Dr Simon Hart
Lecturer in Quantitative Biology
School of the Environment
+61 7 344 31074
Researcher biography
The goal of our research is to understand the processes driving the rise and fall of populations of species within communities.
Our research has helped to quantify the influence of demographic stochasticity, individual variation, phenotypic plasticity, rapid evolution, and spatial environmental heterogeneity on population and community dynamics. We are also interested in the role of non-stationary environments, fluctuating environments, and 'extreme events' on dynamics and distributions.
We focus on the biology of flowing freshwater ecosystems — streams, rivers, and associated wetlands. These systems provide wonderfully challenging opportunities for combining theory, observations, and experiments to discover how nature works.
More importantly, freshwater ecosystems are, per unit area, the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, and yet they remain underexplored, underappreciated, and under threat.
We hope our work can help to redress these issues.
Book Chapters
Levine, Jonathan M. and Hart, Simon P. (2020). The dimensions of species coexistence. Unsolved problems in ecology. (pp. 145-159) edited by Andrew Dobson, Robert D. Holt and David Tilman. Princeton, NJ, United States: Princeton University Press. doi: 10.1515/9780691195322-014
Ban, Natalie C., Kittinger, John N., Pandolfi, John M., Pressey, Robert L., Thurstan, Ruth H., Lybolt, Matt J. and Hart, Simon (2014). Incorporating historical perspectives into systematic marine conservation planning. Marine historical ecology in conservation. (pp. 207-233) Santa Barbara, CA, United States: University of California Press. doi: 10.1525/california/9780520276949.003.0010
Journal Articles
Hart, Simon P. (2023). How does facilitation influence the outcome of species interactions?. Journal of Ecology, 111 (10), 2094-2104. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.14189
Godoy, Oscar, González-Muñoz, Noelia and Hart, Simon P. (2023). Effects of intraspecific variation in a native species' phenology on its coexistence with non-native plants. Oikos, 2023 (12) e10149, 1-12. doi: 10.1111/oik.10149
Hordijk, Iris, Maynard, Daniel S., Hart, Simon P., Lidong, Mo, ter Steege, Hans, Liang, Jingjing, de‐Miguel, Sergio, Nabuurs, Gert‐Jan, Reich, Peter B., Abegg, Meinrad, Adou Yao, C. Yves, Alberti, Giorgio, Almeyda Zambrano, Angelica M., Alvarado, Braulio V., Esteban, Alvarez‐Davila, Alvarez‐Loayza, Patricia, Alves, Luciana F., Ammer, Christian, Antón‐Fernández, Clara, Araujo‐Murakami, Alejandro, Arroyo, Luzmila, Avitabile, Valerio, Aymard C, Gerardo A., Baker, Timothy, Bałazy, Radomir, Banki, Olaf, Barroso, Jorcely, Bastian, Meredith L., Bastin, Jean‐Francois ... Crowther, Thomas W. (2023). Evenness mediates the global relationship between forest productivity and richness. Journal of Ecology, 111 (6), 1308-1326. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.14098
Hess, Cyrill, Levine, Jonathan M., Turcotte, Martin M. and Hart, Simon P. (2022). Phenotypic plasticity promotes species coexistence. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 6 (9), 1256-1261. doi: 10.1038/s41559-022-01826-8
Schreiber, Sebastian J., Levine, Jonathan M., Godoy, Oscar, Kraft, Nathan J. B. and Hart, Simon P. (2022). Does deterministic coexistence theory matter in a finite world?. Ecology, 104 (1) e3838, 1-17. doi: 10.1002/ecy.3838
Blaser-Hart, W. J., Hart, S. P., Oppong, J., Kyereh, D., Yeboah, E. and Six, J. (2021). The effectiveness of cocoa agroforests depends on shade-tree canopy height. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 322 107676, 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2021.107676
Germain, Rachel M., Hart, Simon P., Turcotte, Martin M., Otto, Sarah P., Sakarchi, Jawad, Rolland, Jonathan, Usui, Takuji, Angert, Amy L., Schluter, Dolph, Bassar, Ronald D., Waters, Mia T., Henao-Diaz, Francisco and Siepielski, Adam M. (2020). On the Origin of Coexisting Species. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 36 (4), 284-293. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.11.006
Blaser, W. J., Oppong, J., Hart, S. P., Landolt, J., Yeboah, E. and Six, J. (2020). Author Correction: Climate-smart sustainable agriculture in low-to-intermediate shade agroforests. Nature Sustainability, 3 (9), 768-768. doi: 10.1038/s41893-020-0594-6
Bastin, Jean-Francois, Clark, Emily, Elliott, Thomas, Hart, Simon, Van Den Hoogen, Johan, Hordijk, Iris, Ma, Haozhi, Majumder, Sabiha, Manoli, Gabriele, Maschler, Julia, Mo, Lidong, Routh, Devin, Yu, Kailiang, Zohner, Constantin M. and Crowther, Thomas W. (2019). Correction: Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues (PLoS ONE (2019) 14:7 (e0217592) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217592). PLoS One, 14 (10) e0224120. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224120
Bastin, Jean-Francois, Clark, Emily, Elliott, Thomas, Hart, Simon, van den Hoogen, Johan, Hordijk, Iris, Ma, Haozhi, Majumder, Sabiha, Manoli, Gabriele, Maschler, Julia, Mo, Lidong, Routh, Devin, Yu, Kailiang, Zohner, Constantin M. and Crowther, Thomas W. (2019). Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues. PLoS One, 14 (7) e0217592, e0217592. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217592
Hart, Simon P., Turcotte, Martin M. and Levine, Jonathan M. (2019). Effects of rapid evolution on species coexistence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116 (6), 2112-2117. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1816298116
Hart, Simon P., Freckleton, Robert P. and Levine, Jonathan M. (2018). How to quantify competitive ability. Journal of Ecology, 106 (5), 1902-1909. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12954
Cardinaux, Aline, Hart, Simon P. and Alexander, Jake M. (2018). Do soil biota influence the outcome of novel interactions between plant competitors?. Journal of Ecology, 106 (5), 1853-1863. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.13029
Blaser, W. J., Oppong, J., Hart, S. P., Landolt, J., Yeboah, E. and Six, J. (2018). Climate-smart sustainable agriculture in low-to-intermediate shade agroforests. Nature Sustainability, 1 (5), 234-239. doi: 10.1038/s41893-018-0062-8
Alexander, Jake M., Diez, Jeffrey M., Usinowicz, Jacob and Hart, Simon P. (2018). Species' distributions as a coexistence problem: a response to Godsoe et al. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 33 (3), 144-145. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2018.01.001
Hart, Simon P., Usinowicz, Jacob and Levine, Jonathan M. (2017). Publisher Correction: The spatial scales of species coexistence. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1 (9), 1411-1411. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0289-1
Hart, Simon P., Usinowicz, Jacob and Levine, Jonathan M. (2017). The spatial scales of species coexistence. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1 (8), 1066-1073. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0230-7
Alexander, Jake M., Diez, Jeffrey M., Hart, Simon P. and Levine, Jonathan M. (2016). When climate reshuffles competitors: a call for experimental macroecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 31 (11), 831-841. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.08.003
Hart, Simon P., Schreiber, Sebastian J. and Levine, Jonathan M. (2016). How variation between individuals affects species coexistence. Ecology Letters, 19 (8), 825-838. doi: 10.1111/ele.12618
Hart, Simon P. and Marshall, Dustin J. (2013). Environmental stress, facilitation, competition, and coexistence. Ecology, 94 (12), 2719-2731. doi: 10.1890/12-0804.1
Blaser, Wilma J., Sitters, Judith, Hart, Simon P., Edwards, Peter J. and Venterink, Harry Olde (2013). Facilitative or competitive effects of woody plants on understorey vegetation depend on N-fixation, canopy shape and rainfall. Journal of Ecology, 101 (6), 1598-1603. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12142
Hart, Simon P., Burgin, Jacqueline R. and Marshall, Dustin J. (2012). Revisiting competition in a classic model system using formal links between theory and data. Ecology, 93 (9), 2015-2022. doi: 10.1890/11-2248.1
Hart, Simon P. and Marshall, Dustin J. (2012). Advantages and disadvantages of interference-competitive ability and resource-use efficiency when invading established communities. Oikos, 121 (3), 396-402. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2011.19557.x
Burgess, Scott C., Hart, Simon P. and Marshall, Dustin J. (2009). Pre-Settlement Behavior in Larval Bryozoans: The Roles of Larval Age and Size. Biological Bulletin, 216 (3), 344-354. doi: 10.2307/25548165
Hart, Simon P. and Marshall, Dustin J. (2009). Spatial arrangement affects population dynamics and competition independent of community composition. Ecology, 90 (6), 1485-1491. doi: 10.1890/08-1813.1
Hart, Simon P. and Keough, Michael J. (2009). Does size predict demographic fate? Modular demography and constraints on growth determine response to decreases in size. Ecology, 90 (6), 1670-1678. doi: 10.1890/08-1745.1