Brittany Trew

My research has primarily focused on applying ecological modeling to inform conservation strategies and mitigate biodiversity loss. During my PhD, I refined predictive ecological models for climate change by incorporating innovative microclimate modeling techniques. My thesis explored the multidimensional nature of microclimatic variation, emphasizing the often-neglected importance of temporal and vertical spatial factors in influencing climate change impacts on biodiversity. Most recently, as a conservation scientist for the International Science Team at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, I used machine-learning to build dynamic models of deforestation-risk in West Africa.

My work in the Davies Lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow for the Human Science Frontier Program is focused on using mechanistic microclimate modeling methods to generate high-resolution, 4D maps of microclimate in the Cederberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa. We aim to understand how microclimatic variation in space and time contributes to the coexistence of competing ant species, whereby climatic variability at the micro-scale effectively isolates individuals and species from each other within a landscape.