Skip to main content

Campus biodiversity monitoring

Category
Biodiversity
Blog Posts
Student Opportunities
Student Sustainability Architects
Date

Holly Smith, third-year Environmental Science undergraduate student and newly appointed Sustainability Architect tells us about her work on the University’s Campus Biodiversity Monitoring Project.

I started as a Campus Ambassador on this project back in April 2019 during my first year, originally the project was called ‘Campus Pollinators’, focusing on bees, wasps and other insect pollinators. However, over my time working with my colleagues and managers, the scope of this work has really changed. We now monitor birds, bats, hedgehogs, and other small mammals. The other ambassadors and I created a methodology for monitoring pollinators in 2019 and we have more recently adapted this framework for a wider range of species. This framework is centred around the use of 1km transects at specific sites or routes across campus, encompassing some form of stopping point for more in-depth surveying.

Biodiversity is of a particular importance to myself. Growing up in the Cotswolds, I’m used to being surrounded by nature and local wildlife, and Britain is home to an astounding variety of plants and animals. However, this wildlife is under threat, with 56% of UK species having declined between 1970 and 2013. Biodiversity is in trouble in the UK and across the globe.

Through my studies, I’ve gained knowledge of the interlinkage between biodiversity loss and climate change, as well as the importance of biodiversity, not only for recreational and cultural values that makes it special for me but also for the scientific significance. Genetic, species and ecosystem diversity acts as a safety net against natural catastrophic events and anthropogenic impacts, especially climate change.

Now I am a Student Sustainability Architect, I’m excited to be working at a level with more responsibility, commitment, and resources in order to push biodiversity monitoring forwards. In the coming months, I’m eager to set up an opportunity to broaden the spatial boundaries of this work and invite other institutions and communities, not only to use our framework but become part of an international collaboration, fostering the development of methods and sharing of information.

Although, even before this amazing milestone is reached, there is already so much that this project and group has achieved. I’m proud of our growing online presence, this has allowed the project to gain more student engagement, both at volunteer skills development level and with students via collaborative inter-project discussions. Due to all the tasks we have completed relating to the Hedgehog Friendly Campus Initiative, we have recently gained our Bronze Accreditation. Myself and my colleague Caitlin Harris presented our work at the Annual Leeds Student Sustainability Research Conference 2020, on top of this we won an award at this conference for ‘Best Research Poster’. This award gained us an invitation to the International Campus Sustainability Network (ISCN) Conference in Switzerland, allowing an international platform for the project.

Keep up to date on the latest news

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to guide our activity. Holly's blog is linked to all of the SDGs.

Find out more about our impact on the SDGs.