CONSERVATION and BEHAVIOUR
Meet The Team
Sarah Papworth
Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology
My research focuses on how the social and physical environment affects individual behaviour, and how this behaviour, can, in turn, alter that environment. I am particularly interested in primate behaviour, hunting in the tropics and how we make decisions about conservation. My approach to conservation science includes human decisions and behaviour as part of a complex ecosystem, thus most of my work is interdisciplinary and has a strong human focus. I combine approaches and theory from ecology, anthropology and psychology
I started my PhD in March 2018. My research focusses on assessing the ability of different monitoring methods to gather conservation-relevant data for the endangered and elusive Philippine pangolin. The Philippine pangolin is arguably the least known of all eight pangolin species and we have little knowledge on the threats to this species, or the effectiveness of different research methods to gather baseline data to inform its conservation. I have used interviews to establish the distribution, status and threats to the Philippine pangolin, and patterns of trade on Palawan Island. This PhD is funded by NERC and the Zoological Society of London.
I started my PhD in April 2018. My research focusses on the critically endangered blue-crowned laughingthrush in south-east China, looking at why this range-restricted bird breeds at some sites and not others. This is being studied in terms of this species' ecology, land use and other human pressures. I have used interviews to understand the species distribution and threats. I am also conducting analyses of habitat variation, using ecological surveys and satellite imagery. This PhD is partially funded by Waddesdon Aviary, Chester Zoo and Riverbanks Zoo.
Larissa Barker
PhD Student Royal Holloway
I started my PhD in September 2018. My research is focused on understanding the impact of human visitors on pygmy marmoset behaviour, focusing on seasonal and spatial differences in responses near Tahuayo Lodge, an ecotourism site in the Peruvian Amazon. I used passive acoustic monitoring with Audiomoth to quantify seasonal and spatial differences in anthropogenic noise and pygmy marmoset vocalisations. I also monitored birds of prey at the site to understand variation in non-human predators at the site, and finally plan to test whether pygmy marmoset responses to human noise are analogous to their responses to predators.
Elisa Fernandez-Fueyo
PhD Student Royal Holloway
I started my PhD in September 2021. I’m investigating gestural and vocal communication in wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus), co-supervised by Alecia Carter (UCL). I am funded by the BBSRC LIDO doctoral training program.
Beth Lord
MSc student 2021 Royal Holloway
I started my MSc in September 2021. I am interested in why some species recieve more conservation attention than others, and particularly want to understand differences in preferences for insect species.