Crunching the numbers in nature
This week we take a look at what happens when the worlds of ecology and statistics collide, some pretty great things it turns out…
What’s your name and what do you research?
My name is Ali Johnston. I am passionate about discovering more about nature and the fascinating ecology of the natural world. I approach this with number-crunching! Developing quantitative approaches to analysing ecological data that give us reliable and accurate measures of biodiversity.
Tell us about some of your recent work?
I absolutely love the creative challenge of a messy dataset! A few months ago we published a paper that used a new method to estimate bird population trends from large-scale citizen science data. This required many years of developing and testing methods, so that we were confident they would give us reliable population trends. It revealed information about local bird populations across a whole continent, that was not previously possible.
We found that 75% of bird populations were declining, but more concerningly, that most species were faring worse in their previous strongholds. This tells us that the current biodiversity and climate crises are turning nature upside down. However, the paper also provided hope: this detailed understanding of local populations opens up opportunities for efficient and effective conservation.
What is the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM)?
CREEM is a dynamic community of interdisciplinary scientists here at St Andrews. Our goal is to develop quantitative methods that support the conservation of nature.
We’re based in a converted Observatory by the sports fields, although we have collaborators in many Schools across the University. We are famous for the volume of cake that fuels our research activities!
How did the worlds of statistics and ecology come together?
CREEM was the vision of St Andrews academics who realised the value of creating statistical tools designed to address questions relating to the natural world. This required deep collaboration between fields and was truly interdisciplinary work, long before this was trendy! CREEM was a global pioneer of the field of ecological and environmental statistics and methods developed at CREEM are used by thousands of scientists around the world.
The last couple of decades have brought rapid technological advances, which have provided many new ways to collect environmental and ecological data – from acoustic data to camera traps, animal tags, satellite data, and many more. These developments have needed parallel developments in survey methods and statistical analyses to get the most out of the data. The field of ecological and environmental statistics never stands still, which makes it an endlessly fascinating research area!
What kind of application does CREEM’s work have?
CREEM has developed many ways to count animals, and these are currently being used to count snow leopards on the Himalayan plateau, gibbons in Laos, whales in the Atlantic, wild horses in Australia birds in the Arctic, and Our research in the environmental realm is developing methods to predict wildfires and avalanches.
CREEM research has also been used to estimate the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on dolphins, to explore how marine animals respond to noise and other stressors, and estimate the impacts of windfarms on wildlife.
Overall, our goal is to have a positive impact on conservation of the natural world, through the fun, nerdy, number-crunching of ecological and environmental data. Join us for a slice of caterpillar cake and we’ll tell you more!
If you would like to feature in research spotlight, have had a paper accepted or want to talk more broadly about how to engage the wider media with your research, please contact Senior Communications Manager Ruth Sanderson [email protected]
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