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 importance of climate and land use change for determining the recent population trends of breeding birds across Europe. I then moved on to work on a project with the USDA Forest Service to identify the environmental and anthropogenic correlates of rarity, to develop recommendations for conservation policy. I am now working with the British Trust for Ornithology to model the migratory journeys of Afro-Palearctic migratory birds to identify the drivers of current routes and the threats these species are exposed to during their annual migrations. Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate
Supervised by: Prof Steve Willis, Prof Philip Stephens, Dr Stephen Bailie (BTO) 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 2010-2011 MRes Environmental Biology, University of St Andrews & University of Dundee 2006-2010 BSc(hons) Ecology & Conservation, University of St Andrews Publications
Mason, T.H., Stephens, P.A., Gilbert, G., Green, R.E., Wilson, J.D., Jennings, K., Allen, J.R., Huntley, B., Howard, C. and Willis, S.G., (2021). Using indices of species’ potential range to inform conservation status. Ecological Indicators, 123, p.107343. Howard, C., Stephens, P.A., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Gregory, R.D, Butchart, S.H.M., & Willis, S.G. (2020) Disentangling the relative roles of climate and land cover change in driving the long-term population trends of European migratory birds. Diversity and Distributions 00, 1-14 Howard, C., Flather, C.H. & Stephens, P.A. (2020) A global assessment of the drivers of threatened terrestrial species richness. Nature Communications 11, 993. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14771-6 Mason, L.R., Green, R.E., Howard, C., … & Gregory R.D., (2019) Population responses of bird populations to climate change on two continent vary with species’ ecological traits but now with direction of change in climate suitability. Climatic Change https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02549-9 Howard, C., Flather, C.H., and Stephens, P.A. (2018) What drives at-risk species richness? Environmental factors are more influential than anthropogenic factors or biological traits. Conservation Letters, 9: 172-180. doi:10.1111/conl.12196 Howard, C., Stephens, P.A., Tobias, J.A., Sheard, C., Butchart, S.H.M., & Willis, S.G., (2018) Flight range, fuel load, and the impact of climate change on the journeys of migrant birds Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci.285 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. (2016). 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. (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) 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. Methods in Ecology and Evolution (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 and 2019
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
Hatfield College MCR Research Award, 2015 and 2016
Poster prize and grant, SBBS Research Away day, Durham University 2015 and 2019
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
2011-2015 Research assistant estimating survival rates of tropical passerines in the forests of Trinidad (Universities of Dundee and St. Andrews)
2011-present BTO C-permit bird ringer with the Tees Ringing Group
2011-2015 Research assistant estimating survival rates of tropical passerines in the forests of Trinidad (Universities of Dundee and St. Andrews)
