Benjamin Michael Marshall.
Research Profile
Welcome to a website documenting my research into movement ecology, meta-science, the wildlife trade, and ecology.
PhD, MScRes, MA
About Me
I am currently employed as a Post-doctoral Research Assistant at the University of Glasgow UK, where I am responsible for the analysis of deer movement and rodent occurrence data. I am working with a team developing landscape-wide maps describing deer and rodent habitat connectivity. These connectivity maps feed into a wider project examining how tick hosts and landscape characteristics influence tick densities and the prevalence of Lyme disease.
Outside of my primary employment at Glasgow, I continue to participate in several collaborations involving the exploration and sharing of a large quantity of US-derived wildlife trade data, the testing utility of modern movement ecology analyses for snake movement data, and the examination of Jungle Crow behaviour and morphology.
Research interests:- Movement Ecology
- Herpetology
- Wildlife Trade
- Open Science
- Meta Science
- Agent-based Modelling
Education
I completed a PhD in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Stirling, funded by IAPETUS2 Doctoral Training Programme (NERC). My PhD project used agent-based models to simulate animal movement, and with those simulations explored how researcher choice influences the findings from animal tracking datasets. The final thesis title was ‘A Multiverse Approach to Assessing the Impacts of Analysis Choice on Estimates of Habitat Selection’.
My thesis was: ‘Investigating the potential susceptibility of selected Malagasy species to the toxins produced by the Asian Common Toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus).’ This project used genetic sequencing to understand whether Malagasy species have the necessary mutations to safety consume invasive toads. The thesis results were published in Current Biology.
My honours dissertation: ‘The timing and extent of Betula decline during the Landnám period in Skaftártunga, Southern Iceland.’ A palynological study, supplemented by tephrochronological, and historical data.
Experience
2024 - Present
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
University of Glasgow, UK
I am currently employed as a Post-doctoral Research Assistant at the University of Glasgow UK, where I am responsible for the analysis of deer movement and rodent occurrence data. I am working with a team developing landscape-wide maps describing deer and rodent habitat connectivity. These connectivity maps feed into a wider project examining how tick hosts and landscape characteristics influence tick densities and the prevalence of Lyme disease.
2023 - 2024
Tutor
University of Stirling, UK
I provided teaching support for undergraduate and Masters-level courses on conservation planning, statistics, and analysis in R and Jamovi.
2019
Freelance Typesetter and Designer
Dossier for Khorat Geopark
I provided typesetting, language, and design support for the Khorat Geopark’s successful bid to become a recognised UNESCO Geopark –a area of notable geological heritage.
2017 - 2021
Researcher
Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
I worked as a full-time researcher under Dr. Colin Strine. The research was primarily focused on the spatial ecology and habitat use of King Cobras, but also covers various other aspects of snake ecology, conservation, and the wildlife trade.
2015 - 2016
Research Assistant
Sakaerat Conservation and Snake Education Team
I worked as part of a team researching venomous snakes, mainly King Cobras (Ophiophagus hannah) and Green Pit Vipers (Trimeresurus sp.), in Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve, Thailand. The research focused on the use radio telemetry, with my role primarily involving the tracking of and data collection on the King Cobras.
My duties also included data review, presenting data summaries of snake movements, creating publication material from videos to logos, photo documentation, assisting with education, training team members, aiding snake capture efforts, and snake surveying. I created the plates and provided photos for three upcoming scientific publications. Additionally, I was a team liaison to help a BBC film crew collect footage for the Wild Thailand documentary.
2011
Volunteer Research Assistant
Operation Wallacea, Madagascar
I participated in a month-long expedition to the spiny forests in southern Madagascar. Experience including performing behavioural studies on lemurs and lizards, pit-fall trap construction and species identification. Also, day and night species transects for herpeto- and avifauna, vegetation surveys, invasive species mapping and removal.
2009 - 2014
Freelance Photographer and Designer
BP Calendar | Published Photography | Logo and Poster DesignThroughout the years I have undertaken design and photography work.
I designed a logo for the local currency exchange scheme for the St. Andrews area, along with poster templates and other design assets.
I took all the photography for the 2011 landowners calendar for the Wytch Farm oil pipeline that included locating suitable locations and taking photographs to a predefined specification. I have had photography published in various newspapers in digital and print forms (Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and the Dorset Echo). My photographs have been used by the BBC, in the tenth edition Schmap York Guide, a guide by the World Lighthouse Society about Northern Lighthouse Board lighthouses in Scotland and by the Marwell Zoological Park. I continue to sell photographs in various forms online.
Projects
Podcast
Outreach
Herpetology
Herpetological Highlights
A podcast aiming to bring the recent scientific advancements in the field of Herpetology to the fore. So far, Dr Tom Major and I have produced over 200 episodes with listeners across the world.
Animal Movement
R Package
abmAnimalMovement
The abmAnimalMovement simulates animal movement use a discrete time agent-based model, programmed in C++ via the Rcpp package. The simulations include a number of key internal and external movement influences, as well as parameters for navigation and mobility capacity of the animal.
Graphical Abstracts
Invasion of Toxic Toads
Research into the introduced toxic Common Asian Toad, was liable to poison the native fauna of Madagascar.
