I completed my BSc (Biology) and MSc (Ecology, Evolution & Conservation) at Imperial College London. During this time I worked on selection in humans and antler size dynamics in Red Deer (supervised by Prof. Armand Leroi and Prof. Tim Coulson respectively).
Between degrees, I was employed by conservation NGO Frontier, spending six months in London HQ before moving to the Costa Rican rainforest for 15 months to manage a research project. After my MSc I spent a year teaching biology at a secondary school in London before moving back into research at the Institute of Botany, Czech Republic.
Initially a 3-month position, I fell for the charms of the department (and the Czech beer) and spent the rest of the year completing a project there on leaf trait dissimilarity and mixed-species litter decomposition. Most recently Leopard Ecology & Conservation, an NGO based in Botswana, employed me to study the ecology of the Kalahari lion populations.
Current Research
My project will use a combination of techniques from demography and movement ecology to explore human-wildlife conflict issues for lion populations in Botswana. I will be using an existing dataset from a resident lion population in Khutse Game Reserve and the Southern parts of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, collected in partnership with Leopard Ecology & Conservation. Broadly I am interested in a) how predators move through and interact with their surrounding landscape and b) how the outcomes of conflict and increased fragmentation might impact wild lion populations.
Publications
Finerty, G. E., de Bello, F., Bílá, K., Berg, M. P., Dias, A. T.C., Pezzatti, G. B. and Moretti, M. (2016), Exotic or not, leaf trait dissimilarity modulates the effect of dominant species on mixed litter decomposition. J Ecol, 104: 1400–1409. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.12602
Lewis, R. J., de Bello, F., Bennett, J. A., Fibich, P., Finerty, G. E., Götzenberger, L., Hiiesalu, I., Kasari, L., Lepš, J., Májeková, M., Mudrák, O., Riibak, K., Ronk, A., Rychtecká, T., Vitová, A. and Pärtel, M. (2016), Applying the dark diversity concept to nature conservation. Conservation Biology. doi:10.1111/cobi.12723
Talks
Leaf trait dissimilarity can modulate the effect of dominant trait values on litter mixture decomposition rates (2014). Oral Presentation, BES Annual Meeting, Lille, France.
The role of functional diversity in mixed-species litter decomposition and the impact of exotic species on the process (2015). Seminar, WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
