I have particularly expertise with mammals, and although much of my research focuses on bats, my interests are broad and currently cover 3 areas of applied conservation science in the tropics:

Identifying areas of High Conservation Value under projections of land-use and climate change

My current fellowship research will inform biodiversity assessment in Southeast Asia by modelling mammal distributions over the main oil palm producing regions (Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay peninsula), and determining how patterns of species diversity will respond to scenarios of environmental change arising from land-use and climate changes. This research is funded by a Leverhulme Trust fellowship held jointly with Queen Mary University of London, with project partners in Indonesia and Malaysia. Outputs are designed to feed directly into the biodiversity components of HCV and REDD+ assessments, as well as wider conservation planning in the region.

Oil palm and biodiversity

With an international team of collaborators I work to evaluate ways in which the inevitable expansion in oil palm agriculture can be managed to avoid biodiversity losses. Recent reviews of impacts and mitigation of oil palm plantations appeared in Trends in Ecology and Evolution and CAB-Reviews. I also manage field projects evaluating the biodiversity value of riparian corridors and forest patches for bats in oil palm estates in Sumatra and Borneo.

Land-use change and rainforest fragmentation

My PhD study in peninsular Malaysia integrated community ecology and population genetic techniques to determine the conservation value of forest fragments. I am now continuing the community-level component of this work at the new Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems project in Sabah, where the responses of biodiversity to land-use change can be tracked as logged forests are actively being cleared for oil palm plantations.

Selected Publications

Struebig, MJ, Kingston, T, Petit, EJ et al. (2011) . Parallel declines in species and genetic diversity in tropical forest fragments. Ecol Lett vol. 14, (6) 582-590. link

Harrison M, Cheyne S, Darma F, Angan D, Limin S, Struebig MJ (2011) Hunting of flying foxes and perception of disease risk in Indonesian Borneo BIOL CONSERV. In press. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2011.06.021

Struebig, MJ, Paoli, G, Meijaard, E (2010) . A reality check for designer biofuel landscapes. Trends Ecol Evol vol. 25, (1) 7-8. link

Struebig, MJ, Kingston, T, Zubaid, A et al. (2009) . Conservation importance of limestone karst outcrops for Palaeotropical bats in a fragmented landscape. BIOL CONSERV vol. 142, (10) 2089-2096. link

Fitzherbert, EB, Struebig, MJ, Morel, A et al. (2008) . How will oil palm expansion affect biodiversity?. Trends Ecol Evol vol. 23, (10) 538-545. link

Full list of publications