The Mathematics of Biodiversity
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: College of Medical, Veterinary, Life Sci
Abstract
Spain
Organisations
- University of Glasgow (Lead Research Organisation)
- Natural History Museum (Collaboration)
- University of Copenhagen (Collaboration)
- UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH (Collaboration)
- Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (Project Partner)
- Autonomous University of Barcelona (Project Partner)
- University of Edinburgh (Project Partner)
- Harvard University (Project Partner)
Publications
Codner GF
(2012)
Selective forces shaping diversity in the class I region of the major histocompatibility complex in dairy cattle.
in Animal genetics
Reeve Richard
(2014)
How to partition diversity
in arXiv e-prints
Gregorius H
(2014)
Relating measures of compositional differentiation among communities to conceptual models of migration and selection
in Ecological Modelling
Mather AE
(2016)
Detection of Rare Antimicrobial Resistance Profiles by Active and Passive Surveillance Approaches.
in PloS one
Gregorius HR
(2015)
Classifying measures of biological variation.
in PloS one
Mather A
(2012)
The diversity of antimicrobial resistance is different in Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 from co-located animals and humans
in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Sarker SK
(2016)
Are we failing to protect threatened mangroves in the Sundarbans world heritage ecosystem?
in Scientific reports
Sherwin WB
(2017)
Information Theory Broadens the Spectrum of Molecular Ecology and Evolution.
in Trends in ecology & evolution
| Description | The combination of a five-week research meeting for up to a dozen researchers together with a one week workshop which an additional 30 people were able to attend was extremely successful in both developing a deeper understanding of the connections between different fields, and in communicating results between mathematicians and life sciences about advances being made in other research areas. |
| Exploitation Route | The workshop connected research carried out across remits of five of the research councils for the first time - BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC, MRC and ESRC - with PIs with funding from all of them able to attend it and/or subsequent follow-up meetings. It can be taken forward by making research in biodiversity, animal breeding, genetics, evolution, disease control, immunology and mathematics more interdisciplinary in nature. It is indeed already being taken forward in the development of a large interdisciplinary consortium in this new, broad, diversity-based research area; the expansion of the University of Glasgow's Boyd Orr Centre for Population and Ecosystem Health's research remit and membership beyond disease research to areas of biodiversity and animal research; the publication of six papers leading on from the workshop; the organisation of two follow-on meetings (the last, in July 2014, was attended by over 100 researchers); and the submission of two large (>£1M) grants by consortia of attendees at the workshop. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment,Healthcare |
| Description | This international workshop involved 40 researchers from 10 countries and including academics, members of research institutes and charities. The meeting was extremely successful in communicating results between mathematicians and life scientists, and progress was made both with the practical improvements in understanding the difficulties encountered by both groups and in the development of new tools to improve the measurement of biodiversity and diversity more generally. At least six papers have been published from work discussed and developed at the meeting in Ecography, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, PLoS One, Evolution, Ecological Monographs and the arXiv. The work has led to a large interdisciplinary collaboration forming in the broad area of diversity research, and has already led to two large (>£1M) grant submissions. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Environment,Healthcare |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | 2012 Animal Health Research Club |
| Amount | £449,212 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/L004070/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2014 |
| End | 06/2017 |
| Description | DTP |
| Amount | £0 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 1371607 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2013 |
| End | 02/2018 |
| Description | FLIP |
| Amount | £150,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/P004202/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2016 |
| End | 08/2018 |
| Description | Farmed Animal Disease and Health |
| Amount | £1,206,175 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/L004828/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2014 |
| End | 10/2017 |
| Description | Neutral theory and quantifying diversity |
| Amount | £0 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 1654080 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2015 |
| End | 09/2019 |
| Description | Collaboration with the Natural History Museum London. |
| Organisation | Natural History Museum |
| Department | Life Sciences Department |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Using data provided by our collaborators at the Natural History museum, we are developing general ecosystem models that we will use to test the current suite of biodiversity metrics and their use and efficacy from a monitoring point of view. To this end, we hope to use the information to answer questions surrounding current biodiversity patterns of endangered plant species and how we might better predict/measure these. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our Collaborator Neil Brummitt provides expertise on the biological aspect of this work, including data and information on plant species occurrences, traits and current conservation policy (including the process involved in the IUCN red list). |
| Impact | This is a multi-disciplinary collaboration spanning computer science, ecology and mathematics. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Diversity |
| Organisation | Natural History Museum |
| Department | Lepidoptera Collection |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We have provided an understanding of the links between the fundamental mathematics studied by the mathematicians with whom we collaborate and the applied biodiversity problems that the ecologists we work with wish to understand. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Tom Leinster at the University of Edinburgh has been providing mathematical expertise to understand the fundamental properties of diversity measures. Jill Thompson at CEH and Neil Brummitt at NHM have been providing practical assistance in understanding the underlying biodiversity that we are studying. Michael Krabbe Borregaard at NHMD has been working on development of Julia code to help with analyses. |
| Impact | How to partition diversity (arXiv paper) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity BB/P004202/1 Mathematical Theory and Biological Applications of Diversity (further funding) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity, evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Diversity |
| Organisation | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We have provided an understanding of the links between the fundamental mathematics studied by the mathematicians with whom we collaborate and the applied biodiversity problems that the ecologists we work with wish to understand. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Tom Leinster at the University of Edinburgh has been providing mathematical expertise to understand the fundamental properties of diversity measures. Jill Thompson at CEH and Neil Brummitt at NHM have been providing practical assistance in understanding the underlying biodiversity that we are studying. Michael Krabbe Borregaard at NHMD has been working on development of Julia code to help with analyses. |
| Impact | How to partition diversity (arXiv paper) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity BB/P004202/1 Mathematical Theory and Biological Applications of Diversity (further funding) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity, evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Diversity |
| Organisation | University of Copenhagen |
| Department | Natural History Museum of Denmark |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We have provided an understanding of the links between the fundamental mathematics studied by the mathematicians with whom we collaborate and the applied biodiversity problems that the ecologists we work with wish to understand. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Tom Leinster at the University of Edinburgh has been providing mathematical expertise to understand the fundamental properties of diversity measures. Jill Thompson at CEH and Neil Brummitt at NHM have been providing practical assistance in understanding the underlying biodiversity that we are studying. Michael Krabbe Borregaard at NHMD has been working on development of Julia code to help with analyses. |
| Impact | How to partition diversity (arXiv paper) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity BB/P004202/1 Mathematical Theory and Biological Applications of Diversity (further funding) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity, evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Diversity |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | Centre for Integrative Physiology |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have provided an understanding of the links between the fundamental mathematics studied by the mathematicians with whom we collaborate and the applied biodiversity problems that the ecologists we work with wish to understand. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Tom Leinster at the University of Edinburgh has been providing mathematical expertise to understand the fundamental properties of diversity measures. Jill Thompson at CEH and Neil Brummitt at NHM have been providing practical assistance in understanding the underlying biodiversity that we are studying. Michael Krabbe Borregaard at NHMD has been working on development of Julia code to help with analyses. |
| Impact | How to partition diversity (arXiv paper) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity BB/P004202/1 Mathematical Theory and Biological Applications of Diversity (further funding) multidisciplinary - maths, ecology, biodiversity, evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Title | rdiversity R package |
| Description | rdiversity is a package for R based around a framework of similarity-sensitive diversity measures. It calculates the diversity of a population and its constituent subcommunities inclusive of similarity (taxonomic, phenotypic, genetic, phylogenetic, functional, and so on) between individuals. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Used in research by internal and external colleagues. |
| URL | https://github.com/boydorr/rdiversity |
| Description | BES meetings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The British Ecological Society meeting is a huge annual meeting that offers an opportunity to communicate with other researchers, students, policymakers and NGOs. Several people contacted us during the meeting to discuss adapting our work to their needs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Boyd Orr conferences and workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The sixteen conferences, workshops and symposia we have organised in Glasgow have resulted in lengthy discussions about the strategic direction that research should move in to have more impact, especially on policy. Several consortia for large grants have met at these meetings over the years, and they have resulted in closer communications with both our collaborators in academia and partners in NGOs, charities and amongst policy makers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017 |
| URL | http://www.gla.ac.uk/boydorr/meetingsevents/ |