School of Geography and the Environment

Research Summary

Climate change has been affecting species’ distributions worldwide. I am interested in assessing the potential impacts of climate change on Japanese biodiversity. My research aims at projecting the potential impact of climate change on species’ distributions and providing practical conservation recommendations, using forest trees as a case study. Forest covers about 70% of the land surface in Japan, and thus it is the largest terrestrial ecosystem with significant implications for biodiversity conservation. Many climate change impact studies have been carried out at various scales and in many countries in Europe and Northern America, but there have been few published assessments in Asian countries.

Applications of bioclimatic envelope models are often limited by available data sets, as it is often financially infeasible to collect new samples in geographically extensive areas. This was certainly the case for Japan, and as no single data were perfect, efforts were made to best utilise the data sets available. Thus, I first compare how the choice of data sets affects model projections and assess the degree of uncertainties in the model projections as a result of using alternative data sets. I then construct the bioclimatic envelope model, in a way that fits to the ecology of Japanese plant species, and taking advantage of state-of-art techniques from the international literature. I project the potential changes in the distributions on a range of tree species by 2100, assess their sensitivity and variability to climate change, and identify conservation priorities, such as vulnerable species or climatic refugia. Finally, I evaluate the effectiveness of protected area networks in Japan, in light of changing species’ distributions. The results will contribute to providing practical recommendations for conservation planning in Japan, as well as help deepening our understanding of climate change impacts on different regions and ecosystems.

My research is undertaken a part of a project of the Global Environmental Research on assessing the sensitivity and vulnerability of ecosystems to climate change (S-4), supported by Ministry of Environment (Japan). I acknowledge the Oxford University Clarendon Bursary for the provision of scholarship to study in Oxford University.

I got married last year so my surname has changed from ‘Ogawa’ to ‘Onishi’.

Personal profile

Professional experience

• Food and Agricultural Organizations of the United Nations (Rome).
• Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo (Tokyo).

Educational background

• DPhil, University of Oxford (Oxford) (Forestry and Forest Product Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan)
• MSc, Environmental Change and Management, University of Oxford (Oxford)
• Master in Environmental Development and Management, Australian National University (Canberra).
• BA, Macquarie University (Sydney).

For further and updated information, please see my personal website.