Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Human activities are changing our natural environment in new ways. Unprecedented global warming is shifting the distribution and abundance of species, as well as their genetic composition. Impacts are multifaceted, involving both direct and indirect stressors. For example, forests in western Canada are being subjected to the direct climate effects of high temperatures and drought and to the indirect effects of climate-driven spread of mountain pine beetle. Environmental change is also changing the way that animals interact spatially and move in the newly changed environments. Understanding the impacts of changes in our natural environment is one of the great challenges of modern ecology. Problems are nonlinear and stochastic, and commonly have a strong spatial component, including nonlocal spatial interactions. Here quantitative models can play a key role by encapsulating detailed biological hypotheses, assessing their implications, and providing a mechanism for testing them against data. The focus will be on problems where there is a need for new models with a major quantitative component and where there are ample data to test hypotheses and look for management solutions. This research will focus on 4 main subprojects: predicting species' range shifts under climate change, assessing strategies for managing forests to mitigate effects of mountain pine beetle under climate change, incorporating nonlocal spatial interactions into space use in ecology, and illuminating cognitive processes in animal using memory to navigate travel routes. The research will develop and test new mathematical theory for spatial ecology, will provide methods for enhancing environmental stewardship and will develop new quantitative tools. Much of the work will be in collaboration with field biologists. This means that the majority of the mathematical and computational modelling work will be tested against field data and will be connected directly to ecological hypotheses and management policies.