I joined NRI in June 2025, having taught for short periods in several other British universities.

Before that I taught and conducted ecological research in Brazil, first in the Brazilian Amazon (National Amazon Research Institute, Manaus) and then in coastal state of Pernambuco (Pernambuco Federal University, Recife).

I am a tropical ecologist with an interest in using animal/plant interactions to identify key vulnerabilities in the ecologies and species and habitats and use that knowledge for effective conservation.

Before working in Brazil, I ran my own ecological consultancy (being based first in the UK and then in California). With this I conducted Environmental Impact Analyses, advised on films and TV series and help design museum exhibits. I also worked as a freelance journalist on radio and for popular science magazines, as an oral historian for the California Academy of Science and was the Senior Research Officer for Friends of the Earth England’s rainforest campaign.

I’ve supervised 25 master's and 9 doctoral students and published 125 academic articles, 39 book chapters and seven academic books.

I am a member of the Behavioural Ecology and Ecosystems Services research clusters.

My focus is animal/plant interactions and how knowledge of these can be used to inform effective conservation strategies. I mostly work with parrots and primates, but am also interested in bats, aquatic mammals, carnivores, a variety of bird taxa, fish and amphibians, as well as such insect groups as bees, butterflies and beetles. I work a lot on diets, pollination, and seed dispersal and how such multi-species dependencies both sustain species and systems and make them vulnerable to change. This includes climate change, deforestation, urbanization and invasive species.

I’m also interested in systems where co-evolved mutualisms are overturned, such as seed-predation and nectar theft.

I work in the Brazilian amazon in rainforest and seasonally flooded forest, and in savannah and marshland habitats. I also work in cloud forest and high-altitude grasslands in the Andes. I’ve worked in Africa and Asia too and retain a strong interest in their fauna and floras. I’m keenly interested in tropical urban ecology.

Most recently I have worked on:

1. Monkey diets: Looking at how mechanical stress, protein debt and avoiding predators and inter-group competition influence the foraging behaviour and diet choices in Amazonian primates
2. Parrot diets: Tracking how the diets and niches of an 11-species parrot community changed across 10 years as the study area became ever more impacted by humans
3. Carnivore conservation: A study of carnivores in the mountainous hinterland of Pakistan, their distributions and threats and how conservation planning is being complicated by the loss of wild prey species, so that the wolves, snow leopards and bears turn to domestic livestock to sustain themselves
4. Mice/lice/beetle: Analysing of the consequences of testosterone as an immune-suppressant in an unusual model system – the fur of an Andean cloud forest mouse. Correcting for surface area, the study compared the density of fleas, lice and commensal flea-louse eating beetles in fur of mice male and female mice before and after puberty
5. Microbiomes and plant chemicals: Studying the sensitivity of primate gut bacteria to the phytochemicals in plants they do and do not eat (testing the idea that primates may choose foods based on what is good for their intestinal flora and not simply their bodies)

My current research projects include:

1. Brazil nut ecology: Studies of pollination and seed predation in organically-grown community-managed Brazil-nut trees in the southern Amazon;
2. Knock-on effects of Amazon droughts: Analysing the impacts of drought on trees in igapó (a seasonally-flooded riverside forest type) and the knock-on effects on wildlife (including fish - a key regional food-source);
3. Redhead reasons: Research the drivers behind the bright red head of the bald uacari monkey (Cacajao calvus)
4. Hard lessons: Investigating how diet changes as golden-backed uacari monkeys (Cacajao ouakari) grow up – especially important as adults eat seeds from really hard fruits. Bite forces estimated via computer modelling from scanned skulls, complimenting field observations of eaten fruits and their penetrability. Plans for future research includes:
5. Rewilding with (retired) elephants: The impact of elephants on the cerrado of central Brazil (a woody savanna ecosystem, not unlike the plains of east Africa). Analyse the impact of these large herbivorous mammals on this system, whether it could be used to restore the cerrado to a state similar to that in the Pleistocene when large mammals were abundant there, and if that is desirable (the elephants are retired zoo and circus elephants and range free in a cerrado sanctuary)
6. Fishing mice conservation ecology: Conducting studies of fishing mice in Andean grassland and cloud-forest streams and the likely impacts of climate change on them, their habitats and food sources Am accepting post-graduate students

I am currently accepting post-graduate students.

I currently teach on the following modules:

• Animal Ecology (3rd year)
• Animal Science and Environmental Physiology (1st year)
• Readings in Geography and Environmental Science (3rd year)

I will shortly start on outreach programmes taking ecological knowledge to local schools.

Fellow:

• Linnean Society of London

Member:

• American Society of Primatologists
• Brazilian Society of Primatologists
• British Ecological Society International Society of Primatology
• IUCN Primate Specialist Group (Neotropics)
• Primate Society of Great Britain

Associate editor:

• Acta Amazonica