OVERVIEW: The climate is changing at unprecedented rates. Floods, fires, droughts are become the norm, rather than the exception, on the news. Yet, ecologists lack a basic understanding regarding how natural populations of animals and plants respond to climatic oscillations. In the last decades, we have collected time series information of demographic trends of hundreds of animals and plants (www.compadre-db.org) around the globe. This large volume of data provides us now with the ability to understand how the ecosystem services that natural populations provide to humans (e.g. flood protection, oxygen, carbon fixation, nitrogen cycling, infrastructure, climate buffering, etc.) are being compromised by climate change… but also where, how and when. This project will provide the student(s) with a unique opportunity to become engaged in macro-ecology to examine how natural populations respond to climate change worldwide.
TIMELINE: The project is divided into four stages: [week 1] background reading and learning example codes; [week 2-4] data entry and analyses; [week 5-6] linkage of climatic and demographic data for report generation.
PRE-REQUISITES: A basic understanding of ecology is encouraged. All else can be taught. Experience in programming will be valuable, but is not required (can be taught).
MAX NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 2
If interested please contact rob.salguero@zoo.ox.ac.uk
