Researcher biography

Hugh Possingham's research interests are in conservation research, operations research and ecology. More specifically his lab works on problems to secure the world's biological diversity: efficient nature reserve design, habitat reconstruction, optimal monitoring, optimal management of populations for conservation, cost-effective conservation actions for threatened species, pest control and population harvesting, survey methods for detecting bird decline, bird conservation ecology, environmental accounting and metapopulation dynamics. He has always been actively involved in conservation policy and advocacy - to learn how listen to "The 2023 Univ Canberra Krebs lecture on Science, Maths and Environmental Policy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix2_UamShUw"

Hugh is 40% UQ in the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science to our website homepage (https://cbcs.centre.uq.edu.au/); 10% Accounting for Nature and 10% co-chair of the national Biodiversity Council. He sits on c30 other boards and committees pro bono.

His research projects are in the field of decision theory in conservation biology, including co-developing Marxan MaPP - Marxan (marxansolutions.org):

  • Biodiversity offsetting
  • Biodiversity markets
  • Conservation policy at all levels of government
  • Reserve design, biodiversity management and fire regime management
  • Population viability analysis (PVA) - including the development of ALEX
  • Pollination ecology
  • Metapopulation dynamics
  • Ecological economics
  • Optimal monitoring and environmental accounts
  • Stochastic modelling
  • Biodiversity and climate change
  • Population dynamics of marine organisms
  • Marine reserve design
  • Marine population dynamics
  • Avian community ecology
  • Edge effects and fragmentation
  • Landscape ecology
  • Behavioural and population ecology of parasitoids