Séminaire Ecobio - Nicolas Dubos (Ben Gurion Univ. Negev)

Land use change is the main cause of species decline in the present, but climate change is predicted to become so in the future. Hence it is crucial to quantify risks related to both factors and identify species and areas at risk. In my work I study effects of environmental change on species responses to better target conservation efforts. I explore common species, rare species, and invasive species with various approaches to understand impacts of global change. I further aim to quantify links between predicted environmental suitability and real extinction risk while accounting for uncertainty related to the source of the data. This project includes a global analysis of future environmental suitability estimated from ecological niche models for tetrapods. In that vein I will present some of my past research with an emphasis on conservation, and preliminary results of an assessment of the effect of data source on macroecological patterns. Then I project to identify which functional traits best explain the differences in species responses, which will provide an insight on the consequences of global change on ecosystem functions.
With data collected on observed local extinctions, population declines and species survival rates, I will quantify the gap between predicted niche suitability and local extinction and propose a more accurate classification of extinction risks.