New Subject Editor: Alice Hughes

Alice is a Professor and leads the Landscape Ecology group at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has worked extensively across the Tropics, and previously held positions in Thailand, Australia, Costa Rica, and the UK before moving to China. Alice is the author of around 83 papers, with a further 16 currently in review.

Alice’s work focuses on patterns of biodiversity and drivers of biodiversity change, at various spatiotemporal scales in order to develop pro-active management strategies that aim to mitigate the impacts of human activities on biodiversity. Her research spans from biogeographic research to conservation prioritization and management, and the development of tools for conservation biodiversity monitoring and assessment. This work includes understanding patterns of diversity, including that of cryptic species, and the processes behind the divergence and biogeography of species based on a combination of approaches. Her work also includes developing new tools for monitoring biodiversity patterns for bats, such as the use of bioacoustics, and other site based prioritization techniques. In addition she and her team try to better understand the impact of development on species even at an individual level and assaying how such development changes patterns of behaviour and stress.

All our work seeks to better understand natural systems, and to use that information to develop priorities for conservation and management, this also includes the development of tools such as using bat bioacoustics to rapidly inventory diversity and develop standard methods for surveys to mitigate the impact of development on biodiversity. In addition Alice works with a number of NGOs, the Biodiversity committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the biodiversity special policy study of CCICED. Alice aims to ensure that biodiversity policy reflects the best of biodiversity science and works to actively communicate conservation standards and tools on a regional and global basis.

Keywords: Biodiversity, Asia, Bats, Species distribution modelling, Conservation, Wildlife trade, sustainable development

Associate Professor,

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences,

achughes [at] xtbg [dot] ac [dot] cn

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alice_Hughes2

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