Moat, Justin F.
Job TitleHead of GIS Unit
DepartmentHerbarium, Library, Art & Archives
SectionGIS Unit, Biodiversity, Information and Economic Botany
Science Teams:
- Large-Scale Syntheses
- Madagascar
- Wet Tropics: Africa
- Wet Tropics: SE Asia
- Temperate Team
- Rubiaceae
- Drylands: Africa
- Restoration Ecology
- UK Overseas Territories
- Monocots II: Commelinids
- Myrtaceae
- Conventions and Policies
- Tropical America
- Millennium Seed Bank Partnership
Joined Kew: 1994
Foreign Language(s): None
Qualifications & Appointments
BSc, University College London, 1992
MSc, University College London, 1996
Role
Develop and manage the GIS unit, GIS projects and related research and science. Special interests in modeling, webmapping, vegetation mapping and conservation assessments.
To develop and manage the GIS Unit and GIS at RBG Kew: presenting data and producing tools for conservation and environmental monitoring. To be the central node for spatial information (contributing substantially to the delivery of the Breathing Planet Programme target 2 and 3 - mapping and prioritising and conserving what reminds) providing a GIS interface for conservation, taxonomy, systematics and phytogeography,
Special interest are in:
• Vegetation mapping (core research areas Madagascar, Africa and South East Asia) and area conservation assessments, using remote sensing and GIS techniques to give up-to-date and accurate vegetation mapping and vegetation change (temporally).
• Conservation assessments. Using herbarium specimens and GIS techniques (see GeoCAT) we can easily and quickly produce quantifiable, preliminary conservation assessment, for use in global assessments (See SRLI), taxon treatment, area assessments and towards full conservation assessments.
• Webmapping. Using the internet we can move much GIS functionally into browsers allowing simple GIS to be preformed and complex maps to be presented.
• Spatial analysis for species and climate modelling to pinpoint those habitats and plants that need attention most urgently.
Projects
- Baseline Data for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of Coffee Species
- Biodiversity inventory and monitoring to conserve critically threatened lowland forest in Sumatra
- Biogeography and Conservation of Myrtaceae
- CEPF Madagascar Vegetation Mapping - COMPLETED 2007
- Climate Change Science Policy
- Conservation Checklist of the Trees of Uganda
- Conservation Assessment Tracking System (CATS)
- Diversity of Neotropical Meliaceae
- Electronic Field Data Collection
- Field Guides: published and planned
- GeoCAT – Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool
- Guinea (Conakry): Developing botanical capacity, a National Herbarium and Red Data book
- iPlants (project completed 2006)
- Itremo Massif Protected Area Project
- Liberia GIS: National Plant Conservation Prioritisation
- Madagascar GIS
- The Plants of Mefou Proposed National Park, Yaoundé, Cameroon: A Conservation Checklist
- Evolution of Mimosoid Legume Pollen
- MSB Enhancement Project Part 1A: Species Targeting (Project completed 2008)
- Phylogenetics and conservation of Madagascan Euphorbia (Euphorbiaceae) - COMPLETED 2008
- Phylogenetic Diversity of the Malagasy Legumes: New Insights for the Conservation of the Malagasy Flora
- Restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Atlantic Forests of Brasil
- Rubiaceae of Madagascar
- Sampled Red List Index for Plants
- Searching for the Hosts of Coffee Berry Borer
- Thai Cyperaceae: Distribution and Conservation
- Enabling the People of Montserrat to Conserve the Centre Hills - Project completed (2006-09)
- Falkland Islands Plant Conservation - Project completed (2007-2009)
- Strengthening capacity for Species Action Planning in Montserrat
- Turks and Caicos Islands Pine Recovery Programme
- Vegetation mapping in the Geelvink Bay Papua, Indonesia
- World Checklist and Bibliography of Rubiaceae
Selected Recent Publications
Bachman, S., Moat, J., Hill, A., de la Torre, J. & Scott, B. (2011), Supporting Red List threat assessments with GeoCAT: Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool. Zookeys (in press).
Plants under pressure a global assessment. The first report of the IUCN Sampled Red List Index for Plants. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. 2010. [pdf]
Baena, S., Moat, J. & Forboseh (2010). Monitoring vegetation cover changes in Mount Oku and the The Ijim ridge (Cameroon) using satellite and aerial sensor detection. Systematics and Conservation of African Plants. 459-470.
Murray-Smith, C., Brummitt, N.A., Bachman, S.P., Oliveira-Filho, A.T., Nic Lughadha, E., Moat, J.F. & Lucas, E.J. (2009). Plant diversity hotspots in the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil. Conservation Biology 23(1): 151–163.
Moat J. & Smith P (2007). Atlas of the vegetation of Madagascar. Kew publishing, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Selected Earlier Publications
Nic Lughadha, E., Baillie, J., Barthlott, W., Brummitt, N.A., Cheek, M.R., Farjon, A., Govaerts, R., Hardwick, K.A., Hilton-Taylor, C., Meagher, T.R., Moat, J., Mutke, J., Paton, A.J., Pleasants, L.J., Savolainen, V., Schatz, G.E., Smith, P.P., Turner, I., Wyse-Jackson, P. & Crane, P.R. (2005). Measuring the fate of plant diversity: towards a foundation for future monitoring and opportunities for urgent action. Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B 360: 359-372.
Davies, T.J., Savolainen, V., Chase, M.W., Moat, J. & Barraclough, T.G. 2004. Environmental energy and evolutionary rates in flowering plants. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 271: 2195-2200. Abstract
Bachman, S., Baker, W.J., Brummitt, N., Dransfield, J. & Moat. J. (2004). Elevational gradients, area and tropical island diversity: an example from the palms of New Guinea. Ecography 27: 299–310.
Du Puy, D. J., Labat, J.-N., Rabevohitra, R., Villiers, R., Bosser, J.-F. & Moat, J. (2002). The Leguminosae of Madagascar. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Willis, F., J. Moat & A. Paton (2003). Defining a role for herbarium data in Red List assessments: a case study of Plectranthus from eastern and southern tropical. Biodiversity and Conservation 12(7): 1537–1552.
