Sue Lewis
sue lewis

Dr Sue Lewis

Lecturer

 0131 455 3805

  S.Lewis@napier.ac.uk

  

Biography

I am an ecologist with a passion for research with conservation goals. My overall research aims are to understand variation amongst individuals in demographic rates and explore the consequences of this variation on population dynamics. I use long term individual-based data of wild animal populations, focussing mostly on seabirds, to examine these questions. This research area is important in understanding environmental drivers of population change and predicting future change. This is particularly relevant to seabirds, as they are currently one of the most threatened groups of vertebrates worldwide.

I started at Edinburgh Napier University in 2021 and am a lecturer in ecology. I am also a teaching fellow at the Centre for Open Learning, University of Edinburgh, and a postdoctoral fellow at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. I held a NERC postdoctoral research fellowship at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh from 2007-2016. Before this I was a teaching and research fellow at the Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen and prior to that held a Leverhulme early career research fellowship there from 2004-2006. I did my PhD at the Department of Biosciences, University of Durham in conjunction with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. I have a MSc in Marine and Fisheries Science from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc in Ecology and Environmental Management from the University of Cardiff.

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37 results

Longitudinal bio-logging reveals interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic carry-over effects in a long-lived vertebrate

Journal Article
Daunt, F., Reed, T. E., Newell, M., Burthe, S., Phillips, R. A., Lewis, S., & Wanless, S. (2014)
Longitudinal bio-logging reveals interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic carry-over effects in a long-lived vertebrate. Ecology, 95(8), 2077-2083. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1797.1
Carry-over effects have major implications for individual fitness and population and evolutionary dynamics. The strength of these effects is dependent on an individual's intri...

Density-dependent foraging and colony growth in a pelagic seabird species under varying environmental conditions

Journal Article
Davies, R., Wanless, S., Lewis, S., & Hamer, K. (2013)
Density-dependent foraging and colony growth in a pelagic seabird species under varying environmental conditions. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 485, 287-294. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10348
Intra-specific competition for food resources affects both foraging behaviour and population growth rates in many species, highlighting a need to better understand how changin...

Age-related variation in reproductive traits in the wandering albatross: evidence for terminal improvement following senescence

Journal Article
Froy, H., Phillips, R. A., Wood, A. G., Nussey, D. H., & Lewis, S. (2013)
Age-related variation in reproductive traits in the wandering albatross: evidence for terminal improvement following senescence. Ecology Letters, 16(5), 642-649. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12092
The processes driving age-related variation in demographic rates are central to understanding population and evolutionary ecology. An increasing number of studies in wild vert...

Intrinsic determinants of a population trend in timing of breeding in the wandering albatross

Journal Article
Lewis, S., Nussey, D. H., Wood, A. G., Croxall, J. P., & Phillips, R. A. (2012)
Intrinsic determinants of a population trend in timing of breeding in the wandering albatross. Oikos, 121(12), 2061-2071. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2012.20293.x
Numerous studies of wild animal species have documented that population level responses to environmental change are underpinned by individual level phenotypic plasticity. Howe...

Overlap between vulnerable top predators and fisheries in the Benguela upwelling system: implications for marine protected areas

Journal Article
Pichegru, L., Ryan, P., Le Bohec, C., van der Lingen, C., Navarro, R., Petersen, S., …Grémillet, D. (2009)
Overlap between vulnerable top predators and fisheries in the Benguela upwelling system: implications for marine protected areas. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 391, 199-208. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps08283
Industrial-scale fisheries are often thought to reduce food availability for top predators. It is essential to estimate the spatial and temporal overlap over a fine scale betw...

Underwater wingbeats extend depth and duration of plunge dives in northern gannets Morus bassanus

Journal Article
Ropert-Coudert, Y., Daunt, F., Kato, A., Ryan, P. G., Lewis, S., Kobayashi, K., …Wanless, S. (2009)
Underwater wingbeats extend depth and duration of plunge dives in northern gannets Morus bassanus. Journal of Avian Biology, 40(4), 380-387. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-048x.2008.04592.x
Plunge-diving is a specialised hunting tactic used by some avian predators to overcome the high buoyancy encountered near the water surface and surprise prey. However, plunge-...

Effects of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on breeding success in a long lived seabird

Journal Article
Lewis, S., Elston, D. A., Daunt, F., Cheney, B., & Thompson, P. M. (2009)
Effects of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on breeding success in a long lived seabird. Oikos, 118(4), 521-528. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2008.17308.x
There is growing concern over the impacts of climate change on animal species. Many studies have demonstrated impacts of climate change at the population level, and density de...

Later breeding in northern gannets in the eastern Atlantic

Journal Article
Wanless, S., Harris, M., Lewis, S., Frederiksen, M., & Murray, S. (2008)
Later breeding in northern gannets in the eastern Atlantic. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 370, 263-269. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps07712
Species with breeding distributions spanning a broad latitudinal range typically experience a correspondingly wide range of environmental conditions, and may also be subject t...

Flexible incubation rhythm in northern fulmars: a comparison between oceanographic zones

Journal Article
Mallory, M. L., Gaston, A. J., Forbes, M. R., Gilchrist, H. G., Cheney, B., Lewis, S., & Thompson, P. M. (2008)
Flexible incubation rhythm in northern fulmars: a comparison between oceanographic zones. Marine Biology, 154(6), 1031-1040. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-008-0994-z
Variation in the timing and abundance of marine food resources is known to affect the breeding behaviour of many seabirds, constraining our understanding of the extent to whic...

Spatial match-mismatch in the Benguela upwelling zone: should we expect chlorophyll and sea-surface temperature to predict marine predator distributions?

Journal Article
Grémillet, D., Lewis, S., Drapeau, L., van Der Lingen, C. D., Huggett, J. A., Coetzee, J. C., …Ryan, P. G. (2008)
Spatial match-mismatch in the Benguela upwelling zone: should we expect chlorophyll and sea-surface temperature to predict marine predator distributions?. Journal of Applied Ecology, 45(2), 610-621. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2007.01447.x
1. Remote-sensing measurements of marine primary productivity are widely used to predict the distribution and movements of marine top predators, despite the fact that predator...