My research interests are broadly in the areas of conservation biology and biodiversity informatics and include the following lines of inquiry: * the study of deforestation, forest fragmentation, and land-use change for biodiversity conservation and conservation priority-setting, and * applications of spatial databases and analytic tools together with biodiversity databases and informatics to explore theoretical considerations in ecology and conservation biology (niche vs. neutral theory), aid the discovery of endangered or rare species, model the spread of invasive species, and predict the effects of climate change on species' distributions.
A. Climate Change and Sea-level Change
Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability in the Americas: Impacts and Adaptations, Other Scholarly Publications (2011)
Book Review of "Natural Climate Variability and Global Warming: A Holocene Perspective" Edited by Richard W. Battarbee and Heather A. Binney, Quarterly Review of Biology (2010)
Recent Advances in the Climate Change Biology Literature: Describing the Whole Elephant (with A. Townsend Peterson and Xingong Li), Peer Reviewed Publications (2010)
Climate change biology is seeing a wave of new contributions, which are reviewed herein. Contributions...
Preliminary Global Assessment of Terrestrial Biodiversity Consequences of Sea-level Rise Mediated by Climate Change (with Jorge Soberon, Xingong Li, and A. Townsend Peterson), Biodiversity and Conservation (2010)
Considerable attention has focused on the climatic effects of global climate change on biodiversity, but...
Projected Climate Change Effects on Nuthatch Distribution and Diversity Across Asia (with M. Zafar-ul Islam and A. Townsend Peterson), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology (2009)
We used ecological niche modeling approaches to explore climate change implications for one family of...
B. Biodiversity Informatics and Species Distribution Modeling
Ecological Niche Modeling and Local Knowledge Predict New Populations of Gymnocladus assamicus a Critically Endangered Tree Species (with Baharul I. Choudhury, M. Latif Khan, and A. Townsend Peterson), Endangered Species Research (2010)
Gymnocladus assamicus is a critically endangered tree species endemic to northeastern India. Local inhabitants traditionally...
Projected Climate Change Effects on Nuthatch Distribution and Diversity Across Asia (with M. Zafar-ul Islam and A. Townsend Peterson), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology (2009)
We used ecological niche modeling approaches to explore climate change implications for one family of...
Preliminary Analysis of the Ecology and Geography of the Asian Nuthatches (Aves: Sittidae) (with Zafar-Ul Islam, Jorge Soberon, and A. Townsend Peterson), Wilson Journal of Ornithology (2008)
We explored distributions of Asian nuthatch species in ecological and geographic space using ecological niche...
C. Land-use Change Modeling
Fundamentals for Using Geographic Information Science to Measure the Effectiveness of Land Conservation Projects (with Robert G. Pontius Jr., Joseph Duncan, and Shalini Gupta), Geoinformatics for Natural Resource Management (2009)
Some humans spend a tremendous amount of effort to change landscapes from a “natural” state...
Identifying Conservation-Priority Areas in the Tropics: A Land-Use Change Modeling Approach (with R. Gil Pontius Jr., Joseph Rose, M. L. Khan, and Kamaljit S. Bawa), Conservation Biology (2001)
Most quantitative methods for identifying conservation-priority areas require more detailed knowledge about the extent and...
D. Biodiversity Conservation
Identifying Conservation-Priority Areas in the Tropics: A Land-Use Change Modeling Approach (with R. Gil Pontius Jr., Joseph Rose, M. L. Khan, and Kamaljit S. Bawa), Conservation Biology (2001)
Most quantitative methods for identifying conservation-priority areas require more detailed knowledge about the extent and...
Deforestation in the Tropics: Reconciling Disparities in Estimates for India (with Kamaljit S. Bawa), Ambio (1998)
Here we examine recent disparate estimates of deforestation obtained for India. We discuss the sources...
A Vegetation Based Approach to Biodiversity Gap Analysis in the Agastyamalai Region, Western Ghats, India (with B. R. Ramesh and Kamaljit S. Bawa), Ambio (1997)
Protected areas in India have historically been established on an ad hoc basis with little...
Cloning and Conservation of Biological Diversity: Paradox, Panacea, or Pandora's Box? (with Kamaljit S. Bawa and Leah R. Gorman), Conservation Biology (1997)
The success of a Scottish team in cloning a mammal from an adult tissue cell...
Applications of Geographic Information Systems, Remote-Sensing, and a Landscape Ecology Approach to Biodiversity Conservation in the Western Ghats (with Kamaljit S. Bawa), Current Science (1997)
The mountains along the west coast of peninsular India, the Western Ghats, constitute one of...