Skip to content
University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

Jonathan David

Academic Profile

Jon David is a researcher working for the EU freshwater science and policy project, BioFresh. He holds an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford and a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Warwick. Prior to joining BioFresh, Jon worked for the forensic company Orchid Cellmark assisting with analysis of specific genetic diseases in the UK sheep population, alongside designing several webpages for international scientific symposiums. His MSc thesis focussed on the current status, distribution and population trends of freshwater megafauna, which involved extensive liaison with members of BioFresh and the wider environmental NGO community. He conducted his undergraduate dissertation on the effects that hurricanes have on coral bleaching events in the Caribbean.

In 2009, Jon was successful in securing grants from both the University of Warwick and the Royal Geographical Society to conduct a research project focussed on evaluating existing marine protected areas as a model for Malagasy coastal community development.

Current Research

BioFresh is an EU-funded international project that aims to build a global information platform for scientists and ecosystem managers with access to all available databases describing the distribution, status and trends of global freshwater biodiversity. Jon is working in Work Package 5 of Biofresh, which seeks to analyses the effects of climate change on freshwater biodiversity. He is tasked with developing an index that describes the vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to climate change at a global and regional (European) scale. This task involves the development of an ecological spatial hierarchy needed to delineate freshwater ecosystems at a global level. In addition it requires employing state-of-the-art climate simulation models to predict future scenarios of climate change, hydrological flows and vulnerability.

Further to these commitments, Jon's current research interests focus on the development of statistical methods to analyse long-term time-series data, alongside addressing conservation issues facing freshwater megafauna.

Publications

In preparation
  • David, J.N.W. and David, W.I.F. (in prep.) A new method for analysing trends in species population time-series.
  • David, J.N.W, Freyhof, J., Darwall, W., Holland, R., Jepson, P. and David, W.I.F. (in prep.) Freshwater Megafauna - Global status, distribution and population trends.
  • David, J.N.W, Sheppard, C. and Price, A. (in prep.) Examination of the potentially mitigating effects of hurricanes on coral reef bleaching in the Caribbean.
Conference Presentations
  • Presentation of MSc dissertation thesis - BioFresh Climate Change and Invasives Modelling Meeting at the University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France. July 2010.
  • Presentation and chairing discussion of Climate Vulnerability Index - BioFresh Project Meeting; Searching for Freshwater Pearls, Barcelona, Spain. February 2011.