Do protected areas work? Tracking resilience and functional diversity change to investigate the impacts of anthropogenic stress

生态系统为人类提供了过多的好处，因此，维护和促进生物多样性仍然是一项关键的社会挑战。面对全球人为变化，保护区被用作保护生物多样性的关键工具。然而，保护区在维持生物多样性的复原力和功能方面的效力仍不清楚。该项目将结合大型数据集和先进的分析工具，量化保护区在维持生态系统的复原力和功能多样性方面的效力。恢复力--抵抗干扰并从干扰中恢复的能力--可以告诉我们自然系统抵御扰动影响的能力。功能多样性--物种在群落中维持的角色和功能的范围--可以告诉我们，在物种灭绝后，哪些功能将继续存在。了解保护区是否促进了这两个指标，对于衡量保护区是否适合我们不断变化的世界的目的至关重要。该项目将分析国际水鸟普查和圣诞鸟类计数数据库，并辅之以活体行星指数数据库的数据。这些数据库由全球数万个地点的动物种群(主要是鸟类)的年度计数组成。它们将被用来：(1)评估保护区的种群是否比非保护区的种群更具弹性；(2)评估保护区是否显示出更高水平的功能多样性随时间的变化；(3)使用人口数据来预测种群灭绝的风险，并模拟这可能如何影响世界各地遗址的功能多样性。我们非常欢迎学生对这一研究领域有自己的想法和兴趣，并非常高兴学生在上面概述的广阔领域内发展自己的研究问题。

Ecosystems provide a plethora of benefits to humanity, and consequently maintaining and promoting biodiversity remains a key societal challenge. Protected areas are used as a key conservation tool to safeguard biodiversity in the face of global anthropogenic change. However, the efficacy of protected areas in maintaining the resilience and functioning of biodiversity remains unclear. This project will combine large datasets and advanced analytical tools to quantify the efficacy of protected areas in maintaining the resilience and functional diversity of ecosystems. Resilience - the ability to resist and recover from disturbance - can tell us about the capacity of natural systems to withstand the impacts of perturbations. Functional diversity - the range of roles and functions maintained by species within a community - can tell us can tell us what functions will persist following species extinctions. Understanding whether protected areas are promoting these two metrics is crucial to gauge whether protected areas are fit for purpose in our changing world. This project will analyse the International Waterbird Census and Christmas Bird Count databases, supplemented with data from the Living Planet Index Database. These databases are comprised of yearly counts of animal populations, primarily birds, at tens of thousands of sites worldwide. They will be used to: (1) Assess whether populations in protected areas are more resilient than those in non-protected areas, (2) assess whether protected areas show higher levels of functional diversity change through time, and (3) use population data to predict the risk of population extinction and model how this may affect the functional diversity of sites around the world. We strongly welcome students with their own ideas and interests in this area of study, and are very happy for the student to develop their own research questions within the broad fields outline above.