Jill Jankowski, PhD
Assistant Professor

Biodiversity Research Centre
&
Department of Zoology

University of British Columbia



Contact Information

Department of Zoology
6270 University Blvd.
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Biodiversity Research Centre, Room 118

(604) 827-3871

jankowsk(at)biodiversity(dot)ubc(dot)ca

For Prospective Students:

I will be accepting students starting in September 2012.  If you are interested in joining the lab, please contact me.  I ask that all prospective students send a CV and a statement of research interest.  This statement should: (1) describe your experience and why you are interested in working with me, (2) tell me a bit about who you are and your motivation for pursuing a graduate degree, and (3) outline a research project that you would like to pursue (this can be tentative).

Research Overview:    

My research is centered on the study of diversity patterns and species' range boundaries in tropical mountains. Species found in these regions show thin, belt-like distributions along mountain chains, ranging hundreds or thousands of kilometers in latitude, but only a handful of kilometers in elevation.  This characteristic of species' ranges in tropical montane forests makes these global biodiversity hotspots exceptionally susceptible to anthropogenic climate change and fragmentation.  Our ability to evaluate the threats that species face with such environmental change hinges upon understanding the abiotic and biotic determinants of their distributions. 

My research focuses on montane birds, including the use of high-resolution survey data to map species distributions and specific tests of mechanisms that underlie species' range boundaries.  I conduct this research in two regions of the Neotropics:  Monteverde, in the Tilarán Mountains of Costa Rica, and Manu National Park, located in the southern Peruvian Andes.  My collaborators and I are developing a range of projects in both study areas that investigate habitat associations, interspecific interactions, and physiological tolerances of species in hopes of understanding the factors that determine where species are found in these complex landscapes.

I'm also collaborating with faculty, graduate and undergraduate students on projects related to avian ecology and evolution.  These approaches include using phylogenetic relationships and ecological data to understand forces structuring communities, using host-parasite relationships to shed light on evolutionary histories of avian groups, and investigating ecological pressures that affect characteristics of bird song.  

Click here to learn more about each of these projects.

Other Important Links:

Biodiversity Research Centre and Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia.

Florida Museum of Natural History and the Department of Biology at the University of Florida

Purdue Climate Change Research Center and the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University