Study level

  • PhD
  • Master of Philosophy
  • Honours

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

School of Mathematical Sciences

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Centre for the Environment

Supervisors

Professor Michael Bode
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science

Overview

Many of Australia's threatened species can only avoid extinction if we keep them on islands or behind fences, where foxes and cats can't kill them all. We call these places "safe havens".

Some species can only exist in some safe havens. Maybe they need particular habitats, or particular temperatures, and these can't be found everywhere.

Some pairs of species can't live together. Maybe one is a predator of another. Maybe they fight too much.

So, we need to find a way to put all of our threatened species in at least one safe haven, avoiding these two concerns. Fortunately, mathematical optimisation offers a way to solve this tricky problem.

Outcomes

Our work will be used by Australian conservation managers to plan the next decade of species translocations.

Skills and experience

You should have skills in:

  • basic maths
  • computer programming (such as R, Matlab, Python, C).

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.