Dr Luca Nelli

As a spatial ecologist, my interests mainly range from the study of the relationships between habitat and animal populations, and how these vary through space and time, to the evaluation of wildlife survey techniques for density and abundance estimation. So far I have worked on a wide range of taxa, such as birds, mammals, fishes and, most recently, insects.
For my current research project at University of Glasgow I am modelling the spatiotemporal heterogeneity in malaria risk in Burkina Faso using spatially explicit Bayesian models, within the Wellcome Trust project “Malaria in Insecticide Resistance Africa (MIRA)”. My main goal is to quantify the relative contribution of different covariates in the emergence of spatial patterns of malaria, including vector-related (mosquito behavior, insecticide resistance) and environmental factors (human density, habitat and landscape characteristics).