Richard Pearson is a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, where he is Director of Biodiversity Informatics Research at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, and Affiliated Faculty at the Richard Gilder Graduate School. Richard completed his Ph.D. in biogeography at the University of Oxford in 2004 and joined the AMNH in 2005. Richard’s research seeks to explain the distribution of species at large spatial scales, from landscape to continental, and to understand the processes by which distributions change over time. His research falls largely within the field of biogeography and addresses questions that span ecology, evolution and conservation. Key questions of interest concern the relationship between ecological niches and geographic distributions, and the impacts of climate change on biodiversity.

While Richard’s research is principally question-driven, he also develops and tests novel tools of analysis, including ecological niche models (species distribution models). These models make use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and data from a variety of sources, including natural history museum collections, recent field surveys, and remote sensing. Since Richard’s interests are primarily in understanding general ecological and evolutionary principles, his research is not confined to a particular type of organism, habitat or region. To date, he has studied amphibians, reptiles, birds, plants, and primates in Europe, Madagascar, North America, South Africa and the Arctic.

Richard organizes and teaches a course on species distribution modeling at the museum’s Southwestern Research Station (click here to visit the course website) and has made available teaching materials on the topic (available here). Richard also organizes a discussion group for researchers and students in the New York region who are interested in distribution modeling. He also teaches GIS and remote sensing at the AMNH’s Richard Gilder Graduate School.

Richard is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Biogeography.

To contact Richard, email: pearson 'at' amnh.org.

Representative Publications

Books:

Peterson, A.T., Soberón, J., Pearson, R.G., Anderson, R.P., Martinez-Meyer, E., Nakamura, M. and M.B. Araújo. 2011. Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions. Monographs in Population Biology, Princeton University Press.

Pearson, R.G. 2011. Driven to Extinction: The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity. Sterling, New York. (UK edition published by the Natural History Museum.)

Research Articles in Refereed Journals:

Fordham, D.A., Akçakaya, H.R., Araújo, M.B., Elith, J., Keith, D., Pearson, R.G., Auld, T., Mellin, C., Morgan, J.W., Regan, T., Tozer, M., Watts, M., White, M., Wintle, B., Yates, C. & Brook, B.W. 2012. Plant extinction risk under climate change: are forecast range shifts alone a good indicator of species vulnerability to global warming? Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02614.x.

Stanton, J. C., Pearson, R. G., Horning, N., Ersts, P. J. & Akçakaya, H. R. 2011. Combining static and dynamic landscape variables in predicting species' range shifts under climate change. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, doi: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2011.00157.x.

Robinson, L., Elith, J., Hobday, A., Pearson, R.G., Kendall, B.E., Possingham, H.P., Richardson, A.J. 2011. Pushing the limits in marine species distribution modelling: lessons from the land present challenges and opportunities. Global Ecology and Biogeography 20:789-802.

Brook, B.W., Akçakaya, H.R., Keith, D.A., Mace, G.M., Pearson, R.G., Araújo, M.B. 2009. Integrating bioclimate with population models to improve forecasts of species extinctions under climate change. Biology Letters 5:723-725.

Pearson, R.G. & Raxworthy, C.J. 2009. The evolution of local endemism in Madagascar: watershed vs. climatic gradient hypotheses evaluated by null biogeographic models. Evolution 63:959-967.

Raxworthy, C.J., Pearson, R.G., Zimkus, B., Reddy, S.B, Deo, A., Nussbaum, R.A. & Ingram, C. 2008. Continental speciation in Madagascar: contrasting biogeographic patterns of divergence in the Uroplatus leaf-tailed geckos species radiation. Journal of Zoology 275:423-440.

Keith, D., Akçakaya, R., Thuiller, W., Midgley, G., Pearson, R.G., Phillips, S.J., Regan, H, Araújo, M.B., Rebelo, A, G. 2008. Predicting extinction risks under climate change: coupling stochastic population models with dynamic bioclimatic habitat models. Biology Letters 4:560-563.

Raxworthy, C.J., Pearson, R.G., Rabibisoa, N., Rakotondrazafy, A.M., Ramanamanjato, J., Raselimanana, A.P., Wu, S., Nussbaum, R.A., & Stone, D. 2008. Extinction vulnerability of tropical montane endemism from warming and upslope displacement: a preliminary appraisal for the highest massif in Madagascar. Global Change Biology 14:1-18.

Heikkinen, R.K., Luoto, M., Virkkala, R., Pearson, R.G. & Körber, J-H. 2007. Biotic interactions improve prediction of boreal bird distributions at macro-scales. Global Ecology and Biogeography 16:754-763.

Raxworthy, C.J., Ingram, C., Rabibisoa, N. & Pearson, R.G. 2007. Applications of ecological niche modeling for species delimitation: a review and empirical evaluation using Day Geckos (Phelsuma) from Madagascar. Systematic Biology 56:907-923.

Hannah, L., Midgley, G., Andelman, S., Araújo, M.B., Hughes, G., Martínez-Meyer, E., Pearson, R.G. & Williams, P. 2007. Protected area needs in a changing climate. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 5:131-138.

Pearson, R.G., Raxworthy, C.J., Nakamura, M. & Peterson, A.T. 2007. Predicting species’ distributions from small numbers of occurrence records: a test case using cryptic geckos in Madagascar. Journal of Biogeography 34:102-117.

Pearson, R.G. 2006. Climate change and the migration capacity of species. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21:111-113.

Pearson, R.G., Thuiller, W., Araújo, M.B., Brotons, L., Martínez-Meyer, E., McClean, C., Miles, L., Segurado, P., Dawson, T.P. & Lees, D. 2006.  Model-based uncertainty in species’ range prediction. Journal of Biogeography 33:1704-1711.

Araújo, M.B., Thuiller, W. & Pearson, R.G. 2006. Climate warming and the decline of amphibians and reptiles in Europe. Journal of Biogeography 33:1712-1728.

Del Barrio, G., Harrison, P.A., Berry, P.M., Butt, N., Sanjuan, M., Pearson, R.G. & Dawson, T.P. 2006. Integrating multiple modelling approaches to predict the potential impacts of climate change on species distributions in contrasting regions: comparison and implications for policy. Environmental Science and Policy 9:129-147.

Liu, C., Berry P.M., Dawson T. P. & Pearson, R.G. 2005. Selecting thresholds of occurrence in the prediction of species distributions. Ecography 28:385-393.

Pearson, R.G. & Dawson, T.P. 2005. Long-distance plant dispersal and habitat fragmentation: identifying conservation targets for spatial landscape planning under climate change. Biological Conservation 123:389-401.

Araújo, M.B., Pearson, R.G., Thuiller, W. & Erhard, M. 2005. Validation of species-climate impact models under climate change. Global Change Biology 11:1504-1513.

Araújo, M.B. & Pearson, R.G. 2005. Equilibrium of species’ distributions with climate. Ecography 28:693-695.

Williams, P.H., Hannah, L., Andelman, S.J, Midgley, G.F., Araújo, M.B., Hughes, G., Manne, L.L., Martinez-Meyer, E. & Pearson, R.G. 2005. Planning for climate change: identifying minimum-dispersal corridors for the Cape Proteaceae. Conservation Biology 19:1063-1074.

Pearson, R.G. & Dawson, T.P. 2004. Bioclimate envelope models: what they detect and what they hide – response to Hampe (2004). Global Ecology and Biogeography 13:471-473.

Thuiller, W., Araújo, M.B., Pearson, R.G., Whittaker, R.J., Brotons, L. & Lavorel, S. 2004. Biodiversity conservation: uncertainty in predictions of extinction risk. Nature 430:33 (doi: 10.1038/Nature02716).

Pearson, R.G., Dawson T.P. & Liu, C. 2004. Modelling species distributions in Britain: a hierarchical integration of climate and land-cover data. Ecography 27: 285-298.

Pearson, R.G. & Dawson, T.P. 2003. Predicting the impacts of climate change on the distribution of species: are bioclimate envelope models useful? Global Ecology and Biogeography 12:361-371.

Pearson, R.G., Dawson, T.P., Berry, P.M. & Harrison, P.A. 2002. SPECIES: a Spatial Evaluation of Climate Impact on the Envelope of Species. Ecological Modelling 154:289-300.

Berry, P. M., Dawson, T.P., Harrison, P.A. & Pearson, R.G. 2002.  Modelling potential impacts of climate change on the bioclimatic envelope of species in Britain and Ireland. Global Ecology and Biogeography 11:453-462.