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Brian Enquist

Professor
External Professor, Santa Fe Institute
Honorary Research Associate, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
Co-Director, Bridging Biodiversity and Conservation Science
BE new
Office Phone: (520) 626-3329
Lab Phone: (520) 626-3336
benquist@arizona.edu

Links

Website

Brian J. Enquist is a plant functional biologist, macroecologist, and theoretical ecologist whose work develops predictive science for biodiversity, ecosystems, and the biosphere. His research asks how biological form, function, metabolism, and diversity scale from individual organisms to communities, ecosystems, and the Earth system. A central aim of this work is to identify general principles that link organismal biology to ecological pattern and ecosystem process.

The Enquist Macroecology Lab combines theory, field ecology, plant functional ecology, ecophysiology, biodiversity informatics, remote sensing, and ecological forecasting. The lab works across tropical forests, temperate and alpine ecosystems, global plant databases, and conservation decision-support systems. The lab emphasizes synthetic thinking, quantitative tools, open data, field-based natural history, and theory tested with biological systems. 

Links

Major Research Themes

  • Plant functional ecology and ecophysiology

  • Metabolic Scaling Theory and biological allometry

  • Trait Driver Theory and trait-based ecology

  • Predictive biodiversity science

  • Macroecology and biogeography

  • Biodiversity informatics and open ecological data

  • Forest dynamics, carbon cycling, and ecosystem function

  • Conservation forecasting under climate and land-use change

  • Long-term monitoring across tropical, temperate, and alpine systems

  • Ecological resilience and biosphere function

Selected Publications

Recent and Current Synthesis Papers

  1. BIEN: A biodiversity informatics ecosystem advancing open and reproducible workflows for plant observation, plot, and trait data. Enquist, B. J. et al. 2026. Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

  2. General laws of biodiversity: Climatic niches predict plant range size and ecological dominance globally. Moulatlet, G. M. et al. 2025. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

  3. Scaling approaches and macroecology provide a foundation for assessing ecological resilience in the Anthropocene. Enquist, B. J., Erwin, D., Savage, V., and Marquet, P. A. 2024. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 379: 20230010.

  4. Developing a predictive science of the biosphere requires the integration of scientific cultures. Enquist, B. J., Kempes, C. P., and West, G. B. 2024. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121: e2209196121.

  5. Balancing land use for conservation, agriculture, and renewable energy. Brock, C. et al. 2026. Nature Communications.

  6. Global functional shifts in trees driven by alien naturalization and native extinction. Guo, W.-Y. et al. 2026. Nature Plants.

  7. More than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change. Boonman, C. C. F. et al. 2024. Nature Communications 15: 166.

  8. The megabiota are disproportionately important for biosphere functioning. Enquist, B. J., Abraham, A. J., Harfoot, M. B., Malhi, Y., and Doughty, C. E. 2020. Nature Communications 11.

  9. Darwin’s naturalization conundrum can be explained by spatial scale. Park, D. S. et al. 2020. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

  10. The commonness of rarity: Global and future distribution of rarity across land plants. Enquist, B. J. et al. 2019. Science Advances 5.

  11. Assessing trait-based scaling theory in tropical forests spanning a broad temperature gradient. Enquist, B. J. et al. 2017. Global Ecology and Biogeography 26: 1357–1373.

  12. Scaling from traits to ecosystems: Developing a general Trait Driver Theory via integrating trait-based and metabolic scaling theories. Enquist, B. J. et al. 2015. Advances in Ecological Research 52: 249–318.

Foundational Papers

  1. A general integrative model for scaling plant growth, carbon flux, and functional trait spectra. Enquist, B. J., Kerkhoff, A. J., Stark, S. C., Swenson, N. G., McCarthy, M. C., and Price, C. A. 2007. Nature 449: 218–222.

  2. Metabolic scaling of forest structure and dynamics: theoretical extensions and empirical evaluations. Enquist, B. J., West, G. B., and Brown, J. H. 2009. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106: 7046–7051.

  3. A general model for the origin of allometric scaling laws in biology. West, G. B., Brown, J. H., and Enquist, B. J. 1997. Science 276: 122–126.

  4. Allometric scaling of plant energetics and population density. Enquist, B. J., Brown, J. H., and West, G. B. 1998. Nature 395: 163–166.

  5. A general model for the structure and allometry of plant vascular systems. West, G. B., Enquist, B. J., and Brown, J. H. 1999. Nature 400: 664–667.

  6. Allometric scaling of production and life-history variation in vascular plants. Enquist, B. J., West, G. B., Charnov, E. L., and Brown, J. H. 1999. Nature 401: 907–911.

  7. Invariant scaling relations across tree-dominated communities. Enquist, B. J., and Niklas, K. J. 2001. Nature 410: 655–660.

  8. Global allocation rules for biomass partitioning in seed plants. Enquist, B. J., and Niklas, K. J. 2002. Science 295: 1517–1520.

Research Interests

The Enquist Lab studies how plant functional traits, body size, metabolism, and environmental drivers shape biodiversity and ecosystem function across scales. A central goal is to link organismal biology to community assembly, ecosystem processes, and biosphere change.

The lab’s research is organized around three connected questions.

First, how do biological scaling laws constrain organisms, populations, and ecosystems? This work builds from Metabolic Scaling Theory and the West-Brown-Enquist framework to understand how vascular networks, body size, metabolism, temperature, and resource transport shape growth, demography, forest structure, and ecosystem carbon flux.

Second, how do plant functional traits scale up to determine community composition and ecosystem function? The lab develops and tests Trait Driver Theory, which predicts how environmental drivers shift the full distribution of traits in ecological communities. This work emphasizes trait means, variance, skewness, and distributional shape as signals of filtering, assembly history, demographic change, and ecosystem response.

Third, how can biodiversity science become predictive under rapid global change? The lab develops models and open tools that integrate plant occurrences, functional traits, vegetation plots, taxonomy, climate data, and species range models. This work supports biodiversity forecasting, protected-area design, extinction-risk assessment, and conservation planning.

The lab’s field and synthesis programs include long-term tropical forest dynamics in Costa Rica, montane and alpine gradients in Colorado and the Andes, Plant Functional Trait Course datasets, global forest plots, and the Botanical Information and Ecology Network. Together these systems connect field measurements, plant ecophysiology, ecological theory, and continental to global forecasts.