Alex Slavenko
Research Scientist
Bachelor of Science (Biology), Master of Science (Zoology), PhD (Zoology)
Alex is an ecologist and zoologist, interested in macroecology, biogeography, natural history, and how big data approaches can be used to make meaningful insights about biodiversity and natural processes. He completed his PhD in Tel Aviv University in Israel, where he studied the macroecology and biogeography of reptiles, with a focus on the lizard fauna of New Guinea. One of his proudest achievements is discovering and naming several species of New Guinean skinks.
Working in our research team, Alex uses ecological modelling and data science tools on a variety of different projects across areas of food security, sustainable agriculture, and pest management. When he’s not at work, he is tricky to find, and is probably out hiking with his camera, scuba diving, bird watching or herping – any activity that allows him to experience nature in all its glory! Otherwise, you can find him at home with a good book, probably fantasy.
Alex Slavenko, Perran Ross, Luis Mata, Ary Hoffmann, Paul Umina (2024) Modelling the spread of a novel endosymbiont infection in field populations of an aphid pest. Ecological Modelling 497: 110851.
Alex Slavenko, Marielle Babineau, Anthony van Rooyen, Benjamin Congdon, Paul Umina, Samantha Ward (2024) Modelling aphid movement in Australian canola fields. Annals of Applied Biology 185: 242-254.
Alex Slavenko, Stephen Richards, Stephen Donnellan, Allen Allison, Paul Oliver (2024) Gold in the mountains: Striking new species of Papuascincus (Sphenomorphini: Scincidae) from New Guinea. Vertebrate Zoology 74: 133-149.
Samantha Ward, Ary Hoffmann, Maarten Van Helden, Alex Slavenko, Paul Umina (2024) The effects of insecticide seed treatments on the parasitism and predation of Myzus persicae (Homoptera: Aphididae) in canola. Journal of Economic Entomology 177: 102-117.
Tal Raz, Allen Allison, Luciano Avila, Aaron Bauer, Monika Böhm, Gabriel Henrique de Oliveira Caetano, Guarino Colli, Tiffany Doan, Paul Doughty, Lee Grismer, Yuval Itescu, Fred Kraus, Marcio Martins, Mariana Morando, Gopal Murali, Zoltán Nagy, Cristiano de Nogueira, Maria Novosolov, Paul Oliver, Paulo Passos, Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, Roberto Sindaco, Alex Slavenko, Omar Torres-Carvajal, Peter Uetz, Philipp Wagner, Anna Zimin, Uri Roll, Shai Meiri (2024) Diversity gradients of terrestrial vertebrates – substantial variations about a common theme. Journal of Zoology 322: 126-140.
Marco Camaiti, Alistair Evans, Christy Hipsley, Mark Hutchinson, Shai Meiri, Rodolfo Anderson, Alex Slavenko, David Chapple (2023) Macroecological and biogeographical patterns of limb reduction in the world’s skinks. Journal of Biogeography 50: 428-440.
Paul Oliver, Andrew Hugall, Audrey Prasteya, Alex Slavenko, Sabin Zahirovic (2023) Oligo-Miocene radiation within South-west Pacific arc terranes underpinned repeated upstream continental dispersals in pigeons (Columbiformes). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 138: 437-452.
Alex Slavenko, Allen Allison, Christopher Austin, Aaron Bauer, Rafe Brown, Robert Fisher, Ivan Ineich, Bulisa Iova, Benjamin Karin, Fred Kraus, Sven Mecke, Shai Meiri, Clare Morrison, Paul Oliver, Mark O’Shea, Jonathan Richmond, Glenn Shea, Oliver Tallowin, David Chapple (2023) Skinks of Oceania, New Guinea, and Eastern Wallacea: An underexplored biodiversity hotspot. Pacific Conservation Biology 29: 526-543.
Marco Camaiti, Alistair Evans, Christy Hipsley, Mark Hutchinson, Shai Meiri, Rodolfo Anderson, Alex Slavenko, David Chapple (2022) A database of the morphology, ecology and literature of the world’s limb‐reduced skinks. Journal of Biogeography 49: 1397-1406.
Emma Hughes, Alex Slavenko (2022) Smaller birds with warmer temperatures. Nature Ecology & Evolution 6: 1804-1805.
Alex Slavenko, Liat Dror, Marco Camaiti, Jules Farquhar, Glenn Shea, David Chapple, Shai Meiri (2022) Evolution of diel activity patterns in skinks (Squamata: Scincidae), the world’s second-largest family of terrestrial vertebrates. Evolution 76: 1195-1208.
Alex Slavenko, Karin Tamar, Oliver Tallowin, Fred Kraus, Allen Allison, Salvador Carranza, Shai Meiri (2022) Revision of the montane New Guinean skink genus Lobulia (Squamata: Scincidae), with the description of four new genera and nine new species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 195: 220-278.
David Chapple, multiple authors (including Alex Slavenko) (2021) Conservation status of the world’s skinks (Scincidae): Taxonomic and geographic patterns in extinction risk. Biological Conservation 257: 109101.
Yuval Itescu, Johannes Foufopoulos, Rachel Schwarz, Petros Lymberakis, Alex Slavenko, Ioanna-Aikaterini Gavriilidi, Shai Meiri, Panayiotis Pafilis (2021) The island of extremes: Giants and dwarfs on a small remote island. Russian Journal of Herpetology 28: 225-230.
Yosef Kiat, Alex Slavenko, Nir Sapir (2021) Body mass and geographic distribution determined the evolution of the wing flight-feather molt strategy in the Neornithes lineage. Scientific Reports 11: 21573.
Alex Slavenko, Allen Allison, Shai Meiri (2021) Elevation is a stronger predictor of morphological trait divergence than competition in a radiation of tropical lizards. Journal of Animal Ecology 90: 917-930.
Alex Slavenko, Erez Maza, Yuval Itescu (2021) Results of the first herpetological survey of Israel’s mediterranean coastal islets. Russian Journal of Herpetology 28: 4.
Simon Jamison, Erez Maza, Guy Sinaiko, Karin Tamar, Alex Slavenko, Shai Meiri (2020) To be or not to be tchernovi: A taxonomic revision of the snake genus Micrelaps (Squamata: Serpentes), in Israel. Zootaxa 4881: 290-306.
Shai Meiri, Luciano Avila, Aaron Bauer, David Chapple, Indraneil Das, Tiffany Doan, Paul Doughty, Ryan Ellis, Lee Grismer, Fred Kraus, Mariana Morando, Paul Oliver, Daniel Pincheira‐Donoso, Marco Antonio Ribeiro‐Junior, Glenn Shea, Omar Torres‐Carvajal, Alex Slavenko, Uri Roll (2020) The global diversity and distribution of lizard clutch sizes. Global Ecology and Biogeography 29: 1515-1530.
Alex Slavenko, Karin Tamar, Oliver Tallowin, Allen Allison, Fred Kraus, Salvador Carranza, Shai Meiri (2020) Cryptic diversity and non-adaptive radiation of montane New Guinea skinks (Papuascincus; Scincidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 146: 106749.
Peter Uetz, Alex Slavenko, Shai Meiri, Matthew Heinicke (2020) Gecko diversity: A history of global discovery. Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution 66: 117-125.
Alex Slavenko, Anat Feldman, Allen Allison, Aaron Bauer, Monika Böhm, Laurent Chirio, Guarino Colli, Indraneil Das, Tiffany Doan, Matthew Lebreton, Marcio Martins, Danny Meirte, Zoltán Nagy, Cristiano De Nogueira, Olivier Pauwels, Daniel Pincheira‐Donoso, Uri Roll, Philipp Wagner, Yuezhao Wang, Shai Meiri (2019) Global patterns of body size evolution in squamate reptiles are not driven by climate. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28: 471-483.
Yuval Itescu, Rachel Schwarz, Colin Donihue, Alex Slavenko, Stephanos Roussos, Kostas Sagonas, Efstratios Valakos, Johannes Foufopoulos, Panayiotis Pafilis, Shai Meiri (2018) Inconsistent patterns of body size evolution in co‐occurring island reptiles. Global Ecology and Biogeography 27: 538-550.
Yuval Itescu, Simon Jamison, Alex Slavenko, Karin Tamar, Stephanos Roussos, Johannes Foufopoulos, Shai Meiri, Panayiotis Pafilis (2017) The herpetofauna of Folegandros Island (Cyclades, Greece). Herpetozoa 29: 183-190.
Karin Tamar Simon Jamison, Alex Slavenko, Shai Meiri (2017) Tarentola annularis (Squamata: Phyllodactylidae): A new invasive species in Israel. Salamandra 53: 299-303.
Yuval Itescu, Alex Slavenko, Rachel Schwarz, Shai Meiri, Panayiotis Pafilis (2016) A new island record for Chalcides ocellatus (Forskal, 1775) from Kythnos, Greece. Herpetozoa 29: 98-100.
Alex Slavenko, Yuval Itescu, Flora Ihlow, Shai Meiri (2016) Home is where the shell is: Predicting turtle home range sizes. Journal of Animal Ecology 85: 106-114.
Alex Slavenko, Oliver Tallowin, Yuval Itescu, Pasquale Raia, Shai Meiri (2016) Late Quaternary reptile extinctions: Size matters, insularity dominates. Global Ecology and Biogeography 25: 1308-1320.
Alex Slavenko, Shai Meiri (2015) Mean body sizes of amphibian species are poorly predicted by climate. Journal of Biogeography 42: 1246-1254.
Alex Slavenko, Yuval Itescu, Johannes Foufopoulos, Panayiotis Pafilis, Shai Meiri (2015) Clutch size variability in an ostensibly fix-clutched lizard: Effects of insularity on a Mediterranean gecko. Evolutionary Biology 42: 129-136.
Uri Roll, Oliver Tallowin, Daniel Berkowic, Erez Maza, Yael Ostrometzky, Alex Slavenko, Boaz Shacham, Karin Tamar, Shai Meiri (2013) Rueppel’s snake-eyed skink, Ablepharus rueppellii (Gray, 1839)(Reptilia: Squamata: Scincidae): Distribution extension and geographic range in Israel. Check List 9: 458-464.