Dr Sean Maxwell
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Earth and Environmental Science
Green Fire Science Lab
Researcher biography
Sean was born and raised in south-west Victoria, splitting his time between big cities, rural farms and sclerophyll forests. This varied upbringing defines Sean’s diverse research agenda, which centres on finding cost-effective solutions to environmental sustainability problems.
Sean moved to Brisbane in 2009, where at The University of Queensland he completed his B.S. in Ecology and PhD in Conservation Science. Sean’s PhD research was supervised by Professor James Watson and focused on how best to plan for emerging impacts of climate change on species of conservation concern. These impacts included extreme weather events and human responses to climate change.
After being awarded his PhD in 2018, Sean worked as a post-doctoral research fellow in James Watson’s research group, Green Fire Science. This work focused on quantifying the carbon benefits of retaining large tracts of intact forest across the global tropics. Looking forward, Sean continues to work on land use solutions to global climate change and biodiversity loss, and is increasingly interested in how local, coordinated management of agricultural landscapes can make meaningful contributions to international climate and biodiversity goals.
Journal Articles
Simmonds, Jeremy S., Suarez‐Castro, Andres Felipe, Reside, April E., Watson, James E.M., Allan, James R., Atkinson, Scott C., Borrelli, Pasquale, Dudley, Nigel, Edwards, Stephen, Fuller, Richard A., Game, Edward T., Linke, Simon, Maxwell, Sean L., Panagos, Panos, Puydarrieux, Philippe, Quétier, Fabien, Runting, Rebecca K., Santini, Talitha, Sonter, Laura J. and Maron, Martine (2023). Retaining natural vegetation to safeguard biodiversity and humanity. Conservation Biology, 37 (3) e14040, 1-16. doi: 10.1111/cobi.14040
Pusparini, Wulan, Cahyana, Andi, Grantham, Hedley S., Maxwell, Sean, Soto-Navarro, Carolina and Macdonald, David W. (2023). A bolder conservation future for Indonesia by prioritising biodiversity, carbon and unique ecosystems in Sulawesi. Scientific Reports, 13 (1) 842, 842. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-21536-2
Pérez‐Hämmerle, Katharina‐Victoria, Moon, Katie, Venegas‐Li, Rubén, Maxwell, Sean, Simmonds, Jeremy S., Venter, Oscar, Garnett, Stephen T., Possingham, Hugh P. and Watson, James EM (2022). Wilderness forms and their implications for global environmental policy and conservation. Conservation Biology, 36 (4) e13875, e13875. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13875
Grantham, H. S., Duncan, A., Evans, T. D., Jones, K. R., Beyer, H. L., Schuster, R., Walston, J., Ray, J. C., Robinson, J. G., Callow, M., Clements, T., Costa, H. M., DeGemmis, A., Elsen, P. R., Ervin, J., Franco, P., Goldman, E., Goetz, S., Hansen, A., Hofsvang, E., Jantz, P., Jupiter, S., Kang, A., Langhammer, P., Laurance, W. F., Lieberman, S., Linkie, M., Malhi, Y., Maxwell, S. ... Watson, J. E.M. (2021). Author Correction: Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity (Nature Communications, (2020), 11, 1, (5978), 10.1038/s41467-020-19493-3). Nature Communications, 12 (1) 592, 592. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-20999-7
de Andrade Junior, Milton A. U., Watson, James E. M., Williams, Brooke A., Allan, James R., O'Bryan, Christopher J. and Maxwell, Sean L. (2021). How to halve the carbon and biodiversity impacts of biofuel-driven land-use change in Brazil. Biological Conservation, 260 109214, 109214. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109214
Watson, James E. M., Simmonds, Jeremy S., Narain, Divya, Ward, Michelle, Maron, Martine and Maxwell, Sean L. (2021). Talk is cheap: nations must act now to achieve long-term ambitions for biodiversity. One Earth, 4 (7), 897-900. doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.06.012
Xu, Liang, Saatchi, Sassan S., Yang, Yan, Yu, Yifan, Pongratz, Julia, Bloom, A. Anthony, Bowman, Kevin, Worden, John, Liu, Junjie, Yin, Yi, Domke, Grant, McRoberts, Ronald E., Woodall, Christopher, Nabuurs, Gert-Jan, de-Miguel, Sergio, Keller, Michael, Harris, Nancy, Maxwell, Sean and Schimel, David (2021). Changes in global terrestrial live biomass over the 21st century. Science Advances, 7 (27) eabe9829, eabe9829. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe9829
Jonas, Harry D., Ahmadia, Gabby N., Bingham, Heather C., Briggs, Johnny, Butchart, Stuart H.M., Cariño, Joji, Chassot, Olivier, Chaudhary, Sunita, Darling, Emily, Degemmis, Alfred, Dudley, Nigel, Fa, Julia E., Fitzsimons, James, Garnett, Stephen, Geldmann, Jonas, Golden Kroner, Rachel, Gurney, Georgina G., Harrington, Alexandra R., Himes‐cornell, Amber, Hockings, Marc, Jonas, Holly C., Jupiter, Stacy, Kingston, Naomi, Lee, E., Lieberman, Susan, Mangubhai, Sangeeta, Marnewick, Daniel, Matallana‐tobón, Clara L., Maxwell, Sean L. ... von Weizsäcker, Christine (2021). Equitable and effective area‐based conservation: Towards the conserved areas paradigm. Parks, 27 (1), 71-84. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.PARKS-27-1HJ.en
Maxwell, Sean L., Cazalis, Victor, Dudley, Nigel, Hoffmann, Michael, Rodrigues, Ana S. L., Stolton, Sue, Visconti, Piero, Woodley, Stephen, Kingston, Naomi, Lewis, Edward, Maron, Martine, Strassburg, Bernardo B. N., Wenger, Amelia, Jonas, Harry D., Venter, Oscar and Watson, James E. M. (2020). Author Correction: Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century (Nature, (2020), 586, 7828, (217-227), 10.1038/s41586-020-2773-z). Nature, 588 (7837), E14-E14. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2952-y
Grantham, H. S., Duncan, A., Evans, T. D., Jones, K. R., Beyer, H. L., Schuster, R., Walston, J., Ray, J. C., Robinson, J. G., Callow, M., Clements, T., Costa, H. M., DeGemmis, A., Elsen, P. R., Ervin, J., Franco, P., Goldman, E., Goetz, S., Hansen, A., Hofsvang, E., Jantz, P., Jupiter, S., Kang, A., Langhammer, P., Laurance, W. F., Lieberman, S., Linkie, M., Malhi, Y., Maxwell, S. ... Watson, J. E.M. (2020). Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity. Nature Communications, 11 (1) 5978, 1-10. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19493-3
de Andrade Junior, Milton A. U., Watson, James E. M. and Maxwell, Sean L. (2020). Unveiling the environmental benefits of reducing sugar. Lancet Planetary Health, 4 (11), E497-E498. doi: 10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30226-6
Maxwell, Sean L., Cazalis, Victor, Dudley, Nigel, Hoffmann, Michael, Rodrigues, Ana S. L., Stolton, Sue, Visconti, Piero, Woodley, Stephen, Kingston, Naomi, Lewis, Edward, Maron, Martine, Strassburg, Bernardo B. N., Wenger, Amelia, Jonas, Harry D., Venter, Oscar and Watson, James E. M. (2020). Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century. Nature, 586 (7828), 217-227. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2773-z
Zeng, Yiwen, Maxwell, Sean, Runting, Rebecca K., Venter, Oscar, Watson, James E. M. and Carrasco, L. Roman (2020). Environmental destruction not avoided with the Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability, 3 (10), 795-798. doi: 10.1038/s41893-020-0555-0
de Andrade Junior, Milton A. U., Maxwell, Sean L. and Watson, James E. M. (2020). Renewed threats to Brazilian biodiversity from sugarcane. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 18 (4), 178-179. doi: 10.1002/fee.2196
Maxwell, Sean L., Evans, Tom, Watson, James E. M., Morel, Alexandra, Grantham, Hedley, Duncan, Adam, Harris, Nancy, Potapov, Peter, Runting, Rebecca K., Venter, Oscar, Wang, Stephanie and Malhi, Yadvinder (2019). Degradation and forgone removals increase the carbon impact of intact forest loss by 626%. Science Advances, 5 (10) eaax2546, eaax2546. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aax2546
Maxwell, Sean L., Reside, April, Trezise, James, McAlpine, Clive A. and Watson, James EM. (2019). Retention and restoration priorities for climate adaptation in a multi-use landscape. Global Ecology and Conservation, 18 e00649, e00649. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00649
Maxwell, Sean L., Butt, Nathalie, Maron, Martine, McAlpine, Clive A., Chapman, Sarah, Ullmann, Ailish, Segan, Dan B. and Watson, James E. M. (2018). Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events. Diversity and Distributions, 25 (4) ddi.12878, 613-625. doi: 10.1111/ddi.12878
Bennett, Joseph R., Maxwell, Sean L., Martin, Amanda E., Chadès, Iadine, Fahrig, Lenore and Gilbert, Benjamin (2018). When to monitor and when to act: value of information theory for multiple management units and limited budgets. Journal of Applied Ecology, 55 (5), 2102-2113. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.13132
Jones, Kendall R., Venter, Oscar, Fuller, Richard A., Allan, James R., Maxwell, Sean L., Negret, Pablo Jose and Watson, James E. M. (2018). Protected land: threat of invasive species: response. Science, 361 (6402), 562-563. doi: 10.1126/science.aau7317
Jones, Kendall R., Venter, Oscar, Fuller, Richard A., Allan, James R., Maxwell, Sean L., Negret, Pablo Jose and Watson, James E. M. (2018). One-third of global protected land is under intense human pressure. Science, 360 (6390), 788-791. doi: 10.1126/science.aap9565
Watson, James E M, Evans, Tom, Venter, Oscar, Williams, Brooke, Tulloch, Ayesha, Stewart, Claire, Thompson, Ian, Ray, Justina C, Murray, Kris, Salazar, Alvaro, McAlpine, Clive, Potapov, Peter, Walston, Joe, Robinson, John G, Painter, Michael, Wilkie, David, Filardi, Christopher, Laurance, William F, Houghton, Richard A, Maxwell, Sean, Grantham, Hedley, Samper, Cristián, Wang, Stephanie, Laestadius, Lars, Runting, Rebecca K, Silva-Chávez, Gustavo A, Ervin, Jamison and Lindenmayer, David (2018). The exceptional value of intact forest ecosystems. Nature ecology & evolution, 2 (4), 1-12. doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0490-x
Bowman, David M. J. S., Garnett, Stephen T., Barlow, Snow, Bekessy, Sarah A., Bellairs, Sean M., Bishop, Melanie J., Bradstock, Ross A., Jones, Darryl N., Maxwell, Sean L., Pittock, Jamie, Toral-Granda, Maria V., Watson, James E. M., Wilson, Tom, Zander, Kerstin K. and Hughes, Lesley (2017). Renewal ecology: conservation for the Anthropocene. Restoration Ecology, 25 (5), 674-680. doi: 10.1111/rec.12560
Allan, James R., Venter, Oscar, Maxwell, Sean, Bertzky, Bastian, Jones, Kendall, Shi, Yichuan and Watson, James E. M. (2017). Recent increases in human pressure and forest loss threaten many Natural World Heritage Sites. Biological Conservation, 206, 47-55. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.12.011
Maxwell, Sean, Fuller, Richard A., Brooks, Thomas M. and Watson, James E. M. (2016). The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers. Nature, 536 (7615), 143-145. doi: 10.1038/536143a
Butt, N., Possingham, H. P., De Los Rios, C., Maggini, R., Fuller, R. A., Maxwell, S. L. and Watson, J. E. M. (2016). Challenges in assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change to inform conservation actions. Biological Conservation, 199, 10-15. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.04.020
Maxwell, Sean L., Venter, Oscar, Jones, Kendall R. and Watson, James E. M. (2015). Integrating human responses to climate change into conservation vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1355 (1), 98-116. doi: 10.1111/nyas.12952
Maxwell, S.L, Milner-Gulland, E.J, Jones, J.P.G, Knight, A.T, Bunnefeld, N, Nuno, A, Bal, P, Earle, S, Watson J.E.M. and Rhodes J.R (2015). Being smart about SMART environmental targets. Science, 347 (6226), 1075-1076. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa1451
Maxwell, Sean L., Rhodes, Jonathan R., Runge, Michael C., Possingham, Hugh P., Ng, Chooi Fei and McDonald-Madden, Eve (2015). How much is new information worth? Evaluating the financial benefit of resolving management uncertainty. Journal of Applied Ecology, 52 (1), 12-20. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12373
Maron, Martine, Mcalpine, Clive A., Watson, James E. M., Maxwell, Sean and Barnard, Phoebe (2015). Climate-induced resource bottlenecks exacerbate species vulnerability: A review. Diversity and Distributions, 21 (7), 731-743. doi: 10.1111/ddi.12339
Maxwell, Sean, Rhodes, J. R., Bal, P., Bunnefeld, N., Earle, S., Knight, A.T., Milner-Gulland, E.J., Jones, J. P. G., Nuno, A. and Watson, J. E. M. (2014). Sustainability: root targets in consensus. Nature, 514 (7253), 434-434. doi: 10.1038/514434d
Jupiter, Stacy D., Jenkins, Aaron P., Lee Long, Warren J., Maxwell, Sean L., Carruthers, Tim J. B., Hodge, Kate B., Govan, Hugh, Tamelander, Jerker and Watson, James E. M. (2014). Principles for integrated island management in the tropical Pacific. Pacific Conservation Biology, 20 (2), 193-205. doi: 10.1071/PC140193
Ang, Gurion C. K., Silva, Rehan, Maxwell, Sean L., Zalucki, Myron P. and Furlong, Michael J. (2014). Contrary effects of leaf position and identity on oviposition and larval feeding patterns of the diamondback moth. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 151 (1), 86-96. doi: 10.1111/eea.12172
Thesis
Maxwell, Sean Leo (2018). Assessment and planning for emerging impacts of climate change on species. PhD Thesis, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/uql.2018.789
Research Report
Jupiter, Stacey, Jenkins, Aaron, Long, Warren Lee, Maxwell, Sean, Watson, James, Hodge, Kate, Govan, Hugh and Carruthers, Tim (2013). Pacific integrated island management: principles, case studies and lessons learned. Apia, Samoa; Nairobi, Kenya: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP); United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Newspaper Articles
Watson, J.E.M., Allan, James and Maxwell, S. (2017, 01 31). More than half the world’s most important natural sites are under threat: it’s time to protect them The Conversation