Independent Research
Friday, January 04, 2019 11:20 AM
Dr. Michael Reed (Biology) is looking for an ENVS student that has taken GIS to do an independent research project (BIO 94) this Spring:
Project 1) Creating a known-risk map for shorebirds across the entire western hemisphere
You would be working with me (Dr. Reed) and a couple of graduate students, and an undergrad who wants to learn GIS. There is easily enough work to occupy 2 undergrads – one mapping climate change threats, and one mapping other threats – but working together to sift through information for both maps. Most North American shorebird species are declining, and we would like to map out the detailed locations of known and expected problems (as well as identify spatial gaps in knowledge) as an aide to focus conservation efforts.
Project 2) Risk assessment for fireflies
We are interested in evaluating a method for estimating Area of Occupancy for fireflies, to be used in a new IUCN risk assessment for fireflies. It is pretty straightforward. There is a method out there based on % of grid cells occupied, and we want to investigate sensitivity of results for different firefly dispersions (spatial distributions). One publication of simulated data says it does not matter for most grid sizes, but our first attempt showed that it mattered a lot – so we want to resolve this.
If you are interested, please drop Dr. Reed an email (michael.reed@tufts.edu) and let him know what year you are, your major, and some idea of your GIS experience.