Understanding and managing connectivity across habitat types: the case of avian pollinators with altitudinal movement in the tropical Andes mountains

您是否对空间生态学和开发方法感兴趣，这些方法可以为下一代海洋，陆地和淡水系统的保护方法提供信息？你想和一个充满活力的团队一起工作吗？连通性已成为生态和保护的一个关键概念。现在有广泛的认识，物种有更强大的空间种群动态时，有合适的栖息地之间的连接。明确侧重于加强陆地、海洋和淡水系统之间的连通性的管理迅速增加。目前的理解和管理的连接集中在同一类型的栖息地斑块之间的连接。通常情况下，人们感兴趣的是森林斑块在景观中的连接程度，或者珊瑚礁以及鱼类种群与洋流的连接程度。对于那些一生都生活在单一生境类型中的物种来说，这可能是对连通性的充分考虑。然而，许多物种有更复杂的生活史，对于这些物种，连通性要复杂得多，而且了解得很少。许多物种一年中的一部分时间在一个栖息地度过，另一部分时间在另一个栖息地度过。这种季节性迁移可以发生在很远的地方，也可以是更局部的性质，例如在海拔迁移中。许多其他物种在幼年时依赖于不同的栖息地，而成年时则需要。这方面的一个很好的例子是在海洋系统中，许多鱼类在成年时栖息在珊瑚礁上，但在幼年时依赖红树林或海草栖息地（Mumby等人，2006年）。对于这些物种，我们不仅需要了解繁殖栖息地斑块之间的连通性，还需要了解不同季节或不同生命阶段所使用的栖息地之间的连通性。这个博士项目将通过开发新的方法来评估这些更复杂的空间生活史物种的连通性来解决这一知识缺口。然后，这些方法将用于确定我们应该如何管理景观（或海景）的连通性，我们不仅需要考虑物种繁殖的栖息地区域之间的连通性，还需要考虑不同季节或不同生命阶段使用的栖息地之间的连通性。大量数据已经存在，因此完全基于桌面的项目是可能的。然而，根据学生的兴趣（以及COVID的情况），现场工作也有可能收集新的数据来参数化和验证模型。我们可以灵活地选择实地工作的系统;可能性包括安第斯山脉的鸟类或蝙蝠的海拔迁移（Hsiung et al. 2018）和印度太平洋的珊瑚鱼连接。将提供基于个人的建模（Bocedi等人，2014年）、统计和实地工作方面的培训。

Are you interested in spatial ecology and in developing methods that can inform the next generation of conservation approaches for marine, terrestrial and freshwater systems? Do you want to work with a dynamic team on a project that you can lead in your own direction? Connectivity has become a key concept in ecology and conservation. There is now broad recognition that species have more robust spatial population dynamics when there is connectivity between patches of suitable habitat. There has been a rapid increase in management that focuses explicitly on increasing connectivity across terrestrial, marine and freshwater systems. Current understanding and management of connectivity focuses on connections between patches of the same type of habitat. Typically, people are interested in how well-connected forest patches are across a landscape or how well reefs, and thus fish populations, are connected by ocean currents. For species that live their whole lives in a single habitat type this is likely to be a sufficient consideration of connectivity. However, many species have more complex life-histories and, for these species, connectivity is much more complex and is poorly understood. Many species spend part of the year in one habitat and another part of the year in another habitat. This seasonal migration can occur over huge distances or be more local in nature as, for example, in altitudinal migrations. Many other species are dependent on a different habitat as a juvenile to that which they require as an adult. An excellent example of this is in marine systems where many fish species that inhabit reefs as adults are dependent upon mangroves or seagrass habitat as juveniles (Mumby et al. 2006). For these species we need to understand not only connectivity between breeding habitat patches but also between habitat used in different seasons or in different life-stages.This PhD project will address this knowledge gap by developing novel methods for assessing connectivity in species with these more complex spatial life-histories. These methods will then be used to determine how we should manage landscapes (or seascapes) for connectivity where we need to account not only for connectivity between areas of habitat where a species breed, but also for connectivity between habitat used in different seasons or at different life-stages. Substantial data already exist so a fully desk-based project is possible. However, depending upon the student's interest (and the situation with COVID), there is also the potential for field work to gather novel data for parameterising and validating the models. We are flexible on which system the field work might be in; possibilities include altitudinal migration of birds or bats in the Andes (Hsiung et al. 2018) and reef fish connectivity in the Indo Pacific. Training will be provided in individual-based modelling (Bocedi et al. 2014), statistics and fieldwork.