Author: Sam Ross

Sam Ross is a PhD student in Ian Donohue’s research group in the Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on the effects of global change on ecological stability.
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Little ants under big pressure

A recent study led by Sam Ross and published in the journal Biotropica, asks how selective logging interacts with habitat fragmentation to affect ant biodiversity in a Kenyan rainforest. Read more in the blog post snippet below, or see the full blog post on the IMECO blog:

“Our recent study asks how selective logging intensity affects ant biodiversity in Kakamega forest in Western Kenya. Building on fieldwork conducted by Paco Hita Garcia and Georg Fischer ~10 years ago, we aimed to uncover how logging intensity in the past and recently interacts with habitat fragmentation to affect ant communities. We found that recent selective logging matters the most, and that ant species that lived mainly in the forest were particularly affected by logging. Our work reveals how recent logging activity may overshadow any historic impacts in this forest in Kenya. Continue reading “Little ants under big pressure”

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If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

A recent study led by Sam Ross (Trinity College Dublin) and Dr. Nick Friedman and published in the journal Ecological Research, aims to ask how much we can learn from bioacoustic monitoring of ecosystems. Read more in the blog post snippet below, or see the full blog post on the IMECO blog:

“A recent study led by myself and Dr. Nick Friedman asks whether we can accurately measure how diverse different ecosystems are on the island of Okinawa, Japan. We set up 24 monitoring sites across the island in different locations – in forests, grassland, mangroves, near the beach and in the city – to monitor all the sounds that are produced near each site. We found that we can detect individual species and relate these sounds to natural patterns including the ‘dawn chorus,’ and we could identify sites with heavy human activity. All without having to look for any species. Continue reading “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?”