Brendan Wintle

Senior Research Fellow
Deputy Director, Applied Environmental Decision Analysis (AEDA)

Hi. I'm a ecological modeller who's interested in decisions, policy, uncertainty, cute furry animals and the role models and decision theory can play in all of the above. I'm an ARC Fellow and Deputy Director of a Commonwealth (DEWHA) funded research hub known as AEDA (Applied Environmental Decision Analysis). The roles are complimentary in that my current research interests are in the application of formal decision making methods (decision theory) in conservation and environmental management; the core business of AEDA.  In the past I’ve researched and published in spatial modelling, population viability analysis (population modelling), Bayesian statistical methods, adaptive management, environmental sampling and monitoring and I maintain a interest in these areas. I’m particularly interested in methods for characterising and dealing with uncertainty, which is partly why I’ve gravitated towards decision theory.  I have a keen interest in public policy in the area biodiversity conservation and environmental management. I’m currently a member of the Australian Forestry Standard Reference Committee, a Forest Stewardship Reference Committee, a commonwealth working group developing the MERI (Monitoring, Evaluation, Review and Improvement) strategy for the Caring for Country program, and a range of other reference groups to do with biodiversity conservation and adaptive management. I co-host a two day Bayesian statistics for Ecologists course with Mick McCarthy. I completed my PhD in 2003; "Dealing with uncertainty in wildlife habitat models" (below).

Short CV

Research Funding

Publications

Collaborations

PhD Research

Other Links

Current and Past Students

Yacov Salomon is interested in applications of maximum entropy theory in ecology and decision theory.
 


Michelle Ensbey is investigating the robustness of various wildlife abundance estimation techniques.  She tested out the N-mixture model using simulations and Northern Bobwhite survey data. She's now working with some interesting alpine pygmy possum data.

Beth Crase is starting a project on the potential impacts of climate-change mediated sea level rises on mangrove communities in northern Australia.

Georgia Garrard is working on estimating the detectability of rare plants with the aim of developing minimum survey requirement protocols for impact assessments and other conservation applications.  We have developed a novel method for estimating the average time to detection for plant species using spatially replicated timed surveys. She has a paper in press with Austral Ecology on this work.

Sacha Jellinek is working with Kirsten Parris on estimating the habitat value of restored and remnant vegetation corridors for a range of frogs, lizards and other species.

Pavilina Shukuroglou is working on bird conservation in urban Melbourne.

Peter Wilson is based at MacQuarie University and is evaluating methods for estimating abundance from occupancy data.

Darren Southwell recently completed his hons project looking at the impact of habitat model uncertainty on the prediction of population viability analysis models and management recommendations based on those models.  Darren used the southern brown bandicoot as a case study. His paper is in press with Conservation Biology.

Sam Citroen recently completed her hons year project looking at the potential of 'risk based monitoring' as a pro-active alternative/complement to passive (and expensive) biodiversity monitoring. She focussed used the Yellow Bellied Glider in the Eden region of southern NSW as a case study, working with some monitoring data generously provided by Rod Kavanagh.

Research Funding

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PhD Research

I finished my PhD 2003. The primary was to improve statistical methods for predicting the distribution of wildlife in forests.  The primary motivation for wanting to predict the distribution of wildlife is to provide managers with a tool for managing wildlife habitat, the idea being that if we can predict where something is (or at least where the best habitat is) we can better accommodate its needs when making planning and management decisions.

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Publications

Published and in press:

McDonald-Madden, E., Gordon, A., Wintle, B. A., Grantham, H., Walker, S., Carvalho, S., Bottrill, M., Joseph, L., Ponce, R., Stewart, R. and Possingham, H. P. 2009. Reporting on 'true' conservation progress. Science 323:43 - 44.

Bekessy S, Wintle BA, Gordon A, Chishold R, Veneir L, Pearce J. 2009. Dynamic landscape metapopultion models and sustainable forestry. In Millspaugh, J. J., & F. R. Thompson, III, eds. 2009. Models for Planning Wildlife Conservation in Large Landscapes. Elsevier Science, San Diego, California, USA. 674 pages.

Wintle, B. A. and D. B. Lindenmayer. 2008. Adaptive risk management for certifiably sustainable forest management. Forest Ecology and Management 256:1311-1319.

Wintle, B. A. 2008. Adaptive management, population modeling and uncertainty analysis for assessing the impacts of noise on cetacean populations. International Journal of Comparative Psychology 20:237-249.

Wintle B. A. and D. C. Bardos. 2006. Modelling species habitat relationships with spatially autocorrelated observation data. Ecological Applications. 16: 1945-1958

Wintle B. A., R. P. Kavanagh, M. A. McCarthy and M. A. Burgman. 2005. The magnitude and management consequences of false negative observation error in surveys of arboreal marsupials and large forest owls. Journal of Wildlife Management. 69: 905-917.

Wintle B. A., R. J. Elith and Potts, J. 2005. Fauna habitat modelling and mapping; A review and case study in the Lower Hunter Central Coast region of NSW. Austral Ecology. 30: 719-738

Wintle B. A., Bekessy S. A., Veneir L. A. and Pearce J. L. 2005. The utility of dynamic landscape meta-population models for sustainable forest management: the Brown Creeper. Conservation Biology. 19:1930-1943

Wintle B. A., M. A. McCarthy, K. P. Parris and M. A. Burgman. 2004. Precision and bias of methods for estimating point survey detection probabilitiesal. Ecological Applications. 14: 703-712

Wintle B. A., M. A. McCarthy, C. T. Volinsky and R. P. Kavanagh. 2003. The use of Bayesian model averaging to better represent uncertainty in the predictions of ecological models. Conservation Biology. 17: 1579-1590.

Garrard, G. E., S. A. Bekessy, M. A. McCarthy and B. A. Wintle. 2008. When have we looked hard enough? A novel method for setting minimum survey effort protocols for flora surveys. Austral Ecology 33:986-998.

Chades, I., E. McDonald-Madden, M. A. McCarthy, B. A. Wintle and H. P. Possingham. 2008. Save, survey or surrender: optimal management of a cryptic threatened specie. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 105:13936–13940.

Bekessy, S. A. and B. A. Wintle. 2008. Using carbon investment to grow the biodiversity bank. Conservation Biology 22:510-513.

Duncan, D. and B. A. Wintle. 2008. Towards adaptive management of native vegetation in regional landscapes. in C. Pettit, et al., eds. Landscape Analysis and Visualisation. Spatial Models for Natural Resource Management and Planning. Springer - Verlag GmbH, Berlin.

Ferrier, S. and B. A. Wintle. 2008. Quantitative approaches to spatial conservation prioritization: matching the solution to the need. in A. Moilanen, K. Wilson, and H. P. Possingham, editors. Quantitative conservation planning. Elsevier, Helsinki.

Bode, M., T. Rout, C. Hawkins and B. A. Wintle. 2008, in press. Efficiently locating conservation boundaries: Searching for the Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease front. Biological Conservation.

Betts, M. G., L. Ganio, M. Huso, N. Som, F. Huettman, J. Bowman and B. A. Wintle. 2008 in press. The ecological importance of space in species distribution models: A comment on Dormann et al. Ecography.

Gibbons, P., et al. 2008 in press. Some practical suggestions for improving engagement between researchers and policy-makers in natural resource management. Ecological Management and Restoration.

Martin, T. G., B. A. Wintle, S. Low Choy, P. Kuhnert, J. M. Rhodes, S. A. Field & H. P. Possingham. 2005. Zero tolerance ecology: improving ecological inference by modeling the sources of excess zero observations. Ecology Letters.8: 1235-1246

Moilanen, A., A. M. A. Franco, R. I. Early, R. Fox, B. A. Wintle & C. D. Thomas. 2005. Prioritizing multiple-use landscapes for conservation: methods for large multi-species planning problems. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 272: 1885-1891

Moilanen, A. and B. A. Wintle. 2006. Uncertainty analysis favours selection of spatially aggregated reserve structures. Biological Conservation. 1290:427-434

Moilanen, A. and B.A. Wintle. 2007. Quantitative reserve network aggregation via the boundary quality penalty. Conservation Biology. 21:355-364

Fox, D.R., Y. Ben Haim, K. Hayes, M.A. McCarthy, B.A. Wintle and P.Dunstan. 2007. An info-gap approach to power and sample size. Environmentrics. 18:189-207.

Venier, L. A., J. L. Pearce, B. A. Wintle and S. A. Bekessy. 2007. Future forests and indicator species population models. The Forest Chronicle 83:36-40.

Moilanen, A., M.C. Runge, J. Elith, A. Tyre, Y. Carmel, E. Fegraus, B.A. Wintle, M.A. Burgman and Y. Ben Haim. 2007. Planning for robust reserve networks using uncertainty analysis. Ecological Modelling. 199:115-124.

Chisholm, R.A. and B.A. Wintle. 2007. Landscape stochasticity in population viability analysis. Ecological Applications. 17:317-322.

Moilanen, A., B.A. Wintle, J. Elith and M.A. Burgman. 2006. Uncertainty analysis for large-scale reserve selection. Conservation Biology. 20:1688-1697.

Walshe, T.V., B.A. Wintle, F. Fidler and M.A. Burgman. 2007. Use of confidence intervals to demonstrate performance against forest management standards. Forest Ecology & Management. 247:237-245.

Southwell, D. M., A. Lechner, T. Coates and B. A. Wintle. 2008. The sensitivity of population viability analysis to uncertainty about habitat requirements: Implications for the management of the endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot. Conservation Biology 22:1045-1054.

Bekessy S. A., Wintle B. A., Banks J., McCarthy M. A., Dorrogh J. and Lowe K. 2007. Tools for biodiversity conservation planning in rural landscapes. Journal of Environmental Management. In press.

Peacock, R. J. and B. A. Wintle. 2006. Clearing of native vegetation (conversion) for plantation establishment A discussion paper for the Australian Forestry Standard Technical Reference Committee. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of Australia. 36:8-18.

Reports:

Wintle, B.A. 2008. A review of biodiversity investment prioritization tools. A report to the Biodiversity Expert Working Group toward the development of the Investment Framework for Environmental Resources.

Burgman, M. A., Wilson, K. & Wintle, B. A. 2007. Review of the Australian Natural Heritage Assessment Tool. Australian Centre for Excellence in Risk Analysis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

Walshe, T. V., and B. A. Wintle. 2006. Guidelines for communicating performance against standards in forest management. Forest & Wood Products Research & Development Corporation, Canberra.

Wintle, B. A., Elith, R. J. Yamada, K. & Burgman, M. A. 2004. Lower Hunter & Central Coast Regional Biodiversity Conservation Strategy fauna survey and mapping project, Module 2: Habitat modelling and conservation requirements. LHCCREMS, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.

Fox, J. C., T. J. Regan, S. A. Bekessy, B. A. Wintle et al. 2004. Linking landscape ecology and management to population viability analysis. University of Melbourne, Melbourne.

Bekessy, S. A., B. A. Wintle, C. Riddinghton, et al. 2007. Change and Continuity in Peri-Urban Australia: Trends in Biodiversity and Vegetation. Land &Water Australia, Canberra.

In review:

McDonald-Madden, E., W. Probert, C. Hauser, M. Runge, M. Jones, J. Moore, T. Rout, P. Vesk, H. P. Possingham, and B. A. Wintle. in review. Learning latency: The use of active adaptive management to conserve an iconic threatened species. Journal of Applied Ecology.

Ensbey M., Wintle B.A., Tyre A.J., McCarthy M.A. in review. Detection probability and abundance estimation for the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). Ecological Applications.

Bekessy, S. A., B. A. Wintle, A. Gordon, J. C. Fox, et al. in prep. Modelling human impacts on the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax fleayi). Austral Ecology.

Gordon A., B. A. Wintle, S. A. Bekessy, J. L. Pearce &  L. Veneir. in prep. A dynamic landscape meta-population model evaluating forest management scenarios in red-backed salamander habitat in Ontario, Canada. Biological Conservation.

Burgman, M. A., Wintle, B. A., Thompson, C. A., Moilanen, A., Runge, M.C. and Ben-Haim, Yakov. in prep. Uncertainty analysis for Bayes nets: reconciling cost and environmental benefit in invasive species management.

Bode, M. & Wintle, B. A. in review. Building an efficient conservation fence.

In preparation:

Kearney M., Wintle, B. A., & Porter W. in prep. Independent species distribution models make robust predictions of climate change impacts on a folivorous mammal.

Wintle, B. A., G. Davies & M. A. McCarthy. in prep. The Meager Manager: Optimal natural resource management and monitoring based on Bayesian decision rules.

Wintle, B. A., R. Chisholm, J. Carey, D. Duncan, R. P. Kavanagh, D. Keith & M. A. Burgman. in prep. Detecting declines in populations of rare and threatened species; designing a powerful sampling strategy.

En Chee, Y., and B. A. Wintle. in prep. A Bayesian framework for monitoring and managing population control.

Citroen, S., R. P. Kavanagh, and B. A. Wintle. in prep. Exploring the Utility of Risk Based Monitoring Approaches; Monitoring the Yellow-bellied Glider in South Eastern Australia

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General Interest :

Bekessy, S. A. &  B. A. Wintle. 2006. More than one route to PhD success. Nature 443:720

Brendan Wintle & Sarah Bekessy, Age opinion article: Time for clear goal posts on Gunn's plan.

Age article by Melissa Fyffe: Urban sprawl encroachs on endangered species.

Age article by Natalie Kotsios: Logging may wipe out wedge-tailed eagle.

Wintle (Radio National):  Nature's numbers

Collaborations

I enjoy collaborations with a number of people including researchers in the Melbourne Node of AEDA; Mick McCarthy, Kirsten Parris, Michael Bode, Joslin Moore. With Mick I've worked on a bunch of modelling projects including a lots of work on detectability and Bayesian stats. I hold a few grants with Sarah Bekessy and we worked together on a range of things including conservation planning in the urban fringe. I have ongoing collaborations with Atte Moilanen, Jane Elith (long time colleague and office buddy), Mark Burgman (my PhD Supervisor), Hugh Possingam (Director of AEDA CERF), David Lindenmayer, Yung En Chee, David Duncan, ... , I do like to collaborate.  My 'in review' and 'in prep' papers indicate current collaborations.

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Other Links

The Habitat Modelling Tutorial: In a recent publication (Wintle et al. 2005) we presented a general framework for developing and evaluating wildlife habitat models. In that paper we offer a simple tutorial for doing so in R.

A not-so recent collaboration with Mick McCarthy resulted in the development of a spread-sheet calculator (detection rate estimator.xls) for working out detection probabilities and site occupancy proportions from observations of the presence or absence of a species derived from repeat visits to survey locations.  We discuss the issues associated with estimating detection rates in paper "Precision and bias of methods for estimating point survey detection probabilities". 

Terry Walshe and I are kicking off an adaptive management strategy for cattle grazing in seabird habitat on Gabo Island, a place that we enjoyed with friends a few years ago.  This is the view from the balcony of the Gabo homestead. 

Ben Boxshall bought a big block of farming land near Bendigo to plant native hard-woods and acacias.  We all went up to help him plant the trees and build his shed.  Nice sunset, that's for sure.

Living in Ontario during 2003 (in the middle of winter) was a bit of a shock to the system. But there's no doubt that it is a beautiful place.  Snowshoeing across lake Superior was a highlight.

Finally, I love Leunig's impression of John Howards foreign policy.