DrFrederik Saltre

Fred is a Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Biogeography at UTS and an Australian Museum Research Scientist (joint appointment) where he joined the Climate Solutions Centre team at the Australian Museum Research Institute. He is also Chief Investigator and leader of the Modelling Stream of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures.

Fred is an ecologist leading the Biogeography, Ecology & Modelling (BEAM) Lab. His research focuses on understanding how species and communities interact with their environments across spatial scales (from local to global) and temporal contexts (past, present, and future). His work encompasses plants, animals (including humans), and ecosystems in both terrestrial and marine environments. By applying advanced statistical methods and modelling, he investigates how species respond to environmental changes and the drivers behind biogeographic patterns of species diversity. This helps him evaluate the effectiveness of conservation strategies, policy decisions, and biodiversity management scenarios.

After completing his PhD in Ecology with a specialty in Ecosystem Functioning in 2010, he was Lecturer at the Sorbonne (France) working on intra- and interspecific competition effects on plant species range shifts. In 2011, Fred moved to the Oregon State University (USA), as a Postdoctoral Scholar, where he assessed the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to projected future climate change in the Pacific Northwest. From 2013 to 2016, he held a research-intensive Research Associate position at the University of Adelaide (South Australia) to test and generalise hypotheses regarding species extinctions and appearances (including speciation) relative to major environmental events (e.g., large climatic fluctuations) but also how climate stability (or instability) affects contemporary patterns of biodiversity worldwide.

Fred has built his career as a quantitative ecologist in developing new methodological frameworks and tools, adapting innovative concepts from other disciplines to address challenging questions in ecology. His most important contributions have been in applied ecology, biodiversity conservation, theoretical ecology, extinction dynamics, human demography, species responses to climate change, and applying ecological theory and modelling techniques to predict ecosystem changes. Between 2016 and 2024, he co-directed the Global Ecology Lab at Flinders University, focusing on palaeo-ecological systems and forecasting future ecosystems.

Fred has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and 2 book chapters and has presented > 50 scientific papers at major professional conferences and workshops in Australia and overseas. He is a passionate science communicator, promoting his research via radio, newspapers, public science events and lectures, and writes for not-for profit media outlets