
Bethany R. SmithZoological Society of London · Institute of Zoology
Bethany R. Smith
MRes. BA.
About
12
Publications
2,926
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87
Citations
Introduction
Postdoctoral Researcher at Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London working on structured decision making for wildlife conservation with a focus on red squirrels in England.
PhD on the ecological effects of using livestock guarding dogs.
Camera trapping, GPS tracking, dietary analysis, eDNA. Acoustic monitoring with the Canid Howl Project.
Contact: bethany.smith@ioz.ac.uk
Website: bethanyrsmith.com
Additional affiliations
October 2018 - December 2019
Mammal Society
Position
- Data & Information Officer
Description
- I worked on writing the RMarkdown and Shiny code for Ecobat, the society’s web tool for automated bat activity analysis. I also coordinated several UK-wide projects including the use of the Mammal Mapper app and standardised small mammal trapping.
Education
January 2020 - January 2024
September 2017 - September 2018
October 2013 - June 2016
Publications
Publications (12)
Trophic rewilding involves adding species into ecosystems to restore extinct, top-down interactions, but limited quantitative data have prevented a systematic attempt to quantify its outcomes. Here, we exploit species introductions that have occurred for purposes other than restoration to inform trophic rewilding. We compiled 51 studies with 158 di...
Livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) are used across the world to reduce livestock depredation by free-ranging predatory wildlife. In doing so, they reduce the need for lethal predator control and are considered
beneficial for conservation. However, LGDs might be perceived as predators by wildlife and induce a multitude of both positive and negative ecol...
Conservation action is usually triggered by detecting trends in species’ population size, geographical range, or occupancy (proportion of sites occupied). Robust estimates of these metrics are often required by policy makers and practitioners, yet many species lack dedicated monitoring schemes. An alternative source of data for trend estimation is...
Context: Synchronised acoustic recorders can be used as a non-invasive tool to detect and localise sounds of interest, including vocal wildlife and anthropogenic sounds. Due to the high cost of commercial synchronised recorders, acoustic localisation has typically been restricted to small or well funded surveys. Recently, low-cost acoustic recorder...
Camera traps have revolutionized how ecologists monitor wildlife, but their full potential is realized only when the hundreds of thousands of collected images can be readily classified with minimal human intervention. Deep learning classification models have allowed extraordinary progress towards this end, but trained models remain rare and are onl...
This dataset contains 10km summarised occurrence data for terrestrial mammals as mapped in the Atlas of Mammal of Great Britain and Northern Ireland published by the Mammal Society in 2020. For each species 10km grid squares were categorised based on whether the species was recorded in that square only the current atlas time period (2000-2016), onl...
Context: The ecology of cryptic animals is difficult to study without invasive tagging approaches or labour-intensive field surveys. Acoustic localisation provides an effective way to locate vocalising animals using acoustic recorders. Combining this with land cover classification gives new insight into wild animal behaviour using non-invasive tool...
A report by the Mammal Society for Natural Resources Wales, produced in association
with Wales Mammal Biodiversity Action Forum.
: Artificial light at night (ALAN) can have negative consequences for a wide range of taxa. However, the effects on nocturnal mammals other than bats are poorly understood. A citizen science camera trapping experiment was therefore used to assess the effect of ALAN on the activity of European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) at supplementary feeding...
Litterfall is an important resource subsidy for lake ecosystems that primarily accumulates in littoral zones. Bivalves are abundant within littoral zones and may modify the effects of terrestrial resource subsidies through trophic interactions and engineering their surrounding habitat. Leaf inputs to lakes and freshwater mussel abundances are chang...