Biography:Barnabas Daru

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Barnabas Daru
Daru in 2022
CitizenshipNigerian-American
Alma materUniversity of Jos
University of Johannesburg
Harvard University
AwardsMacArthur & Wilson Awardee, IBS (2026)
Sloan Research Fellow (2025)
Fellow of Linnean Society of London (2025)
Scientific career
FieldsEcology, Biogeography, Conservation
InstitutionsStanford University
Harvard University
WebsiteStanford profile
Daru Lab

Barnabas H. Daru is a Nigerian-American plant ecologist and biogeographer. He is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Stanford University, where he studies global patterns of plant diversity and the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape them.[1][2] Daru's work has been featured in scientific and popular outlets including the Harvard Gazette, Phys.org, and Earth.com, and his research has been published in journals such as Nature Communications, PNAS, and New Phytologist.[3][4]

Early life and education

Daru was born in Jos, Nigeria. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology from the University of Jos in 2007 and completed a Ph.D. in Botany at the University of Johannesburg in 2015. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University from 2016 to 2018.[5]

Academic career

Daru served as a faculty member at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi from 2018 to 2022 before joining the biology faculty at Stanford University. His research focuses on biodiversity informatics, phylogenetics, and conservation science, with particular emphasis on plant distributions and ecological interactions under environmental change.

Research

Daru has contributed to identifying spatial patterns of plant endemism, documenting herbarium sampling biases, and developing analytical tools to manage biodiversity data. His research integrates physical and digitized herbarium records, large-scale biodiversity databases, and computational modeling.[6]

Biodiversity informatics

Daru developed the R package phyloregion, an open-source software tool for biogeographic regionalization and macroecological analysis.[7][8] The package is designed to handle large datasets and facilitate ecosystem classification using measures of phylogenetic and compositional diversity. He applied this tool to analyze global patterns of seagrass diversity, finding that temperate regions host more evolutionarily distinct species compared to tropical areas.[9] His research also assessed the potential impact of climate change on seagrass distribution and diversity.[10][11][12]

Plant interactions from herbarium specimens

Daru has explored the use of historical herbarium specimens to study plant ecological interactions with other living things, such as herbivores, pollinators, microorganisms, or plant competitors.[13] His lab has used DNA sequencing methods to recover microbial communities from dried plant samples, offering insights into long-term changes in plant-microbe interactions.[14][15] This research has implications for understanding how microbial symbioses and pathogenic threats respond to anthropogenic environmental pressures.

Selected publications

  • Daru, B.H. et al. (2024). “Predicting undetected native vascular plant diversity at a global scale.” PNAS, 121: e23199891217. doi:10.1073/pnas.2319989121
  • Minev-Benzecry, S., Daru, B.H. (2024). “Climate change alters the future of natural floristic regions of deep evolutionary origins.” Nature Communications, 15: 9474. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-53860-8
  • Daru, B.H., Rock, B.M. (2023). “Reorganization of seagrass communities in a changing climate.” Nature Plants, 9: 1034–1043. doi:10.1038/s41477-023-01445-6
  • Daru, B.H. et al. (2021). “Widespread homogenization of plant communities in the Anthropocene.” Nature Communications, 12: 6983. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-27186-8
  • Daru, B.H. et al. (2020). “Endemism patterns are scale dependent.” Nature Communications, 11: 2115. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15921-6

Awards and honors

Professional service

References

  1. ↑ Elijah, Samson (2025-08-11). "Prof Daru Recognized For Global Impact In Biodiversity Science" (in en-US). https://leadership.ng/prof-daru-recognized-for-global-impact-in-biodiversity-science/. 
  2. ↑ "Barnabas Daru". https://biology.stanford.edu/people/barnabas-daru. 
  3. ↑ "Harvard study illuminates botanical bias". 22 December 2017. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/12/harvard-study-illuminates-botanical-bias/. 
  4. ↑ "Comparison of specimens and field observations reveals biases in biodiversity data". https://phys.org/news/2023-05-comparison-specimens-field-reveals-biases.html. 
  5. ↑ "Harvard study illuminates botanical bias". 22 December 2017. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/12/harvard-study-illuminates-botanical-bias/. 
  6. ↑ "Plant samples preserved in museums may hold key to advancing biodiversity" (in en). https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/08/plant-samples-herbaria-research-technology. 
  7. ↑ Akinsanmi, 'Sola (2022-07-25). "NSF awards $585,000 to Daru-led biodiversity modeling project" (in en-US). https://guardian.ng/news/nsf-awards-585000-to-daru-led-biodiversity-modeling-project/. 
  8. ↑ "Methods Blog, British Ecological Society". 3 November 2020. https://methodsblog.com/2020/11/03/november-issue-out-now/. 
  9. ↑ "Seagrass biodiversity analysis cites key findings". https://phys.org/news/2016-09-seagrass-biodiversity-analysis-cites-key.html. 
  10. ↑ Okogba, Emmanuel (2024-12-02). "Africa-born biogeographer leads landmark global plant diversity study amid climate threat" (in en-GB). https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/12/africa-born-biogeographer-leads-landmark-global-plant-diversity-study-amid-climate-threat/. 
  11. ↑ "Future model predicts seagrass loss, species decline". 21 June 2023. https://www.techexplorist.com/future-model-predicts-seagrass-loss-species-decline/62620/. 
  12. ↑ Amin (2025-07-25). "Stanford Biologist Daru earns global recognition in biodiversity research" (in en-US). https://www.peoplesdailyng.com/stanford-biologist-daru-earns-global-recognition-in-biodiversity-research/. 
  13. ↑ "Plant samples preserved in museums may hold key to advancing biodiversity" (in en). https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/08/plant-samples-herbaria-research-technology. 
  14. ↑ "Digital Botany to Protect Plants". 18 February 2025. https://botany.one/2025/02/digital-botany-to-protect-plants/. 
  15. ↑ Daru, B. H.; Bowman, E. A.; Pfister, D. H.; Arnold, A. E. (2018). "Plant–fungal interactions over time and space". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 374 (1763). doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0395. PMID 30455213. 
  16. ↑ Miyajima, Reymond (2026-01-06). "2026 MacArthur & Wilson Awardee" (in en-US). https://www.biogeography.org/news/news/2026-macarthur-wilson-awardee/. 
  17. ↑ "Four Stanford faculty named Sloan Research Fellows". https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/02/four-stanford-faculty-named-sloan-research-fellows. 
  18. ↑ "Linnean Society elects Barnabas Daru as Fellow" (in en-US). https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2025/03/18/linnean-society-elects-barnabas-daru-as-fellow/. 
  19. ↑ "35th New Phytologist Symposium". https://www.newphytologist.org/symposia/35. 
  20. ↑ "eLife Latest: Welcoming our newest editors". 2020-12-09. https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/be36edcd/elife-latest-welcoming-our-newest-editors. 
  21. ↑ "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 374, No 1763" (in en). https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/2019/374/1763. 



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