Community Assembly and Landscape Ecology

People

Current Lab Members

Cristina Banks-Leite

Cris works at the interface of community ecology and landscape ecology, and her main goal is to unveil the causes and consequences of species turnover and species extinction in human-modified landscapes.

Find out more

Ben Howes

My research focuses on the role intraspecific variability plays in determining species resilience to environmental change.

Find out more

Benjamin Howes PhD Student Imperial College London

Rhys Preston-Allen

My research involves big-picture questions related to conservation, such as: (1) what are the benefits of large-scale restoration for biodiversity?; and (2) what are potential priority areas for ecosystem restoration?

Find out more

Xiuhan Zhang

My research focuses on the assessment and conservation of biodiversity and ecoystem processes, especially using autonomous and eDNA methods to monitor corresponding communities.

Find out more

Natasha Granville

My PhD research investigates the macroecological variations in bird sensitivity to deforestation.

Adam Fraser

I am investigating how habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation impacts ecosystem function and processes.

Find out more 

Flavia Bellotto Trigo

I am a third year PhD student looking at species responses to habitat loss and fragmentation across species distribution ranges.

Find out more

Former Lab Members

Jenna Lawson

My research use acoustics to understand the threats to the Geoffroys spider monkey and the soundscape from anthropogenic disturbance.

Find out more

Jack Hatfield

Jack left Silwood in 2018 after 6 years of Masters, PhD and Postdoc. Jack was funded by ECOFOR and his thesis looked at birds responses to habitat loss and fragmentation in Brazil. 

Jack was a warden, teacher on UG and PG and general statistics guru. He also who sat in the lab’s darkest corner and never turned the lights on. To this day I still wonder whether he’s a vampire.

Jack is now doing a postdoc in York.   

Paula Vargas Pellicer

Paula did her PhD on the gut microbiota of passerines. Paula was also a central figure in Silwood, helping dozens of masters students in their stats, mist netting blue tits and massaging their guts to collect their poo (yes, a bit weird).

Paula is now back home in Mexico doing a postdoc and currently on maternity leave caring for her beautiful baby.  

Elise Damstra-Oddy

I work on acoustic ecology to see how biodiversity responds to environmental gradients.

Find out more

Edicson Parra Sánchez

Edicson did his PhD on the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on epiphytes. Edicson was a warden for many years and generally brought a much needed South American mood to Silwood. He also worked as a Knowledge Exchange postdoc in ECOFOR – check his cartilha in Impact!

Edicson is interested on quantifying the magnitude and extent of human modifications of the landscape on Neotropical flora.

 

Find out more

Michelle Harrison

Michelle did her PhD on trophic cascades triggered by vertebrate exclusion across a gradient of habitat loss and distance to forest edge. Michelle lived for a few months at my parent’s farm in Brazil (see photo with Cafe – the dog), and collected a huge amount of data in the ECOFOR study region. Michelle has the most brilliant sense of humour and amazing writing skills.

Michelle is currently working at UNEP-WCMC. 

Galina Jönsson

I work in quantitative ecology with a focus on utilising natural history collections to understand past biodiversity trends.

Find out more