Ross Quick

My primary research interests are investigating how anthropogenic activities influence biodiversity, with a focus on species interactions and ecosystem service delivery. In my PhD, I explore the impact of urbanisation on biodiversity and food security in a vastly understudied global region - Ghana - to aid conservation efforts and assist the development of sustainable and resilient urban food systems.

PhD

• Planned and executed a 3-month field trip to Accra, Ghana for data collection, sampling arthropod communities and local habitat features across 52 smallholder farms within the city using pan, pitfall, and sticky traps, at sites stratified along an urban gradient
• Independently organised and led a research team including a research assistant and driver, successfully navigating cultural differences with team and farmers
• Gained significant awareness of development challenges that low-income counties face, through first-hand experience and reading
• Built a supervised classification landcover map of Accra using random forest machine learning methods in Google Earth Engine for subsequent landscape analysis, using QGIS and R
• Modelling in R using multi-model inference (MMI) with model averaging, PERMANOVA, NMDS, and Bayesian SEMs

MSc Dissertation (title above)

• Modelled, described and compared quantitative pollination networks from differing landscape contexts using a variety of network metrics. Used hymenopteran and syrphid flower visitation as a proxy for pollination interactions. Interacting pollinators were netted and ID'd to species in the lab or in the field where possible. Statistical analysis and modelling done exclusively in R using various packages including 'bipartite', 'vegan' and 'asbio'. Presented findings in a group seminar

BSc Dissertation (title above)

• Undertook secondary data collection to model, describe and perform robustness analysis via simulated species extinctions on a qualitative nation-wide bipartite network with over 1300 raptor-prey interactions. Network modelling and analyses done in R

Aquatic Invertebrate Water Quality Assessment

• Collecting and identifying aquatic invertebrates from various taxonomical groups for use as bioindicators in nation-wide water quality monitoring schemes, done voluntarily for The Riverfly Partnership in association with ZSL and under employment for Penny Anderson Associates Ltd

BSc Residential Field Course

• Undergraduate field course to the Isle of Mull, investigating trends in periwinkle (Littorina littorea & L. obtusata) shell morphology across littoral zones. As a team we collected >6000 samples in a week and observed statistically significant comparisons

Volunteer Research Assistant (6th Form)

• Assisting an MSc student project by mapping slow-worm refugia use, using camera traps to observe and report badger behaviour and small mammal surveying (checking longworth traps)