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Staff profile:Dr Dan Faith

Position title:
Principal Research Scientist
Branch:
Research
Division:
Research & Collections
Phone:
+612 9320 6357
Email:
Contact Dan Faith using the form below

Profile

My research at the Australian Museum integrates biodiversity and systematics, including "biodiversity informatics". Much of my research is concerned with theory and applications of quantitative biodiversity assessment. This work extends from the scale of genes to whole countries. Special emphasis has been given to the best-possible use of Museum collections in regional biodiversity assessment, and to the links from biodiversity assessment to sustainability and economics. Applied biodiversity research also includes work on methods for detecting environmental impacts.

A phylogenetic component of my biodiversity research arises through investigations of "phylogenetic diversity" and conservation. Other work in phylogenetics involves development and application of phylogenetic methods, philosophy of science, and editorial work for Systematic Biology.

I serve on the editorial board of the new journal, Methods in Ecology and Evolution. I also serve on the editorial board of Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions, a journal covering biodiversity and other aspects of global change over multiple spatial, temporal and socio-political scales.I have served as a Coordinating Lead Author for biodiversity for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
I am on the Australian National Committee for DIVERSITAS, an international program for biodiversity science, and also co-lead the scientific committee for a new core program area in DIVERSITAS, called bioGENESIS. This program promotes the role of evolutionary biology in biodiversity conservation. See www.diversitas-international.org
I am a member of the new international steering committee for GEO BON (a global biodiversity monitoring network).
I have been working with others as part of an Australian Research Council funded network that seeks to integrate biodiversity research programs of Australian museums and other institutions. Our Network working group, "Discovering the past and present to shape the future: networking environmental sciences for understanding and managing Australian biodiversity", explores the 2010 biodiversity target, land-use change, carbon accounting, PD ("phylogenetic diversity") and other topics.

My external institutional positions include:

Adjunct associate professor, Sydney University
Adjunct associate professor, University of New England
Honorary associate, Macquarie University

Recent activities, symposia

  • 95th Ecological Society of America meeting, Pittsburgh. Aug 2010. Co-organised symposium: "From Microbial to Conservation Biology: Exploring Phylogenetic Beta Diversity as a Theoretical Tool Uniting Disciplines" My talk: "Phylogenetic beta diversity as a tool in biodiversity conservation and monitoring (Daniel Faith, Simon Ferrier, Dan Rosauer)  view ppt view abstract
  • The 2010 International meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation: “Tropical biodiversity: surviving the food, energy and climate crisis”. July 2010; Bali, Indonesia. Our symposium:  “Integrating evolution, ecology and biodiversity science”  My talk: "Phylogenetic diversity and a global scale biodiversity observation network, GEO BON"
  • Invited speaker at the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution Launch Symposium, Charles Darwin House, London, April 2010. Talk cancelled - nice photo of volcano instead 
  • Invited speaker and Panel member at the Convention on Biological Diversity COP10 Pre-conference, Nagoya , Japan, 2010. my talk on Systematic Conservation Planning also slides from Panel discussion on targets. Complete program and talks.                                                                                                                                               Also see the  Recommendations from CBD-COP10 PreConference  which includes my suggested recommendations regarding %targets, take-up of systematic conservation planning, and the need to address still-unknown biodiversity. 
  • Meeting of the Scientific Committee of DIVERSITAS, Nagoya , Japan, 2010
  • Meeting of the GEO BON working group on global monitoring of genetic and phylogenetic diversity, in Asilomar, Monteray, California, USA, 2010. slides for introduction to our genetics working group
  • Advisory and collaborative roles for the Caring for Country project:“Harnessing continent wide biodiversity data sets for prioritising conservation investment” Canberra, during 2009, 2010.
  • Invited speaker at the meeting of the Global Center of Excellence program of Asian Conservation Ecology in Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan in February 2010
  • Invited participant at the International Meeting for Promoting Asia-Pacific Biodiversity Observation Network (AP-BON), held in Tokyo, Japan, in December 2009.
  • Invited speaker at the International Workshop, in São Paulo, Brazil, on Applied Ecology and Human Dimensions in Conservation Biology, organised by the Biota Program of São Paulo Science Foundation (FAPESP). My talk was on Phylogenetic Diversity and Conservation
  • The Australia-Japan Biodiversity Workshop, October 2009, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra.        D P. Faith invited talk on "International collaborations to support a global Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON): research challenges ranging from microbes to a global 2010 biodiversity target"
  • DIVERSITAS Open Science Conference 2, 13 – 16 October 2009, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA   DIVERSITAS is an international, non-governmental programme, under the auspices of ICSU (International Council for Science), IUBS (International Union of Biological Sciences), SCOPE (Scientific Committee on
    Problems of the Environment), and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
  • Darwin200: Evolution and Biodiversity. Sept. 2009. Darwin, N.T. Plenary Keynote: New applications of the PD (phylogenetic diversity) measure, inspired by microbial ecology and DNA barcoding
  • INTECOL, Brisbane, August, 2009
    Enhancing environmental types using museum data and ED models improves assessments of climate/land-use change impacts
    Daniel P. Faith1, Kristen Williams2, Simon Ferrier3 and Ben Lawson4
    1Austalian Museum, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia; 2 CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Atherton, Queensland, Australia; 3CSIRO Entomology, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia; 4Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  • Invited presentation at: "Strategies in taxonomy: research in a changing world" (20-22 May 2009, Pruhonice, Czech Republic), hosted by The European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT). View the slides from my talk. 
  • Invited speaker/participant at the Arctic Conservation Science Workshop, hosted by WWF, March 18 - 22th, 2009, Abisko, Sweden.
  • Invited speaker for the marking of Darwin's birthday - at "Darwin Day" hosted by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and Society Sigma Xi in U.S.A., February, 2009. The symposium was titled "Darwin's Legacy: Evolutionary Approaches to World Challenges". read summary in Science blogs
  • BVVA INTERNATIONAL JURY: Dan Faith was a member of the jury for the Conservation Biology award within the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards. It is described as a new award scheme "comparable only to the Nobel prizes": The BBVA Foundation announces the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards, an international scheme recognizing scientific and artistic creation of excellence in eight areas: Basic Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics), Biomedicine, Ecology and Conservation Biology, Information and Communication Technologies; Economics, Finance and Management; Arts (Music, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture), Climate Change and, finally, Development Cooperation. The awards are funded with a total of 3.2 million euros, an amount exceeded only by the Nobel prizes.
  • DIVERSITAS SYMPOSIUM "EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION: SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS" (SÃO PAULO, 10-14 NOVEMBER 2008): Presentation: "Prospects for monitoring genetic and phylogenetic diversity at large spatial scales"

Research news

- Advice to the Atlas of Living Australia on the development the Spatial Analysis Toolkit
- Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grant
- Contribution for the electronic conference "Strategies in taxonomy: research in a changing world"

Selected recent research reports highlight the core research theme of biodiversity informatics:

Faith, D.P. (in press) Attempted tests of the surrogacy value of the ED environmental diversity measures highlight the need for corroboration assessment of surrogacy hypotheses Ecological Indicators

Faith, DP (2010) More Benefits from a Barometer of Life. Science Online, 24 Jun 2010

Hendry, A., Lohmann, L., Conti, E., Cracraft, J., Crandall, K., Faith, D.P, Häuser, C., Joly, C., Kogure, K., Larigauderie, A., Magallón, S., Moritz, C., Tillier, S., Zardoya, R., Prieur-Richard, A., Walther, B., Yahara, T., & Donoghue, M. (2010). Evolutionary biology in biodiversity science, conservation, and policy: a call to action Evolution  Volume: 64 Issue: 5 Pages: 1517-1528 DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.00947.x abstract

Faith, D.P., S. Magallón, A.P. Hendry, E. Conti, T. Yahara, and M.J. Donoghue. (2010). Evosystem Services: an evolutionary perspective on the links between biodiversity and human-well-being. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.

Mace, GM, W Cramer, S Diaz, DP Faith, A Larigauderie, P Le Prestre, M Palmer, C Perrings, RJ Scholes, M Walpole, BA Walther, JEM Watson and HA Mooney (2010) Biodiversity targets after 2010 Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 

Yahara T, M Donoghue, R. Zardoya, DP Faith and J. Cracraft (2010) Genetic diversity assessments in the century of genome science, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2010.03.008

Ashcroft, M.B., Gollan, J.R., Faith, D.P., Carter, G.A., Lassau, S.A., Ginn, S.G., Bulbert, M.W. & Cassis, G. (2010) Using Generalised Dissimilarity Models and many small samples to improve the efficiency of regional and landscape scale invertebrate sampling. Ecological Informatics, 5: 124-132. ScienceDirect Top 25 in area of Ecological Informatics, during early 2010.

Nipperess, DA., Faith, DP. & Barton, K. (2010) Resemblance in phylogenetic diversity among ecological assemblages. Journal of Vegetation Science (in press).

Faith D.P., Lozupone C.A., Nipperess D., Knight R. The Cladistic Basis for the Phylogenetic Diversity (PD) Measure Links Evolutionary Features to Environmental Gradients and Supports Broad Applications of Microbial Ecology’s “Phylogenetic Beta Diversity” Framework. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2009; 10(11):4723-4741.
http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/11/4723/pdf
 

Faith DP (2009) Phylogenetic triage, efficiency, and risk aversion. Trends in Ecology and Evolution

Barton, D.N., Faith, D.P. Rusch, G., Acevedo, H., Paniagua, L., Castro M. (2009) Environmental service payments: Evaluating biodiversity conservation trade-offs and cost efficiency in the Osa Conservation Area, Costa Rica, Journal of Environmental Management, 90: 901-911.

Donoghue, MJ, T Yahara, E Conti, J Cracraft, KA. Crandall, DP. Faith, C Häuser, AP. Hendry, C Joly, K Kogure, LG. Lohmann, SA. Magallón, C Moritz, S Tillier, R Zardoya, A Prieur-Richard, A Larigauderie, and BA. Walther. (2009) bioGENESIS: Providing an Evolutionary Framework for Biodiversity Science. DIVERSITAS Report N°6. 52 pp.


Ferrier S, Faith DP, Arponen, A., Drielsma M. (2009) Chapter 7 - Community-level approaches to spatial conservation prioritisation. Spatial Conservation Prioritisation Oxford University Press.

Mooers AØ, Faith DP, Maddison WP (2008) Converting Endangered Species Categories to Probabilities of Extinction for Phylogenetic Conservation Prioritization. PLoS ONE 3(11): e3700. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003700

Faith DP (2008) Threatened species and the preservation of phylogenetic diversity (PD): assessments based on extinction probabilities and risk analysis. Conservation Biology 22:1461-1470.

Faith DP, Ferrier, S., Williams, KJ (2008) Getting biodiversity intactness indices right: ensuring that "biodiversity" reflects "diversity" Global Change Biology 14, 207-217.

Faith DP (2008) GEO BON and the 2010 biodiversity target. pp.28-29. In Grant, F., Török, K., Kull, T. and Watt, A.D. (Eds.). European contribution to GEO BON. Report of the BioStrat e-conference, September 2008.

Faith, DP (2008) Phylogenetic diversity and conservation. Pp. 99-115. In (eds: SP Carroll and C Fox) Conservation Biology: Evolution in Action. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Andrefouet S, Costello MJ, Faith DP, Ferrier S, Geller GN, Höft R, Jürgens N, Lane MA, Larigauderie A, Mace G, Miazza S, Muchoney D, Parr T, Pereira HM, Sayre R, Scholes RJ, Stiassny MLJ, Turner W, Walther BA, Yahara T. (2008). The GEO Biodiversity Observation Network: Concept Document. GEO - Group on Earth Observations, Geneva, Switzerland. Full paper

Williams, Kristen J, Randal JL Storey, Stephen J Richards, Glenn Manion, Daniel P Faith, Simon Ferrier, Leeanne Alonso 30 November (2008) Identifying sites for multi-taxa surveys in Papua New Guinea: an application of the .NET Survey Gap Analysis Tool. A report prepared for Conservation International's Rapid Assessment Program, Centre for Applied Biodiversity Science, Arlington USA.

Williams, Kristen J, Daniel P Faith et al. (2006) Progress in defining the status and extent of a global high-biodiversity hotpot in Eastern Australia. Conservation Planning Symposium. Perth, Western Australia, 27-28 Sept 2006. Abstracts. pp 11-12.

Publications by Dr Dan  Faith

 

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