Dr Matthew Struebig
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
- Room: 5.01f, Fogg Building
- Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 7011
- Email: m.struebig.("at" sign) qmul.ac.uk
Research interests:
My research focuses on the disturbed habitats of Southeast Asia, a region which likely exemplifies the long-term fate of other tropical regions. Managed landscapes have traditionally been considered as low value to biodiversity, but if these habitats are the most dominant land form in the future, what values do they have for biodiversity and how can we maintain or enhance these values? How can science inform simple, practical, management decisions to ensure biodiversity remains in modified landscapes?
Although much of my research focuses on bats, my interests are broad and currently cover 3 areas of applied conservation science in the tropics:
1. Identifying areas of High Conservation Value under projections of land-use and climate change - my current fellowship research funded by the Leverhulme Trust and tied with the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at University of Kent will inform biodiversity assessment in Southeast Asia by modelling mammal distributions over the main oil palm producing regions (Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay peninsula) and determining patterns of species diversity under short and long term threat scenarios.
2. Oil palm and biodiversity - with an international team of collaborators I work to evaluate ways in which the inevitable expansion in oil palm agriculture can be managed to avoid biodiversity losses. Recent reviews of impacts and mitigation of oil palm plantations appeared in Trends in Ecology and Evolution and CAB-Reviews.
3. Rainforest fragmentation - my PhD study in peninsular Malaysia integrated community ecology and population genetic techniques to determine the conservation value of forest fragments.