McGill University
Postdoctoral fellow candidate
Supervisor: Andrew Gonzalez
Start: 2019-09-01
End: 2021-08-31
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Project

Identifying Key Biodiversity Areas in Canada
Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity. The IUCN has established Global Standards, including criteria and quantitative thresholds, to identify KBAs on five main elements: a) threatened biodiversity; b) geographically restricted biodiversity; c) ecological integrity; d) biological processes; and e) irreplaceability. The identification of KBAs will be relevant to inform a vast spectrum of strategies and initiatives to safeguard biodiversity such as: conservation planning, environmental assessment, new protected areas, regional and strategic assessment, monitoring, guiding investments, restoration strategies, etc. We are going to create data flows at larger scales to identify areas of high potential for KBAs in Canada, based on the criteria mentioned above and across all taxa in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. We will develop methods, tools and algorithms to facilitate site selection and prioritization. We will also lead the conceptualization and implementation of criterion C (Ecological integrity) across large spaces in Canada.

Keywords

Biodiversity Conservation, Key Biodiversity Areas, biodiversity

Publications

1- Mechanistic models for the spatial spread of species under climate change
Leroux, Shawn J., Maxim Larrivée, Véronique Boucher-Lalonde, Amy Hurford, Juan Zuloaga, Jeremy T. Kerr, Frithjof Lutscher
2013 Ecological Applications

2- The weakness of evidence supporting tropical niche conservatism as a main driver of current richness-temperature gradients
Boucher-Lalonde, Véronique, Rafael Xavier De Camargo, Jean-Michel Fortin, Shahira Khair, Rachel I. So, Héctor Vázquez Rivera, Dale Watson, Juan Zuloaga, David J. Currie
2015 Global Ecology and Biogeography

3- Over the top: do thermal barriers along elevation gradients limit biotic similarity?
Zuloaga, Juan, Jeremy T. Kerr
2017 Ecography

4- The origins and maintenance of global species endemism
Zuloaga, Juan, David J. Currie, Jeremy T. Kerr,
2019 Global Ecology and Biogeography