Career
After completing his doctorate, Enquist held National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowships at the Santa Fe Institute followed by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). [4] [5] During his time at NCEAS, Enquist was mentored by Karl J. Niklas.
Enquist then joined the faculty of the University of Arizona in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, where he is currently a Professor. He is also an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, a Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, and Co-Director of the Bridging Biodiversity and Conservation Science program at the University of Arizona. [6]
He has contributed to the development of international research collaborations such as the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN), the Biodiversity and Biosphere Forecasting Institute (BioFI), the Plant Functional Traits Courses (PFTC), and the Forest MacroSystems (FMS) network. These initiatives integrate ecological data across spatial and temporal scales to forecast biodiversity responses to environmental change. [7]
Research
Enquist’s research examines how the structure and function of biological systems scale from cells to ecosystems. [8] His work has helped establish the theoretical foundation of metabolic theory of ecology, which links metabolic rate, organism size, and ecological processes through principles of network geometry and resource distribution. Enquist is notable in biology for his work with Geoffrey West and James H. Brown, in understanding the origin and diversity of organismal form, function, and diversity by developing general models for the origin of allometry and scaling laws in biology. This research, [9] shows how general scaling laws underlie organismal form, function, and diversity and can be used to 'scale up' biological processes from genes to cells to ecosystems. [10] [11] [12] This work is also the foundation for the metabolic theory of ecology.
He has also advanced functional ecology, focusing on how variation in plant functional traits governs biodiversity patterns, ecosystem processes, and resilience to environmental change. [13] His Trait Driver Theory (TDT) integrates physiology, ecology, and evolution to predict how functional traits shape community assembly and ecosystem dynamics. [14] [15] Enquist developed TDT with Van M. Savage, Jon Norberg and colleagues. [14] TDT provides a general theory of functional ecology in that it provides a baseline for (i) recasting the predictions of ecological theories based on species richness (see Coexistence theory) in terms of the shape of trait distributions and (ii) integrating metabolic theory of ecology how specific traits, including body size, and functional diversity then ‘scale up’ to influence ecosystem functioning and the dynamics of species assemblages across climate gradients. Further, TDT offers a novel framework to integrate trait, metabolic/allometric, and species-richness-based approaches and theory to better predict functional biogeography and how assemblages of species have and may respond to climate change.
Through the BIEN database and related informatics tools (e.g., the Geographic Name Resolution Service and Geocoordinate Validation Service), Enquist and collaborators have developed methods to integrate, validate, and analyze global biodiversity data for research in ecology, conservation, and global change biology. [16]
Enquist co-leads the international Plant Functional Traits Courses (PFTC), a field-based training program where graduate students and early-career researchers collect, curate, and analyze plant trait data within coordinated research projects. [17] [18] Data collected during PFTC campaigns have been used in numerous peer-reviewed datasets and papers. [19]
He is also a principal organizer of the Forest MacroSystems (FMS) network, a set of nine long-term forest monitoring plots arrayed across climate gradients to quantify forest diversity, demographics, and dynamics. [20] [21] The network has been used to investigate patterns of forest structure and function in collaboration with multiple institutions. [22] [23]
Awards and honors
Enquist was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012 [24] and a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in 2018. [25] He has served on editorial boards and advisory committees for international ecological networks and research programs. His work has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times and the Santa Fe Institute Transmission Series . [26] [27]
- George Mercer Award [28] (Ecological Society of America), (2001)
- Honorary Degree, PhD in Science, Colorado College, (2007). [29]
- Eminent Ecologist, Kellogg Biological Station, [30] (2010)
- Visiting Fellow [31] Oxford Martin School, Oxford University, UK, (2017)
- ESA Fellow [32] Ecological Society of America, (2018)
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