Faculty
Kai Chan
Name: Dr Kai Chan
Office: IRES, UBC AERL 438 - 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver BC, V6T 1Z4 Canada
Email: kaichan@ires.ubc.ca
Phone: 604-822-0400
Fax: 604-822-9250
Website: ConCISE Research profile
Associated Faculty; Canada Research Chair (tier 2) & Assistant Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability
Biography
I am a Canada Research Chair (tier 2) and associate professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at University of British Columbia. I do research in two main areas: (1) ecosystem services and biodiversity, and (2) the ecological and evolutionary underpinnings of invasions and infestations; I also have an interest in applied environmental ethics. (1) Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect benefits that people derive from their interactions with ecosystems, which are so critical for sustaining and fulfilling human life. Our ignorance of these services has resulted in management for one natural resource at a time, which has degraded supporting, regulating, and cultural services and also the biodiversity upon which these services are based. (2) Invasive species and population outbreaks of native species cost society dearly and devastate ecosystems. Yet we know relatively little about how we can guard against these disruptions preemptively, bolstering the critical ecosystem service of infestation resistance. If you're a prospective student, please see my group page at ConCISE Research and the faculty descriptions at the IRES page--those pages are kept more up-to-date. Before UBC, I was a postdoctoral fellow with Gretchen Daily and Paul Ehrlich at the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) at Stanford University. My research there had two major components: countryside biogeography (the study of biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes) and conservation planning/finance (the design of conservation tools). I was a Ph.D. student under Simon Levin at Princeton University, where I studied the process of diversification, and collaborated with Brian Moore. I was also a policy fellow, and did ethics research with Peter Singer. Our responsibilities to current and future persons and the natural world call for us all to be social and environmental advocates and activists. At Princeton, I coordinated Greening Princeton; at Stanford, I co-coordinated scienceinpolicy.org (to improve the use of science in policy); and for three years I served as a columnist at the Vancouver Metro (Eco-Minded). I am now a director on the board of the BC chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), and a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program.
Selected Publications
Ecological Modeling 2011
See All
A recent selection.
Chan, K. M. A., N. C. Ban and R. Naidoo (accepted). Integrating conservation planning with human communities, ecosystem services, and economics. Shaping the Future: Conservation Planning from the Bottom up - A Practical Guide for the 21st Century. L. Craighead, C. Convis and F. Davis. Redlands, CA, ESRI Press.
Espinosa-Romero, M. J., K. M. A. Chan, T. McDaniels and D. M. Dalmer (2011). "Structuring decision-making for ecosystem-based management." Marine Policy 35(5): 575-583. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VCD-52BF9MM-1/2/e1b0d36f3...
Espinosa-Romero, M. J., E. J. Gregr, C. Walters, V. Christensen and K. M. A. Chan (2011). "Representing mediating effects and species reintroductions in Ecopath with Ecosim." Ecological Modelling 222(9): 1569-1579. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VBS-52CSNRJ-1/2/5b38773cc...
Gregr, E. J. and K. M. A. Chan (2011). "Making science relevant to marine ecosystem-based management." Biological Conservation 144(2): 670-671. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V5X-51NMYGH-2/2/5bbcb5d2f...
Chan, K. M. A. and M. Ruckelshaus (2010). "Characterizing changes in marine ecosystem services." F1000 Biology Reports 2(54). http://f1000biology.com/reports/10.3410/B2-54
Hagerman, S., H. Dowlatabadi, K. M. A. Chan and T. Satterfield (2010). "Integrative propositions for adapting conservation policy to the impacts of climate change." Global Environmental Change 20(2): 351-362. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VFV-4XX26C1-1/2/25724e930...
Luck, G. W., K. M. A. Chan and J. P. Fay (2009). "Protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity in the world's watersheds." Conservation Letters 2: 179-188. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00064.x (pdf)
Chan, K. M. A., E. J. Gregr and S. Klain (2009). "A critical course change." Science 325(5946): 1342-1343. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5946/1342
Manolis, J. C., K. M. Chan, M. E. Finkelstein, S. Stephens, C. R. Nelson, J. B. Grant and M. P. Dombeck (2009). "Leadership: a New Frontier in Conservation Science." Conservation Biology 23(4): 879-886. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01150.x
Nelson, E., G. Mendoza, J. Regetz, et al. (2009). "Modeling multiple ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, commodity production, and tradeoffs at landscape scales." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(1): 4-11. http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/080023
Hagerman, S. M. and K. M. A. Chan (2009). "Climate change and biodiversity conservation: impacts, adaptation strategies and future research directions." F1000 Biology Reports 1(16). http://f1000biology.com/reports/10.3410/b1-16/
Chan, K. M. A. and G. C. Daily (2008). "The payoff of conservation investments in tropical countryside." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(49): 19342-19347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0810522105
Chan, K. M. A. (2008). "Value and advocacy in conservation biology: Crisis discipline or discipline in crisis?" Conservation Biology 22(1): 1-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00869.x (pdf)
Chan, K. M. A. (2008). "Conservation: in a rut, we need rut-inspired solutions." Nature 451(7175): 127-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/451127a (pdf)
Armsworth, P. R., K. M. A. Chan, G. C. Daily, P. R. Ehrlich, C. Kremen, T. H. Ricketts and M. A. Sanjayan (2007). "Ecosystem-service science and the way forward for conservation." Conservation Biology 21(6): 1383-1384. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00821.x (pdf)
