munch, K., Austin, J., Cooper, A., Barnes, I., Moller, P. & Willerslev, E. (2009) Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, 22352-22357. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912510106 19. Yang, G.-J., Brook, B.W. & Bradshaw, C.J.A. (2009) Predicting the timing and magnitude of tropical mosquito population peaks for maximizing control efficiency. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 3, e385. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0000385 20. Brook, B.W. (2008) Synergies between climate change, extinctions and invasive vertebrates. Wildlife Research, 35, 249-252. doi: 10.1071/WR07116 21. Brook, B.W., Sodhi, N.S. & Bradshaw, C.J.A. (2008) Synergies among extinction drivers under global change. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 23, 453-460. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2008.03.011 22. O'Grady, J.J., Reed, D.H., Brook, B.W., Frankham, R. (2008) Extinction risk scales better to generations than to years. Animal Conservation, 11, 442-451. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2008.00201.x 23. Brook, B.W., Rowley, N., & Flannery, T.F. (2007) Kyoto: doing our best is no longer enough. Nature, 450, 478. doi: 10.1038/450478d 24. Brook, B. W., Bowman, D.M.J.S., Burney, D.A., Flannery, T.F., Gagan, M.K., Gillespie, R., Johnson, C.N., Kershaw, A.P., Magee, J.W., Martin, P.S., Miller, G.H., Peiser, B., & Roberts, R.G. (2007) Would the Australian megafauna have become extinct if humans had never colonised the continent? Quaternary Science Reviews, 26, 560-564. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.10.008 25. Bradshaw, C.J.A., Sodhi, N.S., Peh, K.S.-H., & Brook, B.W. (2007) Global evidence that deforestation amplifies flood risk and severity in the developing world. Global Change Biology, 13, 2379-2395. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2007.01446.x 26. Elliott, L.P. & Brook, B.W. (2007) Revisiting Chamberlin: multiple working hypotheses for the 21st century. BioScience, 57, 608-614. doi: 10.1641/B570708 27. Traill, L.W., Bradshaw, C.J.A., & Brook, B.W. (2007) Minimum viable population size: a meta-analysis of 30 years of published estimates. Biological Conservation, 139, 159-166, doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2007.06.011 28. Brook, B.W. & Sodhi, N.S. (2006) Rarity bites. Nature, 444, 555-557. doi: 10.1038/444555a 29. Brook, B.W. & Bradshaw, C.J.A. (2006) Strength of evidence for density dependence in abundance time series of 1198 species. Ecology, 87, 1445-1451. doi: 10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[1445:SOEFDD]2.0.CO;2 30. Brook, B.W. & Johnson, C.N. (2006) Selective hunting of juveniles as a cause of the imperceptible overkill of the Australian Pleistocene megafauna. Alcheringa Special Issue, 1, 39-48. doi: 10.1080/03115510608619573 31. Brook, B.W., Bradshaw, C.J.A., & Traill, L.W. (2006) Minimum viable populations and global extinction risk are unrelated. Ecology Letters, 9, 375-382. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.00883.x 32. Brook, B.W., Bradshaw, C.J.A., Koh, L.P., & Sodhi, N.S. (2006) Momentum drives the crash: mass extinction in the tropics. Biotropica, 38, 302-305. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2006.00141.x 33. Gillespie, R., Brook, B.W., & Baynes, A. (2006) Short overlap of humans and megafauna in Pleistocene Australia. Alcheringa Special Issue, 1, 163-185. doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2008.04.006 34. O'Grady, J.J., Brook, B.W., Reed, D.H., Ballou, J.D., Tonkyn, D.W., & Frankham, R. (2006) Realistic levels of inbreeding depression strongly affect extinction risk in wild populations. Biological Conservation, 133, 42-51. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2006.05.016 35. Brook, B.W. & Bowman, D.M.J.S. (2005) One equation fits overkill: why allometry underpins both prehistoric and modern body size-biased extinctions. Population Ecology, 42, 147-151. doi: 10.1007/s10144-005-0213-4 36. Brook, B.W. & Whitehead, P.J. (2005) Sustainable harvest regimes for magpie geese (Anseranas semipalmata) under spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Wildlife Research, 32, 459-464. doi: 10.1071/WR02104 37. Bradshaw, C.J.A. & Brook, B.W. (2005) Disease and the devil: density-dependent epidemiological processes explain historical population fluctuations in the Tasmanian devil. Ecography, 28, 181-190. doi: 10.1111/j.0906-7590.2005.04088.x 38. Brook, B.W. (2004) Australasian bird invasions: accidents of history? Ornithological Science, 3, 33-42. doi: 10.2326/osj.3.33 39. Brook, B.W. & Bowman, D.M.J.S. (2004) The uncertain blitzkrieg of Pleistocene megafauna. Journal of Biogeography, 31, 517-523. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2699.2003.01028.x 40. Frankham, R. & Brook, B.W. (2004) The importance of time scale in conservation biology and ecology. Annales Zoologici Fennici, 41, 459-463. 41. O'Grady, J.J., Reed, D.H., Brook, B.W., & Frankham, R. (2004) What are the best correlates of predicted extinction risk? Biological Conservation, 118, 513-520. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2003.10.002 42. Sodhi, N.S., Koh, L.P., Brook, B.W., & Ng, P.K.L. (2004) Southeast Asian biodiversity: an impending disaster. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 19, 654-660. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2004.09.006 43. Spielman, D., Brook, B.W., & Frankham, R. (2004) Most species are not driven to extinction before genetic factors impact them. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101, 15261-15264. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0403809101 44. Spielman, D., Brook, B.W., Briscoe, D.A., & Frankham, R. (2004) Does inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity decrease disease resistance? Conservation Genetics, 5, 439-448. doi: 10.1023/B:COGE.0000041030.76598.cd 45. Brook, B.W., Sodhi, N.S., & Ng, P.K.L. (2003) Catastrophic extinctions follow deforestation in Singapore. Nature, 424, 420-423. doi: 10.1038/nature01795 46. Brook, B.W. & Bowman, D.M.J.S. (2002) Explaining the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions: Models, chronologies, and assumptions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99, 14624-14627. doi: 10.1073/pnas.232126899 47. Brook, B.W., Tonkyn, D.W., O'Grady, J.J., & Frankham, R. (2002) Contribution of inbreeding to extinction risk in threatened species. Conservation Ecology, 6, 16. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss1/art16 48. Brook, B.W., Burgman, M.A., Akçakaya, H.R., O'Grady, J.J., & Frankham, R. (2002) Critiques of PVA ask the wrong questions: Throwing the heuristic baby out with the numerical bath water. Conservation Biology, 16, 262-263. doi: 10.1046/j.1523-1739.2002.01426.x 49. Brook, B.W., O'Grady, J.J., Chapman, A.P., Burgman, M.A., Akçakaya, H.R., & Frankham, R. (2000) Predictive accuracy of population viability analysis in conservation biology. Nature, 404, 385-387. doi: 10.1038/35006050 50. Brook, B.W., Lim, L., Harden, R., & Frankham, R. (1997) Does population viability analysis software predict the behaviour of real populations? A retrospective study on the Lord Howe Island woodhen Tricholimnas sylvestris (Sclater). Biological Conservation, 82, 119-128. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3207(97)00026-8 Professional Associations
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