When is a species fully recovered, and how can information about species’ progress toward recovery be used to inform conservation planning? With the development of the IUCN Green Status of Species, a standardised assessment of recovery, these questions are at the forefront of a new exciting wave of conservation research. The Green Status of Species Task Force, coordinated from the Zoology Department in the University of Oxford, is currently conducting a range of research on species recovery, including: - What is the current recovery status of the world’s species, and how has conservation influenced the recovery status? - How can species functionality be measured and accounted for to facilitate an ambitious definition of recovery? - How does the spatial scale of recovery assessments affect outcomes? -Which conservation actions will produce the best recovery outcomes for the most species? These are big questions, and there is scope for a DPhil project in any of them, in addition to the work that is ongoing. In fact, a DPhil project would greatly accelerate progress toward answering these big questions. Potential research methodologies that could be employed include: - data handling - statistical modelling - GIS/spatial analysis - remote sensing and modelling - citizen science - theories of change - historical ecology - counterfactuals and scenarios.
Qualifications and Experience
PhD in Conservation Biology, 7 years teaching experience (undergraduate and postgraduate level), supervised postdocs (1), PhD students (2), undergrads (10)
