Beth E. Gerstner, Ph.D. Map of Life | Center for Biodiversity and Global Change Yale University beth.egerstner (at) yale.edu Dual Ph.D. 2023 Fisheries & Wildlife and EEB, Michigan State University MS 2016 Biology, The City College of New York, CUNY BS 2012 Biology, Stony Brook University
Research Overview
The key objective of my research is to better understand the spatial dynamics of biodiversity - an essential step for setting spatial conservation priorities.
During my Master’s work at the City College of New York, I studied both the distribution and conservation status of the “Olinguito”, a recently discovered carnivoran endemic to Colombia and Ecuador. This research addressed concerns about the generation of good distribution models with small sample sizes by supplementing museum based locality data with records from citizen scientists, and using modeling methods shown to work well with small datasets.
During my Ph.D. in the Zarnetske lab, I received a NASA FINESST Award to generate better range maps for species of conservation concern in Central and South American moist tropical forest, regions of high biodiversity. Specifically, I evaluated the utility of geodiversity data and, additionally, mammal and bird species’ functional traits (traits that allow a species to exist and reproduce in a given environment) to model geographic distributions, and to generate maps of different aspects of biodiversity (i.e., species richness and the distribution of species having unique roles and functions in an ecosystem). The workflow I generated will help conservation practitioners make informed decisions about what satellite data to use for generating their own species range maps/biodiversity assessments and where conservation efforts should be concentrated.