About the project or challenge area

Measuring the impacts humanity is having on global biodiversity is challenging given the large spatial and temporal scales data are aggregated across, and the diversity of life on earth. However, making meaningful indicators of biodiversity at local, regional, and global scales is crucial to informing the general public and policy makers of how biodiversity is changing, and holding governments to legally binding biodiversity targets. 

This project will work on developments to the Living Planet Index – one of the most important biodiversity indicators globally, and has the potential to improve our estimates of biodiversity change across the planet, with opportunities to feed this work into future global assessments.  

Why choose this project?

You will have the opportunity to work with cutting edge global biodiversity databases, and liaise with conservation charities such as the Zoological Society of London to learn how these indicators are used, interpreted, and what we can do to improve them and their interpretation. You will gain skills in coding and data base manipulation, as well as communicating your results to the general public.

About you

You will be interested in ecology and conservation biology and have an interest in using statistics to help make conservation science more robust. Having previous experience analysing ecological data will be very helpful, particularly using R. 

How to apply

All students can apply using the button below, following the Admissions Statement. Please note that this is an advertised project, which means you only have to complete Section A of the Research Statement.

This project is not funded, for further details please use this link.

Before applying, we recommend getting in touch with the project's supervisors. If you are interested in this project and would like to learn more about the research you will be undertaking, please use the contact details on this page.