Gabrielle Koerich
Ecologist
University of Canterbury
PhD
Gabrielle Koerich is a post-doctoral fellow with the Antarctic Science Platform, working on understanding terrestrial species distributions in Antarctica. In her PhD, she explored how a warming climate will affect the distribution of Antarctic mosses across the continent. She used hybrid distribution models to understand how species respond to their environment and to forecast their geographical ranges under novel environmental states.
The aim of her work is to employ diverse mathematical tools that can improve forecasts of Antarctic biodiversity, as much of the quality of the data currently available hinders the use of more common models. Improved forecasts of how climate change will alter species' distributional ranges is central to guiding decision-making about conservation in Antarctica.