Tsoar, Asaf

Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem 91904
Israel

Research Interests:

Ecology and evolution of dispersal, community ecology, conservation biology, Chiroptera (bats) ecology, echolocation and evolution.

I am a PhD student in the Movement Ecology Lab.

MSc 2003 titled: “Comparison of prediction accuracy between Climatic Envelope Models (CEM)”

PhD candidate from 2004 titled: "Linking disperser behavior to dispersal function in a spatiotemporal
context: Seed dispersal by the Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus, in a Mediterranean ecosystem"

Current projects:

Creating an echolocation call library for the bats of Israel.

Bat population and community surveys in caves and foraging areas.

Working with the Jerusalem Zoo, SPNI and INPA in a country-wide bat box project.

A joint project with KKL on Species richness and habitat selection of bats in Britain Park.

Publications

Refereed articles in scientific journals – in press and published

Nathan, R., Schurr, F. M., Spiegel, O., Steinitz, O., Trakhtenbrot, A., Tsoar, A. (2008) Mechanisms of Long-Distance Seed Dispersal. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 23, 638-647. PDF

Tsoar A., Allouche O., Steinitz, O., Rotem, D. & Kadmon, R. (2007) A Comparative Evaluation of Presence-Only Methods for Modeling Species Distribution Diversity and Distributions, 13, 397-405. PDF

Levin, N., Heller, A., Lahav, H., Nizry, G., Ramon, U., Tsoar, A., & Sagi, Y. A. (2007) New approach to conservation planning in Israel. Landscape and Urban Planning, 79, 53-64. PDF

Allouche O., Tsoar, A., & Kadmon, R. (2006) Assessing the Accuracy of Species Distribution Models. Journal of Applied ecology, 43, 1223-1232. PDF

Steinitz, O., Heller, J., Tsoar, A., Rotem, D. & Kadmon, R. (2006) Environment, Dispersal and Patterns of Species Similarity. Journal of Biogeography, 33, 1044-1054. PDF

Steinitz, O., Heller, J. Tsoar, A., Rotem, D., & Kadmon, R. (2005) Predicting regional patterns of similarity in species composition for conservation planning. Conservation Biology, 19, 1978-1988. PDF

Ulanovsky, N., Fenton, M. B., Tsoar, A., & Korine, C. (2004) Dynamics of jamming avoidance in echolocating bats. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 271, 1467-1475. [PDF]

Biscardi, S., Orprecio, J., Fenton, M. B., Tsoar, A., & Ratcliffe, J. M. (2004) Data, sample sizes and statistics affect the recognition of species of bats by their echolocation calls. Acta Chiropterologica, 6, 347-363. [PDF]

None refereed professional articles and publications

Tsoar, A. and Shohami, D. (2007) Species diversity, activity patterns and habitat selection by insectivorous-bats of Britain Park (Judean plains, Israel). Forest (in press, in Hebrew)

Tsoar, A. 2005. Bat survey in the lower Jordan River nature reserve. The Lower Jordan. Ed. Sabach, A., Nature and Parks Authority, Jerusalem. (in Hebrew)

Tsoar, A., Ramon, U., (2002) Seker Lahav – Seker, Nitu'ah ve Ha'aracha shel Mash'abei Teva, Nof ve Moreshet (Lahav Survey – Survey, Analysis and Evaluation of Nature, Landscape and Heritage Resources; in Hebrew), The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Tel-Aviv.

Tsoar, A. and Ron, M. (2000) Bet Guvrin National Park. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Tel-Aviv.

Tsoar, A. and Kaftori, R. (1999) Ha Gay Cave. Niqrot Zurim 20, 9-16. (in Hebrew).

Lavie, O. and Tsoar, A. (1992) Ein Ya’aron. Niqrot Zurim 18, 65-68. (in Hebrew).