Title: Combining information from communities and species to improve our understanding of biodiversity patterns and dynamics.

Seminar summary: Biodiversity model projections are becoming increasingly important, helping to improve understanding of ecological systems, highlighting threats, and informing investment in conservation actions. Here I will present a semi-mechanistic modelling framework I’ve developed, that harnesses data and makes predictions at both the species- and community-level. Using case-studies from a number of diverse taxonomic groups across large regions, I will demonstrate the capacity of this macroecological modelling framework to predict current patterns in species assemblages, and to incorporate a range of key mechanisms in predicting changes in species assemblages under alternative future scenarios (dispersal, community assembly, trophic interactions, genetic adaptation).

About me: Karel Mokany is a senior research scientist with CSIRO, based in Canberra, Australia. His research is focussed on developing and applying novel macroecological modelling approaches, focussed on improving our understanding of current patterns in diversity and projecting likely changes in biodiversity into the future under alternative policy, planning and management scenarios.