Conservation ecology - Science for a sustainable future
Our work ranges from defining conservation priorities of individual endangered species to investigating the impacts of global change on entire habitats. We are particularly interested in the mechanisms that generate and maintain species diversity in the world's biodiversity hotspots and human impact on these processes.
Within the field of conservation ecology our research methods include the use of remote sensing to identify the rates and causes of deforestation, the development of innovative wildlife survey and monitoring techniques, development of new fingerprinting techniques to monitor illegal logging and investigating the impacts of hunting in tropical forests.
Our main study species include the critically endangered neotropical primates such as the brown-headed spider monkey (Ateles fusciceps), big cats (Puma concolor), Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus), Andean bird species and the diverse lowland and mountain tree species of the Ecuadorian Andes.
A major project for 2011 - 2013 is the establishment of the Santa Lucia Cloudforest Research station in NW Ecuador - we are currently building a laboratory space in the reserve to study this mountain forest environment as part of a sustainable livelihoods project that aims to conserve the forest through 'scientifictourism' and research. It already hosts the Earthwatch 'Climate change, canopies and wildlife project' and the Sussex University Ecuadorian Andes Fieldcourse and is set to expand as we create links with Ecuadorian and International Universities.
