Research overview

The overarching goal of my research is to understand how human activities drive biodiversity loss. With big and open data in ecology, we can now address ecological questions or conduct ecological forecasts with much higher power, provided that the quantitative methods used are appropriate. Thus, I am interested in understanding strength and weakness of different methods, and even develop new methods to analyze biodiversity data. Consequently, these advances can lead to a better understanding of processes shaping communities, providing the theoretical foundations for forecasting biodiversity loss under human activities.

How to measure and analyze diversity data?

Determinants of diversity metrics based on occurrence and behavioral records (Lo et al. 2021).

One of my main interests is to leverage new data sources or develop novel statistical analyses to gain extra insights from noisy ecological data and obscure ecological processes. Previously, I integrated trait and co-occurrence analyses to better understand the ecological impacts of invasive species on native biodiversity (Wong et al. 2021). I also used novel metrics to capture behavioral diversity in ecological communities, showing the importance of environments to species behaviors (Lo et al. 2021). I also developed a beta-diversity metric that is insensitive to sampling biases, which can be particularly useful when examining how environmental conditions drive beta diversity (Tsang et al. 2023).

Selected relevant publications

Lo, F. H. Y., T. P. N. Tsang, T. C. Bonebrake. Behavior-partitioned diversity reveals differential habitat values of gardens to butterfly communities. Ecological Applications 31: e02331.

Wong, M. K. L., T. P. N. Tsang, O. T. Lewis, B. Guénard. 2021. Trait-similarity and trait-hierarchy jointly determine fine-scale spatial associations of resident and invasive ant species. Ecography 44:589-601

Tsang, T. P. N., T. C. Bonebrake, L. C. Ponisio, M. W. Cadotte. Controlling for the effects of environmental availability when testing how the environment determines community compositional uniqueness. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. [Github]

How do species coexist?

How competing hypotheses on trait relationships between species can jointly determine their co-occurrence (Wong et al. 2021)

Ecologists have long been fascinated by questions about mechanisms regulating species coexistence, although these remain poorly understood. My research ranges from empirically assessing theories in community ecology (Tsang & Bonebrake 2017), as well as synthesizing competing theories to provide theoretical breakthrough (Wong et al. 2021).

I am currently examining how human activities create microclimatic refugia and facilitate species existence in climatically harsh regions.

Selected relevant publications

Tsang, T. P. N., and T. C. Bonebrake. 2017. Contrasting roles of environmental and spatial processes for common and rare urban butterfly species compositions. Landscape Ecology 32:47-57.

How do human activities affect ecological communities?

Modelling rare species distribution under different climatic conditions in Cameroon (Kameni et al. 2023). Trait and occurrence analyses were used to model their distribution. Yellow and green areas indicate unsuitable and suitable habitats indicated by both approaches, respectively. Blue and black areas represent suitable habitats indicated by one approach only.

The global environment is experiencing unprecedented level of human activities, and research has reported that biodiversity being heavily affected. I am interested in assessing biodiversity decline at different spatial scales, as well as providing forecasts on future biodiversity (Tsang et al. 2019). I also uncover other ecological impacts of environmental changes, ranging from species diet (Tsang et al. 2020) to community assembly (Tsang et al. 2017).

An ongoing project is to understand how land use changes affect global bee diversity.

Selected relevant publications

Tsang, T. P. N., B. Guénard, T. C. Bonebrake. 2020. Reduced carnivory in exotic tree plantations enhances protein-limitation and decreases food exploitation of omnivorous ants. Journal of Animal Ecology 89:1941-1951

Tsang, T. P. N., E. E. Dyer, and T. C. Bonebrake. 2019. Alien species richness is unbounded in all but the most urbanized bird communities. Ecography 42:1426-1435

Tsang, T. P. N., and T. C. Bonebrake. 2017. Contrasting roles of environmental and spatial processes for common and rare urban butterfly species compositions. Landscape Ecology 32:47-57.