CBER Seminar - Peggy Bevan, UCL

Abstract: Global biodiversity is declining beyond acceptable limits due to human actions, with many biological systems being pushed to ecological tipping points. To inform conservation policy and bend the curve on biodiversity loss, it is important to be able to quantify the relationships between wildlife population and anthropogenic threat, so critical disturbance thresholds can be found. But when monitoring global trends, what is the correct scale to monitor populations at, and what is an appropriate response metric?
My research explores how wildlife responds to human pressure at a variety of ecological and spatial scales, drawing on different data types such as a global biodiversity database (PREDICTS) and more fine scale camera trap and acoustic data from Bardia National Park, Nepal. My work aims to look at the ecological theory behind global biodiversity monitoring and consider how global measures of biodiversity trends can be as accurate as possible.
In this talk I will introduce a new spatial unit for biodiversity monitoring: the regional biome. I’ll use the regional biome spatial framework to discuss how biogeography can be used to inform biodiversity trends and optimise resource allocation for field projects.