Areas of expertise
- Conservation And Biodiversity 050202
- Plant Systematics And Taxonomy 060310
- Biogeography And Phylogeography 060302
- Phylogeny And Comparative Analysis 060309
- Speciation And Extinction 060311
Biography
I am an emeritus professor in the Research School of Biology, Australian National University. I have a PhD from the University of Adelaide (1976) for studies on long-term change on arid zone vegetation in South Australia. Subsequently, at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, I developed a expertise in phylogenetics and classification of Australian plants, particularly the pea-flowered legumes, revising (with collaborators) the large genera Daviesia, Gastrolobium, Gompholobium and Jacksonia. More recently, my broad knowledge of the Australian flora has led me to address questions such as: How is biodiversity distributed in space and what factors limit distribution? How have species and their traits diversified through time and what are the drivers? By constructing molecular phylogenies and dating the divergences between lineages, we have detected the signatures of ancient shifts in the rates of speciation and extinction, and of evolutionary change in their traits. We have discovered how climatic change has driven the course of evolution in multiple plant lineages, creating biodiversity hotspots such as in southwestern Australia.
For example, I led an international collaborative study that resolved a controversy about whether organisms separated by the southern oceans have been isolated since Gondwana broke up (vicariance) or dispersed across the oceans to establish new populations. We found that long distance dispersal had been far more common that previously supposed and published the results in Nature. In another study, published in Nature Communications, we discovered that fire-dominated eucalypt communities were likely present in Australia when it was part of Gondwana, 50 million years earlier than previously thought. Hence, eucalypts likely played an early role in transforming the continent from a rainforest-dominated landscape to one of open, flammable sclerophyll communities. This transformation was made possible by a unique adaptation in eucalypts to resprout after even the most intense bushfires from dormant buds in their bark.
Publications
- Worth, J, Sakaguchi, S, Harrison, P et al. 2018, 'Pleistocene divergence of two disjunct conifers in the eastern Australian temperate zone', Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. 125, no. 3, pp. 459-474.
- Crisp, M, Cayzer, L, Chandler, G et al. 2017, 'A monograph of Daviesia (Mirbelieae, Faboideae, Fabaceae)', Phytotaxa, vol. 300, no. 1, pp. 1-308.
- Edwards, R, Crisp, M, Cook, D et al. 2017, 'Congruent biogeographical disjunctions at a continent-wide scale: Quantifying and clarifying the role of biogeographic barriers in the Australian tropics', PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science), vol. 12, no. 4, pp. e0174812-e0174812.
- Holtum, J, Hancock, L, Edwards, E et al. 2016, 'Australia lacks stem succulents but is it depauperate in plants with crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM)?', Current Opinion in Plant Biology, vol. 31, pp. 109-117.
- Gonzalez-Orozco, C, Pollock, L, Thornhill, A et al. 2016, 'Phylogenetic approaches reveal biodiversity threats under climate change', Nature Climate Change, vol. 6, no. 12, pp. 1110-1114.
- Thornhill, A, Ho, S, Kulheim, C et al. 2015, 'Interpreting the modern distribution of Myrtaceae using a dated molecular phylogeny', Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, vol. 93, pp. 29-43.
- Toon, A, Crisp, M, Gamage, H et al. 2015, 'Key innovation or adaptive change? A test of leaf traits using Triodiinae in Australia', Scientific Reports, vol. 5, no. 12398, pp. 12398-12398.
- Ho, S, Tong, K, Foster, C et al. 2015, 'Biogeographic calibrations for the molecular clock', Biology Letters, vol. 11, no. 9, pp. 20150194-20150194.
- Cook, L, Hardy, N & Crisp, M 2015, 'Three explanations for biodiversity hotspots: small range size, geographical overlap and time for species accumulation. An Australian case study', New Phytologist, vol. 207, no. 2, pp. 390-400.
- Pollock, L, Rosauer, D, Thornhill, A et al. 2015, 'Phylogenetic diversity meets conservation policy: Small areas are key to preserving eucalypt lineages', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, vol. 370, no. 1662, pp. 20140007-20140007.
- Crisp, M, Hardy, N & Cook, L 2014, 'Clock model makes a large difference to age estimates of long-stemmed clades with no internal calibration: a test using Australian grasstrees', BMC Evolutionary Biology (now BMC Ecology and Evolution), vol. 14, no. 263, pp. 1-17.
- Toon, A, Cook, L & Crisp, M 2014, 'Evolutionary consequences of shifts to bird-pollination in the Australian pea-flowered legumes (Mirbelieae and Bossiaeeae)', BMC Evolutionary Biology (now BMC Ecology and Evolution), vol. 14, no. 43, pp. 1-11.
- Sakaguchi, S, Bowman, D, Prior, L et al. 2013, 'Climate, not Aboriginal landscape burning, controlled the historical demography and distribution of fire-sensitive conifer populations across Australia', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences, vol. 280, no. 1773, p. 10.
- Crisp, M & Cook, L 2013, 'How Was the Australian Flora Assembled Over the Last 65 Million Years? A Molecular Phylogenetic Perspective', Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics, vol. 44, pp. 303-324.
- Kondo, T, Crisp, M, Linde, C et al. 2012, 'Not an ancient relic: the endemic Livistona palms of arid central Australia could have been introduced by humans', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences, vol. 279, no. 1738, pp. 2652-2661.
- Crisp, M & Cook, L 2012, 'Phylogenetic niche conservatism: what are the underlying evolutionary and ecological causes?', New Phytologist, vol. 196, no. 3, pp. 681-694.
- Thornhill, A, Popple, L, Carter, R et al 2012, 'Are pollen fossils useful for calibrating relaxed molecular clock dating of phylogenies? A comparative study using Myrtaceae', Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, vol. 63, pp. 15-27.
- Crisp, M & Cook, L 2011, 'Cenozoic extinctions account for the low diversity of extant gymnosperms compared with angiosperms', New Phytologist, vol. 192, no. 4, pp. 997-1009.
- Crisp, M, Trewick, S & Cook, L 2011, 'Hypothesis testing in biogeography', Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 66-72.
- Crisp, M, Burrows, G, Cook, L et al. 2011, 'Flammable biomes dominated by eucalypts originated at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary', Nature Communications, vol. 2, no. 193, pp. 193-193.
- Rosauer, D, Laffan, S, Crisp, M et al. 2009, 'Phylogenetic endemism: a new approach for identifying geographical concentrations of evolutionary history', Molecular Ecology, vol. 18, no. 19, pp. 4061-4072.
- Cook, L, Edwards, R, Crisp, M et al. 2010, 'Need morphology always be required for new species descriptions?', Invertebrate Systematics, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 322-326.
- Edwards, R, Craven, L, Crisp, M et al. 2010, 'Melaleuca revisited: cpDNA and morphological data confirm that Melaleuca L. (Myrtaceae) is not monophyletic', Taxon, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 744-754.
- Bowman, D, Brown, G, Braby, M et al. 2010, 'Biogeography of the Australian monsoon tropics', Journal of Biogeography, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 201-216.
- Crisp, M, Arroyo, M, Cook, L et al. 2009, 'Phylogenetic biome conservatism on a global scale', Nature, vol. 458, pp. 754-756.
- Rosauer, D, Laffan, S, Crisp, M et al. 2009, 'Phylogenetic endemism: a new approach for identifying geographical concentrations of evolutionary history', Molecular Ecology, vol. 18, no. 19, pp. 4061-4072.
- Crisp, M & Cook, L 2009, 'Explosive radiation or cryptic mass extinction? Interpreting signatures in molecular phylogenies', Evolution, vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 2257-2265.
- Omland, K, Cook, L & Crisp, M 2008, 'Tree thinking for all biology: the problem with reading phylogenies as ladders of progress', Bioessays, vol. 30, pp. 854-867.
- Chappill, J, Wilkins, C & Crisp, M 2008, 'Taxonomic revision of Gompholobium (Leguminosae: Mirbelieae)', Australian Systematic Botany, vol. 21, pp. 67-151.
- Chappill, J, Wilkins, C & Crisp, M 2007, 'Taxonomic revision of Jacksonia (Leguminosae: Mirbelieae)', Australian Systematic Botany, vol. 20, pp. 473-623.
- Crisp, M & Cook, L 2007, 'A congruent molecular signature of vicariance across multiple plant lineages', Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, vol. 43, pp. 1106-1117.
- Cook, L & Crisp, M 2005, 'Directional asymmetry of long-distance dispersal and colonization could mislead reconstructions of biogeography', Journal of Biogeography, vol. 32, pp. 741-754.
- Crisp, M & Cook, L 2005, 'Do early branching lineages signify ancestral traits?', Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 122-128.
- Crisp, M, Cook, L & Steane, D 2004, 'Radiation of the Australian flora: what can comparisons of molecular phylogenies across multiple taxa tell us about the evolution of diversity in present-day communities?', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, vol. 359, pp. 1551-1571.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Australia's distinctive succulent flora (Secondary Investigator)
- Evolution of Australia's globally unique hotspot of floral diversity (Primary Investigator)