PhD research with DEEP

Disentangling the drivers of beta-diversity: a mensurative experiment on Tasmanian freshwater communities In the face of the sixth mass extinction, the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in human-impacted landscapes is a global priority. The contemporary loss of nature concerns both conservationists and stakeholders benefiting from ecosystem goods and services such as raw materials, food production, water supply and regulation, and many others (valued globally at ~$40 trillion). As biodiversity declines escalate, ecological and macroeconomic losses offer one strong incentive to conserve nature.

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Habitat conversion and invasive species have caused major biodiversity diversity loss in Australia. For instance, since the European settlement, only 10% of the vegetation in Tasmanian Midlands remain due to intensive agricultural conversion. To maintain and restore biodiversity in human-impacted Tasmania, we need to understand the factors and processes that underlie spatial patterns of biodiversity. In my PhD, I will study and illustrate how environmental conditions (i.e., the degree of disturbance, productivity levels, and habitat connectivity) influence the spatial turnover in species composition (i.e.,β-diversity) via a broad-scale observational survey on Tasmania’s freshwater meta-communities.

Community assembly theory and restoration ecology are complementary fields since the first provides a conceptual foundation about the rules that govern species composition of local communities, and the second focuses on the reconstruction of biologically functioning communities. Therefore, I hope research would not only improve our knowledge of the processes controlling β-diversity but would also offer general guidance for conserving and restoring biodiversity in human-modified landscapes.