Simon Tarr
PhD: Predicting climate change effects on Anolis lizards using physiological models and ecological traits
Room B26E
School of Geography
Sir Clive Granger Building
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
I completed my Undergraduate and Masters degrees in Zoology at the University of Nottingham before moving to the School of Geography. My Masters focused on the geographic distribution of sexual size dimorphism in lacertid lizards across continental North America. Broadly speaking I would describe myself as a Macroecologist/Biogeographer. My particular research interests concern geographic patterns of body size variation in animals and the processes which delimits species’ ranges from local to macro scales.
Research Project:
My PhD research shall be investigating whether it is possible to detect the signal of interspecific competition between Anolis species across the Greater Antilles. Ecological theory has long predicted that antagonistic biotic interactions among species can limit distribution but rarely have these processes been explicitly incorporated into species’ distribution models (SDMs). The aim of my research is therefore to develop more robust SDMs that can better predict shifts in species ranges, particularly in the face on ongoing anthropogenic climate change which is generating novel communities, and therefore novel suites of biotic interactions, at an unprecedented rate.