PhD Thesis Thea Kristiansen
A field-based investigation of palm species abundance, distribution and richness in the western Amazon
On Monday 13 December at 14.15, Thea Kristiansen defended her PhD dissertation with a lecture entitled Palm species diversity in the western Amazon at a public defence at the Department of Biological Sciences, Aarhus University.
Summary:
The tropical rainforest is one of the places on Earth that contains the most species of all. Precisely how many species exist – and where and why they are found – remain unanswered questions to a great extent. This PhD project studied palms in the western Amazon, and contributed to the collection of a comprehensive dataset with counts of species from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The size of the dataset has made it possible to analyse processes on different spatial scales and thereby contribute to more precise basic knowledge. The results show that the most widespread species have broad tolerance, and that environmental factors, limited distribution and climatic stability can have an impact on the incidence, biodiversity and species composition of the palms.
Thea completed her PhD at the Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Aarhus Faculty of Science and Technology, Aarhus University.
