Lucia Snyderman
Areas of interest
- Conservation paleobiology
- Ecosystem change
- Biodiversity
Research centres and groups
Research projects
'The Pelican Brief': Using environmental archives to establish ecological baselines for UK wetland biodiversity restoration
This project, funded by the University of Reading, Scenario, and ZSL, will analyse zooarchaeological and subfossil remains with stable isotope and radiocarbon dating analyses to investigate the Holocene range collapse of the Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) across Europe as well as the species’ regional extinction in the United Kingdom. This species represents the world’s largest freshwater bird and is currently classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN, in need of conservation management to prevent further population loss and extinction. Exploring palaeontological archives will increase our understanding of biodiversity loss and help establish ecological baselines to guide wetland ecosystem restoration.
Supervisors:
Dr Billy Mills (University of Reading)
Dr Stuart Black (University of Reading)
Dr Samuel Turvey (Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London)
Dr Andrew Kitchener (National Museums Scotland)
Background
Lucia Snyderman is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology at Middlebury College in Vermont. She received High Honors for her senior thesis on the extinction dynamics of the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis). She is interested in uncovering the extinction stories of species using a combination of conservation palaeobiology tools – radiocarbon dating, stable isotopes, modelling, and ancient DNA – to directly inform conservation. She is very excited to now be researching the Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus)!