About
36
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Introduction
My background is in spatial modelling, community ecology and environmental assessment. My research has focused on modelling the species' expected range shifts due to climate change, and how those predictions could be improved by accounting for species tolerance and capacity for adaptation.
I now study how to increase the scale and quality of ecological information we can collect to help us address global biodiversity loss. This included monitoring using high-throughput DNA sequencing at Environment Canada, and now a greater focus on the linkages of landscape ecology and remote sensing at Lancaster University.
Additional affiliations
March 2014 - present
September 2013 - March 2014
Publications
Publications (36)
Despite decades of global commitments, and increasingly urgent warning of environmental instability, the demand for land to support economic production is still increasing. Isolated and disorganized actions will not be enough to avert ecosystem failures. As many developers are already required to compensate for their ecological impacts through rest...
Big Data science has significantly furthered our understanding of complex systems by harnessing large volumes of data, generated at high velocity and in great variety. However, there is a risk that Big Data collection is prioritised to the detriment of 'Small Data' (data with few observations). This poses a particular risk to ecology where Small Da...
Metabarcoding is capable of delivering consistent and accurate fine-resolution biodiversity data, and offers great promise for improving aspects of environmental assessment and research. Even so, many ecologists are keen to make further inferences about species’ abundances and the number of sequence reads has proven to be a poor proxy for abundance...
The complexity and natural variability of ecosystems present a challenge for reliable detection of change due to anthropogenic influences. This issue is exacerbated by necessary trade-offs that reduce the quality and resolution of survey data for assessments at large scales. The Peace–Athabasca Delta (PAD) is a large inland wetland complex in north...
Reptiles are rarely included in urban freshwater biodiversity monitoring and conservation. We explored the global persistence of freshwater dependent turtles, lizards, crocodilians and snakes in cities with a population greater than 100,000 using species occurrence data in online databases from a five-year period (2013-2018). We then used ecologica...
Classical biomonitoring techniques have focused primarily on measures linked to various biodiversity metrics and indicator species. Next-generation biomonitoring (NGB) describes a suite of tools and approaches that allow the examination of a broader spectrum of organizational levels—from genes to entire ecosystems. Here, we frame 10 key questions t...
Threatened freshwater ecosystems urgently require improved tools for effective management. Food web analysis is currently under-utilized, yet can be used to generate metrics to support biomonitoring assessments by measuring the stability and robustness of ecosystems. Using a previously developed analysis pipeline, we combined taxonomic outputs from...
An ongoing challenge for ecological studies has been the collection of data with high precision and accuracy at a suitable scale to detect and manage critical global change processes. A major hurdle has been the time-consuming and challenging process of sorting and identification of organisms, but the rapid development of DNA metabarcoding as a bio...
The complexity and natural variability of ecosystems present a challenge for reliable detection of change due to anthropogenic influences. This issue is exacerbated by necessary trade-offs that reduce the quality and resolution of survey data for assessments at large-scales. The Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) is a large inland wetland complex in north...
Aim
Studies of climate change impacts on animal distributions typically consider only the direct impacts of a changing climate, under the assumption that future areas of suitable climate will otherwise remain ecologically suitable. Here we assess both the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on rain forest ant communities, where substantia...
In September 2017, a workshop was held at Wageningen University and Research to determine the current state of knowledge of multiple stressor effects on aquatic ecosystems and to assess how to improve prediction of these effects. We developed a theoretical framework that integrates species-level responses to stressors to predict how these effects p...
An ongoing challenge for ecological studies has been the collection of data with high precision and accuracy at a sufficient scale to detect effects relevant to management of critical global change processes. A major hurdle for many workflows has been the time-consuming and challenging process of sorting and identification of organisms, but the rap...
p>A workshop was held in Wageningen, The Netherlands, in September 2017 to collate data and literature on three aquatic ecosystem types (agricultural drainage ditches, urban floodplains, and urban estuaries), and develop a general framework for the assessment of multiple stressors on the structure and functioning of these systems. An assessment fra...
Given the magnitude and rate of ongoing climate change, the physiological capacity of species to tolerate extreme conditions will play a key role in influencing outcomes for biodiversity. It is also possible that species will respond to changes in climate by shifting their physiological tolerances, through genetic adaptation. How these processes in...
Aim
Observed, realized niche space often underestimates species’ physiological tolerances due to interactions with other species, dispersal constraints, and because some combinations of influential environmental factors do not currently exist in the real world. Conversely, correlative ecological niche models rely on the assumption that the range of...
Ecological networks are powerful tools for visualizing biodiversity data and assessing ecosystem health and function. Constructing these networks requires considerable empirical efforts, and this remains highly challenging due to sampling limitations and the laborious and notoriously limited, error-prone process of traditional taxonomic identificat...
Despite recognition that realized distributions inherently underestimate species' physiological tolerances, we are yet to identify the extent of these differences within diverse taxonomic groups. The degree to which species could tolerate environmental conditions outside their observed distributions may have a significant impact on the perceived ex...
Understandably, given the fast pace of biodiversity loss, there is much interest in using Earth observation technology to track biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services. However, because most biodiversity is invisible to Earth observation, indicators based on Earth observation could be misleading and reduce the effectiveness of natu...
To assess how climate change may decouple the ecosystems used by a migratory fish, and how decoupling influences priorities for stream restoration. Australia. We modelled changes in habitat suitability under climate change in both riverine and marine habitats for a threatened diadromous species, the Australian Grayling Prototroctes maraena, using n...
Based on the sensitivity of species to ongoing climate change, and numerous challenges they face tracking suitable conditions, there is growing interest in species' capacity to adapt to climatic stress. Here, we develop and apply a new generic modelling approach (AdaptR) that incorporates adaptive capacity through physiological limits, phenotypic p...
Freshwater ecosystems appear to be sensitive to even minor climatic shifts, and the dendritic nature of rivers as well as patchy distribution of habitats within the terrestrial landscape could limit the ability of species to track suitable climate conditions. Although the importance of dispersal is recognised in theory, there is great uncertainty w...
Figure S1. Global distribution of primary habitat predicted to occur at 30 arc sec resolution produced by downscaling the coarse grained (0.5°) Land‐use Harmonisation dataset. Colours are ramped light (low) to dark (high).
Figure S2. Global distribution of secondary habitat predicted to occur at 30 arc sec resolution produced by downscaling the co...
Land-use change is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity globally. The effects of land use on biodiversity manifest primarily at local scales which are not captured by the coarse spatial grain of current global land-use mapping. Assessments of land-use impacts on biodiversity across large spatial extents require data at a similar spatial grain...
1. Climate extremes and their physical impacts – including droughts, fires, floods, heat waves, storm surges and tropical cyclones – are important structuring forces in riverine ecosystems. Climate change is expected to increase the future occurrence of extremes, with potentially devastating effects on rivers and streams. We synthesise knowledge of...
Climate change represents a major challenge for conservation in the future, and undermines protection within reserve boundaries. Freshwater biodiversity is still under-represented within reserves worldwide, and connectivity among reserves will become increasingly crucial if species are to persist under climate change.We tested the likely benefits o...
AimInvertebrates are often overlooked in assessments of climate change impacts. Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) are a significant component of freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and are likely to be highly responsive to a changing climate. We investigate whether climate change could lead to significant alteration of continental patterns o...
Climate change is expected to have substantial impacts on the composition of freshwater communities, and many species are threatened by the loss of climatically suitable habitat. In this study we identify Australian Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) vulnerable to the effects of climate change on the basis of exposure, sensitivity and pressure t...
Freshwater ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Where long-term datasets are available, shifts in species phenology, species distributions and community structure consistent with a climate change signal have already been observed. Identifying trends across the wider landscape, to guide management in response to this th...
1. As the climate changes, species are expected to shift to higher latitudes and altitudes where suitable habitat is available if dispersal is not constrained by geographic barriers. We analyse patterns of turnover in freshwater macroinvertebrate assemblages to identify which communities are most likely to be at risk from climate change, and the lo...
Aim Freshwater ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate
change. Where long-term datasets are available, shifts in species phenology,
species distributions and community structure consistent with a climate change
signal have already been observed. Identifying trends across the wider
landscape, to guide management in response to thi...
There are two major competing explanations for the counter-intuitive presence of bright coloration in certain orb-web spiders. Bright coloration could lure insect prey to the web vicinity, increasing the spider's foraging success. Alternatively, the markings could function as disruptive camouflage, making it difficult for the insect prey to disting...
Projects
Projects (2)
FW BON is a global voluntary community of practice. It will promote the establishment of best practices for global biodiversity observations by:
1) improving the collection of harmonized data,
2) developing data standards and methodologies for data management and dissemination, (
3) facilitating data sharing without compromising national concerns,
4) integrating biodiversity information with physical and chemical data, and
5) producing products useful for sound management of rivers and their catchments, lakes, wetlands and subterranean aquatic ecosystems.
Biodiversity is paramount in water and soil for sustaining diverse ecosystem services and economic activities across Canada. New genomics tools like next generation sequencing will enable a more comprehensive perspective of water and soil as living systems. The EcoBiomics Project will serve as a turning point for incorporating these genomics tools into environmental monitoring, assessment, and remediation activities.
The invertebrate theme will focus on the sequencing of aquatic invertebrate biodiversity from bulk environmental samples to support cumulative effects assessment in four applications;
• The impact of forest management for Atlantic salmon habitat;
• The condition of Alberta oil sands and Wood-Buffalo National Park
• The effect of land-use change in South Nation, near Ottawa,
• Biomonitoring in Atlantic Canada using a reference condition model
The theme is led by Donald Baird (environment and Climate Change Canada), in collaboration with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN), Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada (AAFC), and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
