Dr Sarah Davies
Principal Research Officer
About me
I have loved and been fascinated by nature since early childhood and knew I wanted to work with wildlife. After finishing my Zoology degree at the University of Nottingham, I volunteered on a research project in Costa Rica, where I felt inspired by the incredible diversity of flora and fauna, and the countless connections that underpin ecosystems. This led me to an MSc in Conservation at UCL, where I was introduced to the idea of wetlands as a conservation tool, and completed a research project on a topic I have been passionate about ever since, the wonderful world of pond restoration.
The pursuit of conservation work has taken me to some fantastic places, from working with volunteers to manage and monitor a coastal nature reserve in Torbay, surveying marine mammals in Ceredigion, to rearing corncrakes with the Pensthorpe Conservation Trust in Norfolk. Before working for WWT, I undertook my PhD at Cardiff University on the effects of climate change on the diet of songbirds, using DNA metabarcoding. I am fascinated by the ecology underpinning effective conservation, from disentangling species interactions, to evaluating how wetlands support landscape-scale biodiversity.
Outside of work I love reading, hiking, and dabbling in creative hobbies including painting, knitting and calligraphy.
My role
A large part of my role is gathering, analysing and synthesising data on the benefits of wetlands for biodiversity. Within this work area, I am particularly interested in demonstrating the value of aquatic insects emerging at wetlands, as a vital food source for terrestrial wildlife. Over my first few years at WWT, I piloted research into this topic, testing methods such as stable isotope analysis and acoustic monitoring, and also used metabarcoding data to unravel the dietary preferences of the re-introduced crane population in the Somerset Levels. I later co-ordinated baseline ecological monitoring for multiple indicator taxa (such as waterbirds, bats, eel and aquatic invertebrates) for an extensive landscape recovery project in Gloucestershire.
More recently, I have begun researching plant-pollinator interactions on saltmarsh, to help inform the management of restored sites, and have been collaborating with research colleagues to develop and validate a semi-automated, acoustic pipeline for bat monitoring in urban wetlands. I’m currently co-supervising a PhD student from Nottingham Trent University, who is investigating the value of tidal freshwater zones for fish communities.
I also play a leading role in the development of WWT’s internal library of wetland facts and resources, and support on science communication and research dissemination within the department.
Experience and interests
- Ecological research on wetland communities (aquatic invertebrates, pollinators, bats and birds), across a range of habitats (ponds, floodplains, streams, saltmarsh)
- Piloting novel applications of methods such as eDNA, stable isotopes, passive audio detection, and people-powered research, to measure responses to wetland restoration
- Data analysis and visualisation in R and QGIS
- Science communication, writing and dissemination, including training and outreach for citizen scientists, volunteers, stakeholders and the wider public as well as developing WWTs internal wetland asset library
- Aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate identification
- Bird ringing and deployment of GPS tags
Publications
Davies, S.R., Vaughan, I.P., Thomas, R.J., Drake, L.E., Marchbank, A. and Symondson, W.O.C. 2022. Seasonal and ontological variation in diet and age-related differences in prey choice, by an insectivorous songbird. Ecology and Evolution, 12, e9180. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9180
Davies. S.R. 2020. Projecting the effects of climate change on prey selection and dietary competition in communities of European reedbed warblers. PhD thesis, Cardiff University. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/139655/
Davies, S.R., Sayer, C.D., Greaves, H., Siriwardena, G.M. Siriwardena and Axmacher, J.C. 2016. A new role for pond management in farmland bird conservation. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 233, pp. 179-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2016.09.005