I started my Ph.D. project in October 2016. My Ph.D. research is about modelling species richness and habitat suitability for terrestrial reptiles in Saudi Arabia with particular attention to Tabuk Province. I will calibrate two distribution models i) using reptiles occurrences from Saudi Arabia (interpolation), and ii) using reptile occurrences from Egypt (transferability). The aim is to understand the factors affecting reptile spatial distribution in this under-studied region, and predict areas high species richness which might be of particular conservation value.

I conducted systematic field-work in summer 2017 & 2018 in Tabuk Province, SA, collecting data with which I will estimate the detectability and occupancy of different reptile species.