Threatened mammal occupancy in tropical rainforest

RSPB works closely with our partner NGO, BirdLife Liberia, the Liberian government and local communities to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of the Greater Gola Landscape, Liberia, a tropical forest-agricultural landscape. The landscape is home to multiple threatened mammal species, including Western Chimpanzee, Jentik's Duiker and African Forest Elephant. Little is known about spatial variation in occupancy or diversity of mammal species. This project offers the chance to analyse a dataset combining camera trap data from a number of studies to assess patterns and possible drivers of those patterns, identifying hotspots both of mammal occupancy and diversity and factors which might explain those patterns, allowing the partnership to improve the effectiveness of interventions for mammal conservation. With multiple potential conservation questions, there is scope for the student to take a particular focus, so this project can be tailored to either MSc or DTP level.

The aim of this project is to identify spatial patterns of mammal occupancy and diversity and the covariates/potential drivers of those patterns. The student will analyse existing data provided by RSPB/our partners on mammal occupancy and diversity, conservation interventions, land use tenure (protected/community lands) and hunting pressure. The supervisors have developed a Bayesian analytical framework in R which allows analysis of occupancy rates in relation both to detectability and environmental drivers and will provide the student with the training needed to understand and adapt the code to their own work.