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Christine Howard
Primarily my research focuses around understanding the drivers of population dynamics both spatially and temporally, with the goal of improving our knowledge on how to implement effective conservation strategies under various scenarios of environmental change. Prior to my PhD my studies concentrated on assessing the impacts of finer scale environmental change on avian populations, through both behavioural trade-offs and varying survival rates. For my PhD I investigated the relative impacts of climate and land use change are for determining the recent population trends of breeding birds across Europe. Currently, I am working on a project to identify the environmental and anthropogenic correlates of rarity, to develop recommendations for conservation policy.
Position:  Postdoctoral Research Associate

Supervised by: Dr. Philip Stephens, Dr. Curtis Flather (USDA Forest Service)

Membership: Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution Research (BEER) Centre, 
                        British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), 
                        British Ornithological Union (BOU), 
                        British Ecological Society (BES)

Contact Details: Department of Biosciences,
                             Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE.
                             Email: christine.howard@durham.ac.uk

Education

2011-2015                PhD Biology, Durham University & British Trust for Ornithology, UK
2010-2011                MRes Environmental Biology, 
                                 University of St Andrews & University of Dundee, UK
2006-2010                BSc(hons) Ecology & Conservation, University of St Andrews, UK
Publications

Howard, C., Stephens, P.A., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Gregory, R.D, & Willis, S.G. (2015) The drivers of avian abundance: patterns in the relative importance of climate and land use, Global Ecology and Biogeography (DOI: 10.1111/geb.12377)

Sanderson F.J., Pople R.G., Ieronymidou C., Burfield I.J., Gregory R.D., Willis S.G., Howard C., Stephens P.A., Beresford A.E. & Donald P.F. (2015). Assessing the performance of EU nature legislation in protecting target bird species in an era of climate change. Conservation Letters (DOI: 10.1111/conl.12196)

Howard, C., Stephens, P.A., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Gregory, R.D. & Willis, S.G. Improving species distribution models: the value of data on abundance. (DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12184)
 Selected Awards and Fellowships

Hatfield College MCR Research Award, 2015 and 2016
Poster prize and grant, SBBS Research Away day, Durham University 2015
Highly commended for the Robert May prize as part of the BES Young Investigator Awards 2014
NERC PhD Studentship award with BTO CASE partnership, 2011
St. Andrews Dean's List Award, 2007-2010
Additional Information 

2011-present      BTO C-permit bird ringer with the Tees Ringing Group
2011-present     Research assistant estimating survival rates of tropical passerines in the forests of Trinidad (Universities of Dundee and St. Andrews)