PhD: Altered states: Will forest-agriculture mosaic landscapes allow the long-term survival of a forest-specialist primate?
Location: Bangor University
For my undergraduate degree, I studied Zoology with Conservation at Bangor University. Through my dissertation I had the opportunity to research in Madagascar for 2 months. During this time, I became fascinated in the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on wildlife and how great the impact of this disturbance may be on population persistence. I graduated in 2018, decided to take a year out of education and returned to Bangor in 2019 to start my MScRes. My MScRes project concentrated on the effects of roads on wildlife, looking at the who, why, where and what of road ecology, specifically for the Zanzibar red colobus. During my time in Zanzibar, I continually found myself becoming more interested with this species, from this fascination I decided to design and submit my own PhD project proposal through Bangor University.
My PhD project looks at the ways to assess the potential of land sharing approaches for colobus conservation, considering predictors for species decline and refining our ability to model future population trends under different hypothetical levels of habitat change. This study will look at historical data along with a complete population census of the Zanzibar red colobus to evaluate which conditions effect population persistence and also look at how movement and behaviour can allude to the valuation of landscapes aiding us in identifying the essential features of landscapes to support group persistence. My PhD project, in collaboration with the Zanzibar red colobus project and the World Conservation Society will begin to bridge the gap of knowledge we currently have and being to answer questions of how humans and wildlife can coexist effectively.