Yael Mandelik

H E B R E W U N I V E R S I T Y O F J E R U S A L E M
The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment
DEPARTMENT of ENTOMOLOGY

Yael Mandelik, Ph.d.

Department Of Entomology
The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment
P.O Box 12, Rehovot 76100, ISRAEL
Tel: 972-8-9489224
Fax: 972-8-9466768
e-mail address: mandelik@agri.huji.ac.il

Higher education

1993-1996 B.Sc., Hebrew University, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences.

1996-1999 M.Sc., Tel Aviv University, Dept of Zoology. Behavioral ecology of desert rodents (under the supervision of Prof. Tamar Dayan).

2000-2005 Ph.D., Tel Aviv University, Dept of Zoology. Conservation planning at the local scale (under the supervision of Professors Tamar Dayan and Eran Feitelson).

2005-2006 Postdoctoral research, Princeton University, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Biodiversity and ecosystem services of wild bees in arable landscapes (Hosted by Prof. Claire Kremen).

Research interests

Biodiversity indicators - I investigate spatial and temporal diversity patterns of plants and animals across natural and human-dominated landscapes. I look for natural and anthropogenic factors that shape these patterns and explore potential indicators to be used as shortcuts for biodiversity quantification and conservation planning at local to regional scales.

Conservation planning – I study the ecological performance of planning tools in common practice today in Israel and abroad. I am interested in developing new approaches and tools for local to regional biodiversity conservation planning, and monitoring their efficiency in promoting conservation targets.

Conservation in agricultural landscapes – I am interested in the ecological interactions between active agriculture fields and their natural surrounding in terms of organisms flow and cascading ecological interactions. I study the role of agriculture fields as habitats and dispersal corridors for different groups of organisms. I am especially interested in studying natural vs. managed succession dynamics in abandoned agricultural fields, and exploring different approaches for land restoration.

Ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes – I focus on two major services provided by natural ecosystems to agriculture – crop pollination and soil fertility. I study the extent of services provided to agriculture in different agro-natural ecosystems (arid vs. Mediterranean), the effects of land-use practices on wild and managed pollinators and soil decomposers, the interactions between wild and managed populations, and ways of maintaining and enhancing the provision of these services in working agricultural landscapes.

Teaching plans

Conservation planning

Agro-ecology and conservation

Introduction to Entomology (laboratory)

Selected publications

Jones, M.E., Mandelik, Y., & Dayan, T. 2001. Coexistence of temporally partitioned

spiny mice: roles of habitat structure and foraging behavior. Ecology 82 (8): 2164-2176.

Kronfeld-Schor, N., Dayan, T., Jones, M.E., Kremer, I., Mandelik, Y., Wolberg, M., &

Gaton, D.D. 2001. Retinal structure and foraging microhabitat use of the golden spiny mouse: a nocturnal rodent seeing its way in the desert sun. Journal of Mammalogy 82 (4): 1016-1025.

Mandelik, Y., Jones, M.E., & Dayan, T. 2003. Structurally complex habitat and

sensory adaptations mediate the behavioral responses of a desert rodent to an indirect cue for increased predation risk. Evolutionary Ecology Research 5: 501-515.

Mandelik, Y., Dayan, T., & Feitelson, E. 2005. Planning for biodiversity: The role of

Ecological Impact Assessment. Conservation Biology 19(4): 1254-1261.

Mandelik, Y., Dayan, T., & Feitelson, E. 2005. Issues and dilemmas in ecological scoping: scientific, procedural and economic perspectives. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 23 (1): 55-63.

Mandelik, Y., Chiktunov, V., Kravchenko, V., & Dayan , T. 2007. Reliability of the higher-taxa approach for diversity assessment at the local scale. Conservation Biology (In press).

Back to top

Back to Entomology homepage

Page last updated: september 2007

All rights reserved to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ©