Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/C522702/1
Title:	National Centre of Computational Statisical Ecology
Principal Investigator:	Morgan, Professor B
Other Investigators:	Buckland, Professor ST Jolliffe, Professor I Gramacy, Professor RB Coulson, Professor T Harwood, Professor J
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	British Trust for Ornithology Fisheries Research Services
Department:	Sch of Maths Statistics & Actuarial Sci
Organisation:	University of Kent
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	03 October 2005	Ends:	02 October 2010	Value (£):	1,101,447
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Numerical Analysis Statistics & Appl. Probability
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Environment
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Note that EPSRC grant declarations only allow one individual to be nominated as Principal Investigator (as above). However, the investigators, viz: S.P.Brooks, S.Buckland and B.J.T.Morgan, wish it to be recognised that they share equal status as far as the conception and conduct of the research within this project is concerned.lncreasing pressures on the environment are generating a pressing need to manage populations of wild animals, and the ecosystems to which they belong. Examples include threats from: global climate change, such as in Arctic environments; over-exploitation, such as demersal fish stocks in the North Sea; loss of habitat, such as rain forest communities; pollution, such as coral reef communities. Effective management requires reliable models, so that the consequences of management action can be predicted, and the uncertainty in these predictions quantified. The need for models that predict the response of an ecosystem to anthropogenic change is widely recognised, yet the development of reliable models has hardly started.At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, political leaders agreed to strive for 'a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biological diversity' by the year 2010. The first necessary step to achieve this is to develop, adequate monitoring methods, to allow quantification of the rate of loss of biodiversity. With such tools in place, the success of management actions can be assessed by their impact on the rate of change of biodiversity. However, such feedback provides a blunt instrument for ecosystem management, with long lags -between action and observed effects. By contrast, predictive models of the biological processes that determine ecosystem structure allow different management scenarios to be evaluated before determining a course of action. Both elements are needed: models to guide management action, and thus increase the effectiveness of that management, and monitoring, to provide a retrospective measure of whether the predicted effects have been achieved.We propose to establish an integrated Centre that will specialise in developing the modelling tools that are needed to achieve the above objectives. The three partners are the primary groups in the UK in the field of wildlife assessment, and all three are world-leading in their work on modelling population dynamics within a sound inferential framework. Staff already have a strong record of collaboration, with each other and with many other organisations. By integrating the groups into a single Centre, we will be able to pool resources, avoid duplication off effort, and . provide advanced methodologies and user-friendly software for the user community. The combined expertise of the proposed Centre is unparalleled anywhere.The Centre will be genuinely interdisciplinary, with great strength in statistical ecology. The senior members have strong track records of innovative research, both in statistics and in ecology, and at the interface of the two. The Centre will create an inspirational environment for the postgraduates and PDRAs that pass through the component groups. There will be a commitment to an international visitor programme, to encourage greater interaction with both statistical and applied ecologists.The work of the Centre will be publicised through the production of books and research papers, new computer software and through its web-site. Members of all three groups have extensive experience of providing international workshops to train ecologists, and the new Centre will coordinate an expanded workshop programme.The EPSRC International Review of Mathematics and Statistics Research in the UK has produced much evidence to support the formation of a National Centre for Computational Statistical Ecology, emphasising the good work already taking place in the area of statistical ecology, but noting also that the interface with computer science is not properly developed in many areas of mat
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Organisation Website:	http://www.kent.ac.uk