Dr Lucy Garrett

Career Overview

I am a research lecturer in Ecology and Conservation with a focus on animal behaviour and conservation ecology. I have worked in international field-based conservation and have a broad background including working with NGO's, Government, private sector and education. My PhD focused on the ecological, social and genetic dynamics of a large population of seabirds.

Teaching and supervision

I currently teach at all levels of undergraduate provision and am module lead for Behavioural Ecology (2nd Year), Principles of Ecology (1st Year) and Biodiversity and Conservation (3rd Year). I am personal academic tutor for Zoology (BSc) first year students. I contribute to teaching on the following modules:

Principles of Ecology
Behavioural Ecology
Professional Academic Skills
Biodiversity and Conservation
Field Course to South Africa

I supervise a wide range of UG and PG student dissertations related to topics in animal behaviour, ethics and welfare, environmental accountability, conservation and ecology. Some of these projects have involved external collaboration with organisations including the Jersey Met Office, Cotswold Falconry Centre and the Gloucestershire Moth Group.

Research interests

My research centres on animal behaviour and conservation taking a multidisciplinary approach to combine animal behaviour and social dynamics, population dynamics, animal movement and population genetics.

My PhD research focused on a colonial seabird, the sooty tern, that breeds on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. This aimed to understand the ecology and population trends of the sooty tern, a small seabird that breeds in huge numbers on the island. I investigated chick social connectivity during the chick development stage, and whether this impacts daily survival rates. I have also undertaken genetic analyses to assess levels of population genetic structure and relatedness within the population.

I am currently promoting a project to maximise biodiversity on our amazing 360ha campus. I have been running moth trapping nights as part of the University Moth Challenge in conjunction with the Butterfly Conservation Trust. This research will provide essential baseline data for assessing any benefits of future management actions.

I have secured funding to undertake research on our campus and working farm to use remote sensing technology with bioacoustics to survey bird and bat populations. It is hoped that this will inform a larger project to developed app-based interface which farmers and land managers can utilise to inform management with biodiversity in mind and to use to support outcome-based payments for wildlife.

Pure profile