Because wall-to-wall species inventories do not exist for any planning area on earth, conservation planners would benefit from procedures that could use well-mapped abiotic variables to identify sites that represent all or most species efficiently (i.e., in a small number of sites). Our recent work suggests that geodiversity (diversity of soil properties, landform, elevation, and solar insolation) is a good surrogate for species diversity at a coarse scale. This project will investigate how well geodiversity can represent or predict biodiversity for small (1 ha to 10 km2) sites (most sites in previous studies were 100 to 10,000 km2) and regional extents (many previous studies were continental to global) – i.e., the scales at which conservation decisions are made. As appropriate for the finer grain and smaller extent, the study will estimate species presence from inventories (previous studies assessed species presence from range maps or atlas data) and will quantify abiotic diversity using fine-grained topographic, insolation, and soil variables. The study will also investigate the shapes of the relationships between abiotic variables and site priority (the contribution of a site to the goal of species representation), and how those relationships vary among biomes and ecoregions, across taxa, and across scales. The results of this study will be highly relevant to Conserving Nature’s Stage (CNS), an emerging climate adaptation strategy that uses geodiversity to identify areas that will efficiently conserve species under any future climate.
This position is funded for 4 years, with a stipend of $19,950 to $27,950/year, a full tuition waiver, and student health insurance. This work will form the basis of a PhD dissertation in Forestry at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona. Teaching opportunities will be available. Applicant should have a thesis-based MS and at least one degree in conservation biology, biogeography, physical geography, spatial analysis, or a closely related field; excellent work ethic and personal skills as evidenced by references; a strong academic record; and a strong background in ecology, statistics, GIS, & scientific writing. Familiarity with soil science would be helpful. Your letter of interest should address these qualifications; please state your GRE scores and GPAs in your letter or CV. Dates: July or August 2016 to June-July 2020 Send a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, a list of courses with grades, and contact info for 3 professional references (name, institution, email address, phone number) to Paul Beier [email protected], 1 928 699 3578. The selected candidate must submit an on-line application to the PhD program in Forestry at Northern Arizona University. Review of applications begins immediately and will continue until the position is filled.
