Kate's principal role is to conduct research into avian responses to environmental change, particularly urbanisation. Kate uses BTO’s large-scale citizen science datasets and novel field surveys to address important questions about urban wildlife.

Kate's research interests lie in the relationships between people and wildlife. She studies how species and communities respond to human-induced environmental change, as well as how people might benefit from the wildlife they experience in urban areas. Kate does this by combining aspects of avian, urban and behavioural ecology. She works closely with the Garden BirdWatch (GBW) team to develop and address research questions concerning the wildlife in our gardens.

Key areas of interest:

• Understanding how gardens and their resources influence wild bird populations
• The implications of garden bird feeding
• Investigating how birds can affect human well-being
• The effects of urbanisation on bird species distributions and trends
• The consequences of street lighting on British moths communities

Other Information

Kate is based at the University of Exeter's Centre for Ecology and Conservation, where she has an honorary position as a Visiting Researcher.

2011 PhD Behavioural Ecology, University of Exeter
2007 MSc Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology, University of Exeter
2006 BSc Biology, University of Nottingham