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Maximising plant and animal population persistence in an increasingly stochastic world

Project description

Protecting biodiversity in a stochastic world

The global richness of plant and animal species represents a tremendous diversity of life histories that have been optimised through evolutionary time by environmental filtering operating on genetic differences among individuals and species. However, anthropogenic environmental changes may push these species out of their evolved life-history optima. There is an urgent need to understand and predict how environmental stochasticity may affect life histories and their cascading effects on global biodiversity. The EU-funded MaxPersist project will develop new theoretical advances to understand how life-history strategies may respond to climatic variation and use these advancements, alongside high-resolution, global data, to forecast how natural populations of hundreds of animal and plant species may persist in the face of increasing environmental perturbations worldwide.

Objective

"The vast richness of plant and animal species worldwide represents also a tremendous diversity of life histories (i.e. key moments along a species life cycle, such as age at maturity or death). These extant life histories have been optimised through evolutionary time by environmental filtering operating on genetic differences among individuals and species. However, anthropogenic environmental changes (e.g. climate change, habitat degradation) may push plant and animal species out of their evolved life-history opima. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand and predict how environmental stochasticity (increased amplitude and fluctuation) may affect life histories and their cascading effects on global biodiversity. This is the overarching goal of MaxPersist, where I will develop new theoretical advances to thoroughly understand how life-history strategies may respond to climatic variation, and use these advancements, alongside high-resolution, global data, to forecast how natural populations of hundreds of animal and plant species may persist in the face of increasing environmental perturbations worldwide. I have developed a network of world-leading scientists to contribute to the development of theoretic advances including assimilation of density-dependence, small noise assumptions, and adaptation of second-derivative of population growth rate to stochastic environments. MaxPersist will offer a comprehensive and innovative tool kit to enable realistic and effective conservation plans, useful especially for endangered species (contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goal #15), the 5th Target of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, to sustainable exploitation of harvested species and to the IUCN Red list. The deliverables of MaxPersist will be of great interest and use to the scientific community and to the public, raising the awareness of the consequences that climate change may have on natural populations and generating knowledge to protect biodiversity."

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Topic(s)

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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

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Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 224 933,76
Address
WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom

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Region
South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 224 933,76
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