PhD position Biodiversity co-benefits of large scale restoration in the Brazilian Amazon
Supervisors: Dr Cristina Banks-Leite (mailto:c.banks@imperial.ac.uk); Prof Rob Ewers, Life Sciences; Dr. William Pearse, Life Sciences; Dr. Renato Crouzeilles, Mombak
Department: Department of Life Sciences
Climate change and biodiversity loss dominate concerns over anthropogenic modification of the natural world. For the last 40 years, each decade has been successively warmer than the last; the most recent with global surface temperatures 1.09°C higher than before the industrial era. In addition to a changing climate, life on Earth is under extreme pressure from habitat change, invasive species, over-exploitation and pollution (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). As a result, it has been estimated that 1 million species will likely go extinct in the coming decades, coinciding with declines in overall biomass (IPBES report, 2019).
We are now seeing a strong push for the development of large-scale solutions to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and air pollution to mitigate climate change, while also reversing trends in biodiversity decline. One solution being increasingly promoted is reforestation, as it is likely one of the most effective strategies to sequester CO2, and the most effective strategy to mitigate biodiversity loss in tropical forest areas. Reforestation is however an umbrella term for many types of interventions that range from planting non-native trees in non-forested areas to restoring native habitat. In this project, we are partnering with Mombak, a start-up based in Brazil aiming to become the world’s largest company on carbon removal with highest integrity, starting by reforestation the Brazilian Amazon. Mombak aims to have about 100,000 hectares of Amazonian forest under reforestation within the next five years and within this setting we will ask the following questions:
1) How do soundscapes change through time and does landscape and regional features and planting scheme affect this trajectory?
2) Are ecological trends revealed by acoustic monitoring similar to those obtained by environmental eDNA?
3) What spatial and temporal environmental factors drive alpha, beta and gamma diversity?
This project includes a field season in the Amazon to collect acoustic data and samples for eDNA analyses. Student will use machine learning to process acoustic data to calculate changes in acoustic composition and variation in acoustic diversity across the diel cycle. Student will also perform ecological analyses to compare acoustic data to eDNA, which will be sequenced by commercial partners. The outcome of this project will both aid Mombak to develop a cutting edge biodiversity monitoring framework for the carbon market and will drive forward the knowledge on biodiversity recovery in reforested areas.
