Collaboration between Statistical Ecology @ Kent, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, National Parks and Conservation Service, Institute of Zoology and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
The collaborative project set up between Statistical Ecology @ Kent (SE@K), Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Institute of Zoology, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) and the National Parks and Conservation Service has an aim of reshaping the methodologies for monitoring threatened species in Mauritius. The work is partnered with the Government’s National Parks and Conservation Service. Dr Nik Cole, the Island Restoration Manager at MWF, is tasked with restoring and rebuilding island ecosystems to reduce the extinction risk of multiple threatened species. A critical aspect of this restoration process is determining population trends of focal animals and plants in response to conservation actions, which will guide management practices.
Various survey techniques have been used to monitor populations, including capture-recapture and distance sampling, however the techniques require field staff to possess levels of experience and skill to obtain sufficiently reliable data for analysis. Further, these methods are time-consuming and costly and often do not work for highly cryptic, or low -abundance species. The team are trialling new modelling approaches to simplify survey strategies.
We have a number of active collaborative projects:
- Modelling changes in abundance of species over space and time in island ecosystems
- Evidence based decision making for reintroduction success: translocating threatened prey reptiles into an endemic predator-packed system in Mauritius
- Modelling removal and re-introduction data for improved conservation
The research presented on this website is funded by EPSRC, ARIES Doctoral Training Partnership and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.