Professor Keith Hamer

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds as a Senior Lecturer in 2002 before being promoted to Reader in 2004 and Professor in 2013. I obtained my PhD from the University of Glasgow in 1990 before taking up a postdoctoral appointment at Glasgow (1991) and then a lectureship at Durham University (1993), with promotion to Senior Lecturer at Durham in 1999.

Research interests

My research focuses on wildlife ecology and the conservation of biodiversity in natural and managed landscapes and seascapes, with a particular emphasis on trophic ecology – what animals eat, how they get enough, and how this determines both their responses to environmental change and their contributions to broader ecosystem-level processes. Much of this work involves birds and insects (especially butterflies, dung beetles and ants), mainly in marine, forested and agricultural ecosystems. 

Current/Recently completed projects:

• Impacts of offshore windfarms on populations and demography of gannets: reducing uncertainty in risk assessments (NERC iCASE)
• Development of foraging skills by gannets: implications for vulnerability of young birds to offshore windfarms (DBEIS)
• Enhancing the benefits of tropical peatland restoration for local communities and ecosystem processes in Sumatra (NERC Newton Fund)
• Tri-axial accelerometry of gannets: individual foraging efficiency, effort and success (NERC DTP)
• Promoting biodiversity in sustainable oil-palm landcapes for West African smallholders (DEFRA Darwin Initiative)
• Three-dimensional foraging behaviour of gannets: integrating location, flight height and dive depth (NERC DTP)
• Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Oil Palm Research (SEnSOR; http://www.sensorproject.net/)

Qualifications

• 1990 PhD Zoology (University of Glasgow)
• 1987 MSc by Research Zoology (University of Manchester)
• 1982 BSc Zoology (University of Manchester)

Student education

Research groups and institutes

• Ecology and Evolution
• Ecology and conservation