The Biodiversity and Climate Change research theme at the KRC focuses on understanding how ecological communities respond to environmental variation in one of the world’s most climatically extreme dryland ecosystems. This work builds on decades of species-focused research at the KRC by expanding the lens to multi-trophic biodiversity, interspecific interactions, and ecosystem-scale patterns of change.
The cornerstone of this effort is the Kalahari Biodiversity Project, a large-scale, collaborative initiative that investigates how climate and land use influence biodiversity across spatial and temporal scales. By integrating above-ground and below-ground monitoring — from camera traps to soil invertebrate sampling and vegetation surveys — this research provides a comprehensive view of the ecological dynamics shaping the Kalahari today and into the future.