Biodiversity Institute
This research programme ran from 2007 - 2015 and the following pages are an archived resource. Oxford University continues working on biodiversity issues with The Biodiversity Network as its focal point.
the project
The Biodiversity Institute takes a lead in the science of biodiversity and also develops frameworks, structures and novel technologies to implement this science into management and policy.
The planet's biodiversity is under threat and experiencing radical changes at a rate unprecedented in history.
Our focus on biodiversity beyond protected areas and our integration of new technologies will help businesses and society develop best practices to conserve biodiverse ecosystems into the next century.
The Institute has three key themes:
Ecological and evolutionary processes: We focus on increasing the understanding of which ecological and evolutionary processes are important for creating the right conditions for resilience, persistence and the prevention of thresholds and irreversible changes in ecosystems. We also research how sensitive they are to environmental changes over short and long time-scales and how to devise policies to conserve them.
Biodiversity beyond protected areas: Climate change and human impact are putting increasing pressure on existing protected areas and as a result, biodiversity conservation needs to take place beyond these reserves. We aim to address the lack of scientific research into the processes and mechanisms that could enable these areas to support biodiverse ecosystems into the next century.
Biodiversity technologies: We aim to develop automated tools that enable easy identification of species and the assessment of important regions for biodiversity conservation beyond protected areas. We are also developing web-based tools that can map dynamic features of any landscape in the world to inform on the important ecosystem properties and functions that it supports.
videos
Creating a climate for change: counting down to the 2015 UN climate negotiations
"Mapping and identifying biodiversity: using new technology to understand our ecosystem" By Prof Kathy Willis, Dr Peter Long, Dr Timos Papadopoulos and Thomas Nickson
Biodiversity Technologies Symposium
Why is biodiversity so important for humanity?
How can we conserve the planet's biodiversity?
Biodiversity and citizen science
Target Earth
publications
Asiatic cotton can generate similar economic benefits to Bt cotton under rainfed conditions
Detecting bird sound in unknown acoustic background using crowdsourced training data
How effective are on-farm conservation land management strategies for preserving ecosystem services in developing countries? A systematic map protocol
Recovery and resilience of tropical forests after disturbance
Species coexistence and the dynamics of phenotypic evolution in adaptive radiation
Species interactions and the structure of complex communication networks
Sexual selection accelerates signal evolution during speciation in birds
Predicting forest expansion into alpine areas
Changes in global nitrogen cycling during the Holocene epoch
Evolutionary divergence in acoustic signals: causes and consequences
The role of earthworms in nitrogen and solute retention
Biofuels in Africa
Socioeconomic and Environmental Impacts of Biofuels
Life changes as polar regions thaw
The resilience of tropical forests
Eurasian Arctic greening
Fungal litter-trapping in tropical rainforests
Impacts of oil palm expansion on environmental change
Spermless males and malaria transmission
Stochastic spread of Wolbachia
The population genetics of using homing endonuclease genes (HEGs) in vector & pest management
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