Modelling and Mapping the Ecological Niche

Understanding the environmental limits of species is a fundamental goal of ecology and an important practical problem at a time of extreme environmental change. Models of species' environmental constraints aim define an organism's niche – the sequences of environments in which populations can persist. Mechanistic niche models aim to explicitly compute the heat, water, and nutritional budgets of individuals as a function of their functional traits and environments by integrating principles of metabolic theory (i.e., Dynamic Energy Budget theory), biophysical ecology and microclimatology. The outputs are predictions of activity, growth, reproduction, survivorship, and development. These responses can be mapped to space and time to infer environmental limits which, in turn, can be tested in the field. In this talk I will give a conceptual overview of mechanistic niche modelling and show how this can be practically achieved with the NicheMapR package.

Presenter Bio

Mike is currently a Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of BioSciences at The University of Melbourne. His research is focused on ways to connect what we can measure about an organism's functional traits with what we can measure about their environments and how traits and environments change though space and time to affect distribution and abundance. From a theoretical point of view, this has led him to develop the field of 'mechanistic niche modelling' (and the associated software package NicheMapR), which integrates microclimate modelling, biophysical ecology and metabolic theory. His empirical work focuses on ecophysiology, life cycles and life histories, and the evolution of parthenogenesis. He does applied work in climate change, conservation and pest management and maintains his passion for natural history and fieldwork.

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