Mark Westoby (born 21 September 1947) is an Australian evolutionary ecologist, emeritus professor at Macquarie University, and a specialist in trait ecology.
This research investigated important trade-offs that govern diversification of strategies of plants in order to understand the similarities and differences across species.
Westoby was a leader in the communal effort to compile trait data worldwide, and is currently working on a similar approach to ecological strategies across bacteria and archaea.
Earlier in his career Westoby created a state-and-transition approach to managing ecosystem change that has been widely adopted (for example, being mandatory throughout rangelands in the U.S.).
He also initiated the linear programming approach to diet optimization under multiple constraints, and the kin-conflict interpretation of the triploid endosperm of angiosperms.
[10] His experimental work on plant mortality in relation to growth in crowded stands (the "self-thinning rule"),[11] subsequently has found use in vegetation models.
From the 1990s onward, he carried ecological strategy research into a new phase by shifting focus away from abstract concepts such as "stress" and instead onto measurable traits such as leaf thickness[19] or seed size.
Between 2001 and 2012 Westoby initiated and organised annual one-day courses for Australian postgraduate students which focused on current research in ecology and evolution.