Overview

Natural systems are under huge pressure from human activities. My research aims to address how these activities affect species diversity and abundance in order to better understand how to reduce these impacts. Areas I have studied include tropical forests and urban ecology, culminating in several peer-reviewed publications, including Nature. Projects I have worked on have engaged with local county councils and ecological consultant in order to provide practical guidance.

I completed my BSc (Hons) in Zoology at Imperial College London in 2011 where I studied under Professor Andy Purvis for my dissertation. In 2012 I graduate from with an MSc from Imperial College London in Environmental Technology specialising in Ecological Management. During my masters I worked with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust to study the habitat requirements of the ring-necked pheasant through a radio-tracking study.

In 2015 I was awarded a fellowship from San Diego Zoo Global to co-instruct a course on tropical ecology in Peru for Peruvian undergraduate and post graduate students. During this placement I taught on ecological theory, GIS and statistics in R. I assisted on student projects on a range of taxa including bats, giant river otters and owls.

Broad research specialism

• Applied ecology
• Urban ecology

Qualifications

2011-2012 MSc Environmental Technology, Imperial College London 
2008-2011 BSc Zoology, Imperial College London

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Research

Research projects

Project Title: The ecological impacts of artificial night lighting on biodiversity.

Supervisors: Dr Fiona Mathews and Professor Kevin Gaston

Funding Body: Defra

Project Description: Artificial night lighting is globally on the increase, already consuming around 1/5th of all electricity use. Despite artificial night lighting‘s wide spread and high use, the ecological impacts have been largely underexplored. There are many species that make use of night resources so creating a lit nightlife is likely to have negative impacts. In order to explore the potential impacts, I am using UK bats as bioindicators. Bats are sensitive species to artificial night lighting, are high trophic level species and protected across the UK and EU. For these reasons, bats are a good group of species to study this topic. The areas I will be exploring include impacts on abundance, activity, survival, and also comparisons between ‘light-shy‘ and ‘light-attracted‘ species of bats.

Publications

Newbold, T., Hudson, L. H, Hill, S. L. L., Contu, S., Lysenko, I., Senior, R. A., Börger, L., Bennett, D. J. Choimes, A., Collen, B., Day, J., De Palma, A., Díaz, S., Echeverria-Londoño, S., Edgar, M. J., Feldman, A., Garon, M., Harrison, M. L. K., Alhusseini, T., Ingram, D. J., Itescu, Y., Kattge, J., Kemp, V., Kirkpatrick, L., Kleyer, M., Correia, D. L. P., Martin, C. D., Meiri, S., Novosolov, M., Pan, Y., Phillips, H. R. P., Purves, D. W., Robinson, A., Simpson, J., Tuck, S. L., Weiher, E., White, H. J., Ewers, R. M., Mace, G. M., Scharlemann, J. P. W. & Purvis A. (2015) Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Nature, 520 (7545), 45-50

Day, J., Baker, J. Schofield, H., Mathews, F. & Gaston, K. J. (2015) Part-night lighting: implications for bat conservation, Animal Conservation, 18 (6),  512-516

Mathews, F., Roche, N., Aughney, T., Jones, N., Day, J., Baker, J. & Langton, S. (2015) Barriers and benefits: implications of artificial night-lighting for the distribution of common bats in Britain and Ireland. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 370 (1667), 20140124

Hudson, L.N., Newbold, T., Contu, S., Hill, S.L.L., Lysenko, I., De Palma, A., Phillips, H.R.P., Senior, R.A., Bedford, F., Bennett, D., Booth, H., Choimes, S., Laginha Correia Pinto, D., Day, J., Echeverría-Londoño, S., Garon, M., Harrison, M.L.K., Ingram, D.I., Jung, M., Kemp, V., Kirkpatrick, L., Martin, C., Pan, Y., Robinson, A., White, H., [hundreds of data contributors], Collen, B., Ewers, R.M., Mace, G.M., Purves, D.W., Scharlemann, J.P.W. & Purvis, A. (2014) The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts. Ecology and Evolution, 4 (24), 4701–4735

Newbold, T., Hudson, L. N., Philips, H. R. P., Hill, S. L. L., Contu, S., Lysenko, I., Blandon, A., Butchart, S. H. M., Booth, H. L., Day, J., De Palma, A., Harrison, L. K., Kirkpatrick, L., Pynegar, E., Robinson, A., Simpson, J., Mace, G. M., Scharlemann, J. P. W., Purvis, A. (2014) A global response of tropical and sub-tropical forest biodiversity to anthropogenic pressures. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1792)

Oral presentations and posters (Presented by *)

Day, J.*, Baker, J., Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2015) Light pollution and bats: is it time to switch off the lights? 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology

4th European Congress for Conservation Biology, Montpellier, France, August 2015. (Poster).

Day, J.*, Baker, J., Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2015) Light pollution and greater horseshoe bats: a landscape scale study and mitigation exploration. Wales Bat Conference, Pembrokeshire, Wales, June 2015. (Oral presentation).

Day, J.*, Baker, J., Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2015) Light pollution across a landscape for greater horseshoe bats. Mammal Society, Mammal Society Spring Conference, Lancaster, UK, March 2015. (Oral presentation).

Day, J.*, Baker, J., Barlow, K., Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2014) Dark landscapes for bats: Is it time to switch off the lights? XIIIth European Bat Research Symposium, Šibenik, Croatia, September 2014. (Oral presentation).

Day, J.*, Baker, J., Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2014) Landscape level effects of street lighting on greater horseshoe bats. Mammal Society, Mammal Society Student Conference, Birmingham, UK, April 2014. (Oral presentation).

Day, J.*, Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2013) The changing lightscape of Britain. Mammal Society, Mammal Society Spring Conference, Exeter, UK, April 2013. (Poster)

Day, J.*, Baker, J., Schofield, H., Gaston, K. J. & Mathews, F. (2013) The impacts of street lighting on bats. BritBats II, Bristol, UK, March 2013. (Oral presentation).

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