2007-2011
PhD student funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and technology (FCT)
I am a PhD student under supervision of Dr. Miguel B. Araújo and Dr. Jorge Orestes Cerdeira. I am interested in computational and statistical methods applied to macroecology and conservation.
I started to focus my work on reserve selection with my MSc on Applied Mathematics to Biological Sciences. The selection of priority areas for conservation (PACs) covers a wide set of questions for the establishment of protected areas where species or ecosystems should be very well represented, in conditions capable to assist the resilience and persistence of biodiversity. These types of interpretations can be assessed using mathematical and statistical tools, which can be integrated on algorithms to reach, in conceivable time and resources, the best solutions (mathematical and practical ones). Additionally, many macroecologic conceptual questions can be put in practice within these models.
My present interest links the spatial and temporal dimensions to reach successful conservation planning through PACs. Spatial models have appeared in parallel with spatial landscape theory and metapopulations’ analysis. They are rooted on the premise that a good arrangement of protected sites will reduce edge-effects and promote a sustained dynamism among biological populations. In this context, connectivity (versus fragmentation) is the keyword, which appeal to dispersion and colonization of habitats. Also, temporal analysis is crucial when dealing with environmental changes. The design of good reserves today have to be followed by good choices in the future. These will be based on new arrangements of species, different geographic distributions and altered uses of soil resources. By that mean, probabilities of occurrence are expected to change, and connectivity is once again the foundation to maintain biodiversity on a vigorous ecosystem. Both these tasks can be reached through a double-sided perspective. The construction of optimal models allow the recognizance of the best solutions for the appraised models, but are handicapped by to many computational and time resources, making them difficult to manage. In the other way, there are heuristics that appeal for the flexibility and management of solutions, reaching them in least time-consumable costs. In this chapter I am challenged to devise feasible models to put in debate.
As the majority of these approaches are data hungry and good quality data sets for a wide variety of organisms are scarce, we have to deal with a great amount of uncertainty. Probabilities of extinction, occurrence, and persistence have been shown to be correlated and handling probability data in combinatorics is not obvious. I will associate this approach on reserve selection issues.
In parallel, I am using Gap Analysis to assist the selection of PACs in a global change context.
Selected publications
- Alagador, D. and Orestes Cerdeira, J. 2007. Designing spatially-coherent ecological reserve networks in the presence of highly irreplaceable sites. Biological Conservation 137: 254-262
