Perpetra Akite (PhD)

Akite works as a full-time lecturer at Makerere University; Department of Zoology, Entomology & Fisheries Sciences. Currently, she teaches a number of graduate and undergraduate courses in the department. she also supervises both graduate and undergraduate student research. Her research is focused on biodiversity, conservation, ecosystem services and community ecology especially in forests and agricultural landscapes. She has undertaken research on vertebrates and invertebrates groups. Her interest is to study the linkages between insect diversity and population specifically their roles in ecosystem resilience, both in theory and in applied contexts. She is particularly interested in how insects respond to their environment and how knowledge about insect ecology can be used in defining importance of insects in maintaining ecological balance. She has mainly worked on four insect groups (Lepidoptera, Odonata, Coleoptera and Orthoptera) that are key ecological indicators of either the terrestrial or aquatic environment. Her approach to research is geared towards evidence based management of ecosystems. This includes using species traits to study importance of critical species and how those traits can be used to predict the ecological interactions between species and particular habitat characteristics. She is a member of several organizations/Groups including Ecological Society of Eastern Africa, Africa Freshwater Monitoring (AFRESH), Nature Uganda, Entomological Association of Uganda, Tropical Biology Association, and over the years have contributed to the assessing and mapping key ecologically sensitive species in Uganda.

Scientific Interests/Activities

• Biodiversity surveys and monitoring
• Pollination Ecology
• Climate change effects
• Ecology of forest and forest-matrix landscapes
• Fresh water monitoring
• Sustainable use of natural resources
• Biodiversity and ecotourism
• The use of citizen science approach in conservation
• Environmental and social impact assessment
• Data acquisition and management skills