About
I am a Chancellor’s Research Fellow within the School of Life Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, where I teach undergraduate subjects, lead the Adaptive Ecology Lab (supervising interns, Honours, Masters and PhD students and Research Assistants), and conduct and publish high-impact research in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. I have a broad range of interests spanning global change ecology, biological invasions, species interactions and much more! Throughout my short time as an academic, I’ve built an extensive network of local, national, and international collaborators where we’ve gone on to secure grant funding, conduct novel research, and publish our results with high coverage from traditional and social media.
I love formulating ideas and working collaboratively with colleagues and students to achieve our research goals. My favourite parts of my job are getting out into the field to collect data and sharing my findings with the scientific community (e.g., conferences and seminars) and the general public (e.g., through school outreach or organised public events).
My goal is to build a collaborative, positive lab that conducts meaningful research to unveil how our ecosystems will respond to global environmental change, both now and in the future using experimental, synthetic and observational approaches. If this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, please get in touch!
Recent Publications
Effective heating chamber design to simulate acute heatwaves and night-time warming for ecological communities under natural field conditions
Pieter A Arnold, Freya M Brown, Zachary A Brown, Sabina M Aitken, Lisa M Danzey, Thomas C Hanley, James L King, Xuemeng Mu, Emma E Sumner, Virginia G Williamson, Zoe A Xirocostas, Andy Leigh, Angela T Moles, Susanna E Venn & Adrienne B Nicotra
Methods in Ecology and Evolution (2025)
Towards a macroevolutionary understanding of leaf flammability in plant species of fire-prone forests
Brad R Murray, Lyndle K Hardstaff, Megan L Murray & Zoe A Xirocostas
American Journal of Botany (2025)
Counterintuitive range shifts may be explained by climate-induced changes in biotic interactions
Inna Osmolovsky, Zoe A Xirocostas, Giancarlo M Chiarenza & Angela T Moles
Global Change Biology (2025)
Towards an integrative mechanistic framework for biodiversity–consumer relationships
Fletcher W Halliday, Susan E Everingham, Maximilian Bröcher, Anne Ebeling, Anne Kempel, Fabiane M Mundim, Alexander T Strauss, Zoe A Xirocostas & Mayank Kohli
Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2025)
The promise of community-driven preprints in ecology and evolution
Daniel WA Noble, Zoe A Xirocostas, Nicholas C Wu, April Robin Martinig, Rafaela A Almeida, Kevin R Bairos-Novak, Heikel Balti, Michael G Bertram, Louis Bliard, Jack A Brand, Ilha Byrne, Ying-Chi Chan, Dena Jane Clink, Quentin Corbel, Ricardo A Correia, Jordann Crawford-Ash, Antica Culina, Elvira d’Bastiani, Gideon G Deme, Melina de Souza Leite, Félicie Dhellemmes, Shreya Dimri, Szymek M Drobniak, Alexander D Elsy, Susan E Everingham, Samuel JL Gascoigne, Matthew J Grainger, Gavin C Hossack, Knut Anders Hovstad, Edward R Ivimey-Cook, Matt Lloyd Jones, Ineta Kačergytė, Georg Küstner, Dalton C Leibold, Magdalena M Mair, Jake Martin, Ayumi Mizuno, Iain R Moodie, David Moreau, Rose E O’Dea, James A Orr, Matthieu Paquet, Rabindra Parajuli, Joel L Pick, Patrice Pottier, Marija Purgar, Pablo Recio, Dominique G Roche, Raphaël Royauté, Saeed Shafiei Sabet, Julio MG Segovia, Inês Silva, Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar, Bruno E Soares, Birgit Szabo, Elina Takola, Eli SJ Thoré, Bishnu Timilsina, Natalie E van Dis, Wilco CEP Verberk, Stefan JG Vriend, Kristoffer H Wild, Coralie Williams, Yefeng Yang, Shinichi Nakagawa & Malgorzata Lagisz
Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2025)
Dr Zoe Xirocostas 