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Ecology and Evolution
Australia
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Ecology and Evolution

D-Index
140
Citations
82674
World Ranking
47
National Ranking
5

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Ecology and Evolution in Australia Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Ecology and Evolution in Australia Leader Award
  • 2023 - Research.com Ecology and Evolution in Australia Leader Award
  • 2022 - Research.com Ecology and Evolution in Australia Leader Award
  • 2019 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2016 - Prime Minister's Prize for Science, Australia For his work using evolutionary principles to address conservation challenges
  • 2014 - R. H. Whittaker Distinguished Ecologist Award, The Ecological Society of America
  • 2003 - Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science

Overview

Richard Shine is affiliated with Macquarie University in Australia and has an extensive publication record focused primarily on environmental science and agricultural and biological sciences. Their research encompasses subfields such as global and planetary change, ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics, nature and landscape conservation, and genetics.

The scientist's major topics of work include:

  • Amphibian and reptile biology
  • Animal behavior and reproduction
  • Wildlife ecology and conservation
  • Turtle biology and conservation
  • Species distribution and climate change
  • Plant and animal studies
  • Bat biology and ecology studies

Richard Shine has published frequently in a variety of scientific journals. Their most common publication venues include:

  • Scientific Reports
  • Ecology and Evolution
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Royal Society Open Science
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

Notable recent papers authored or co-authored by Richard Shine include:

  • Determinants and Consequences of Dispersal in Vertebrates with Complex Life Cycles: A Review of Pond-Breeding Amphibians, 2020, The Quarterly Review of Biology
  • Diverse aging rates in ectothermic tetrapods provide insights for the evolution of aging and longevity, 2022, Science
  • Do Epigenetic Changes Drive Corticosterone Responses to Alarm Cues in Larvae of an Invasive Amphibian?, 2020, Integrative and Comparative Biology
  • Conservation status of the world's skinks (Scincidae): Taxonomic and geographic patterns in extinction risk, 2021, Biological Conservation
  • The behavioural and physiological ecology of embryos: responding to the challenges of life inside an egg, 2022, Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Frequent collaborators in their work have included:

  • Gregory P. Brown
  • Georgia Ward-Fear
  • Lee A. Rollins
  • Michael R. Crossland
  • Claire Goiran

Richard Shine has been recognized with several awards during their career. These include being named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2003. They were also honored with the Prime Minister's Prize for Science in Australia in 2016 for work applying evolutionary principles to conservation challenges. Earlier, in 2014, they received the R. H. Whittaker Distinguished Ecologist Award from The Ecological Society of America.

Best Publications

  • Ecological Causes for the Evolution of Sexual Dimorphism: A Review of the Evidence

    Richard Shine

  • The potential for behavioral thermoregulation to buffer “cold-blooded” animals against climate warming

    Michael Kearney;Richard Shine;Warren P. Porter

  • The conservation status of the world's reptiles

    Monika Böhm;Ben Collen;Jonathan E.M. Baillie;Philip Bowles

  • Invasion and the evolution of speed in toads

    Benjamin L. Phillips;Gregory P. Brown;Jonathan K. Webb;Richard Shine

  • “Costs” of reproduction in reptiles

    Richard Shine

  • Sexual Selection and Sexual Dimorphism in the Amphibia

    Richard Shine

  • The Ecological Impact of Invasive Cane Toads (Bufo Marinus) in Australia

    Richard Shine

  • Restoration of an inbred adder population

    Thomas Madsen;Richard Shine;Mats Olsson;Håkan Wittzell

  • Sexual size dimorphism in snakes revisited

    Richard Shine

  • An evolutionary process that assembles phenotypes through space rather than through time

    Richard Shine;Gregory P. Brown;Benjamin L. Phillips

  • Sexual size dimorphism and sexual selection in turtles (order testudines).

    James F. Berry;Richard Shine

  • Human cognition involves the dynamic integration of neural activity and neuromodulatory systems

    James M Shine;Michael Breakspear;Michael Breakspear;Peter T Bell;Kaylena A Ehgoetz Martens

  • Why do female adders copulate so frequently

    Thomas Madsen;Thomas Madsen;Richard Shine;Jon Loman;Thomas Håkansson

  • The dangers of leaving home: dispersal and mortality in snakes

    Xavier Bonnet;Xavier Bonnet;Guy Naulleau;Richard Shine

  • Life-History Evolution in Reptiles

    Richard Shine

  • Life-history evolution in range-shifting populations.

    Benjamin L. Phillips;Gregory P. Brown;Richard Shine

  • The Evolution of Large Body Size in Females: A Critique of Darwin's "Fecundity Advantage" Model

    Richard Shine

  • Sexual size dimorphism and male combat in snakes

    Richard Shine

  • Capital versus income breeding : an ectothermic perspective

    Xavier Bonnet;Don Bradshaw;Richard Shine

  • Intersexual Dietary Divergence and the Evolution of Sexual Dimorphism in Snakes

    Richard Shine

  • Biology of Australasian frogs and reptiles

    Richard G. Zweifel;Gordon Grigg;Richard Shine;Harry Ehmann

Frequent Co-Authors

Gregory P. Brown
Gregory P. Brown Macquarie University
Jonathan K. Webb
Jonathan K. Webb University of Technology Sydney
Thomas Madsen
Thomas Madsen Deakin University
Mats Olsson
Mats Olsson University of Gothenburg
Xavier Bonnet
Xavier Bonnet Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS
Robert T. Mason
Robert T. Mason Oregon State University
Daniel A. Warner
Daniel A. Warner Auburn University
François Brischoux
François Brischoux University of La Rochelle
Tracy Langkilde
Tracy Langkilde Pennsylvania State University
Ben L. Phillips
Ben L. Phillips University of Melbourne

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