Ecology Academy Podcast

#31 - Internships and Innovation - interview with Suzi Cross, MD of the forward thinking Ecosulis

In this episode Richard interviews the highly engaging and enigmatic Suzi Cross, Managing Director for Ecosulis.

 

About Suzi

Suzi Cross has been Managing Director of Ecosulis Ltd for the last few years, having first joined the company in 2004 as a Senior Administrator. She specialises in Quality, Health and Safety, Employee Engagement and Wellbeing and has a passion for the outdoors. Running a values-lead organisation is something she considers a dream job because the people she brings on board share those values and the company’s vision to rewild half the planet by 2050.  

 

About Ecosulis

Ecosulis are dedicated to recovering nature, by designing and delivering efficient and scalable nature-based solutions for people and planet. They work with clients to identify nature-based solutions that deliver high biodiversity gains on sites across the UK and beyond, with minimal interventions. By crafting these solutions to fit the site, they cost-effectively deliver high quality results that stand the test of time.

Ecosulis are always on the lookout for new partnerships, collaborators and people who want to get involved with an innovative organisation that not only dreams big but delivers on it’s dreams. If you’d like to get in touch with Suzi, either drop her an email (suzi.cross@ecosulis.co.uk) or a message on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/suzijcross

W: https://ecosulis.co.uk/ 

 

Internships

Ecosulis offer a number of internships to support the growth of our future experts, and the rewilding sector itself.

We want to share rewilding principles and values for the benefit of future generations, to help the continued recovery of nature at a massive scale.

Alongside our wider educational and academy initiatives sits our paid internship programme, which is now entering its third year. The roles last 12 months, and offers a structured scheme for knowledge development and experience building in both rewilding and nature recovery. During this time, you’ll be working side by side with our experts and industry leaders, getting practical insight into real-world projects.

Our hope is that we can offer you a position with Ecosulis beyond the first year; otherwise, we aim to continue to support you after you leave us, and help you find a job that’s right for you. With connections to leading rewilding organisations and practitioners across the globe, we can offer the stepping stone you need to start your career.

Find out more and what they have to offer here: https://ecosulis.co.uk/careers/internships/ 

#30 - A Chat with ChatGPT - is AI going to replace us as ecologists?

In this episode, Richard 'talks' to ChatGPT. He talks about what he's been using ChatGPT for and what it could be used for.

What is ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI. It is designed to process natural language input and generate responses in natural language. It has been trained on a vast corpus of text data, which allows it to understand a wide range of topics and converse with users on a variety of subjects. ChatGPT can be used for a variety of applications, including chatbots, language translation, text summarization, and more.

 

Pros and Cons for using ChatGPT for ecologists

Pros:

1. Time-saving: Ecologists can use ChatGPT to quickly generate written reports, research papers, and other written materials, which could save a significant amount of time and allow them to focus on other tasks.
2. Efficient data analysis: ChatGPT can process large amounts of ecological data and generate insights and patterns that ecologists can use to better understand the environment.
3. Increased accessibility: ChatGPT can assist ecologists in communicating complex scientific concepts to non-expert audiences, potentially improving public engagement and understanding of ecological issues.
4. Personalized recommendations: ChatGPT can use data to provide personalized recommendations and insights to ecologists, such as suggesting new research areas to explore or identifying areas that require more attention.

Cons:

1. Limited accuracy: ChatGPT, like any AI system, can sometimes make errors or generate inaccurate information, especially if it has been trained on biased data or if it is working outside its scope.
2. Limited creativity: ChatGPT may not be able to generate truly innovative ideas or research directions, which could limit the potential of ecologists to explore new areas of ecological research.
3. Limited engagement: Some ecologists may prefer face-to-face or direct interactions with their peers and colleagues, rather than communicating through an AI-powered system.
4. Ethical considerations: Ecologists may need to consider ethical issues related to the use of AI in their work, such as data privacy and security concerns, and ensuring that ChatGPT is not used to replace human workers or undermine scientific rigor.

 

Example of a bad prompt to use for ChatGPT

How do I get a job as a consultant ecologist?

 

Example of a better prompt to use for ChatGPT

Write a plan of action of what qualifications and skills I would need to gain employment, after graduating from university, as an ecological consultant working within the UK.

 

Example of a really great prompt to use for ChatGPT

Please ignore all previous instructions. You are a biological sciences graduate from a UK university and seeking to gain employment as a consultant ecologist within the UK. Although you have not had any formal training as a consultant ecologist you are passionate about the natural environment and want to make a difference and help restore biodiversity loss. I want you to write out a detailed plan, including an estimated timeline, of how this recent graduate would gain employment, including what skills, knowledge and behaviours they would need to gain employment, how they should undertake effective research in to gaining employment that aligns with their own values. Assume that they need to do this within 12-18 months and have some but limited monetary funds. Do not self-reference. Do not explain what you are doing.

#29 - Dual Careers: interview with Misho Baxendale (Wildwood Ecology) on a career as both an ecologist and arboriculturalist

On today's podcast Richard discusses the opportunities and challenges of a dual-discipline career with his colleague, Misho Baxendale.

Misho is a dual-qualified environmental consultant, working across both ecology and arboricultural disciplines working at Wildwood Ecology, based in Stroud. Misho openly discusses the skills needed in both disciplines including complimentary and crossover skills (e.g. field surveys, data capture and analysis), and specialist skills (e.g. AutoCAD, tree climbing and tree surveys for planning and development).

The conversation also includes why Misho works with Wildwood Ecology in developing arboricultural services and the opportunities and challenges faced at the individual and company level.

 

Looking for a career with trees? Find out more by visiting the Arboricultural Association website: https://www.trees.org.uk/

#28 - Exploitation of early career ecologists: Interview with Paul Whitby, Ecology Co-op

Career exploitation refers to situations in which an employer or work environment takes advantage of an employee for their own benefit, often at the expense of the employee's well-being and long-term career prospects. This can take many forms, such as paying employees less than they deserve, not providing adequate opportunities for growth and development, or assigning them work that is outside of their job description or skill set.

Furthermore, career exploitation can lead to feelings of burnout, job dissatisfaction, and a lack of motivation to continue working in a particular field. It can also limit an employee's future career opportunities by not providing the necessary skills and experience to advance to higher-level positions.

So how can early career ecologists, with maybe only a limited knowledge of the work of an ecological or environmental company identify the signs of exploitation, and if found what can they do about it?

Well, helping us to understand this topic is our guest today, Paul Whitby, Managing Director and Principal Ecologist at The Ecology Co-op.

 

How to avoid exploitation in ecological consultancy?

If you want to avoid exploitation in your career, and help create a better industry for other aspiring ecologists, here’s some suggestions for what you can do:

• Understand what you value from your career. Why are you doing it? Depending on your reasons, are there any trade-offs you would be willing to make and to what threshold?
• Do your research and due diligence. Do your online research, ask questions, or seek answers about the company or organisation you are looking to work for. Try talking to previous employees to make sure the role you’re considering will meet your expectations.
• Create your own career opportunities. Don’t limit yourself to what you see advertised. Identify your goals and companies / organisations or people that could be a match, and reach out to them.
• Report inaccurate advertising or mistreatment. If you’ve done your research and an experience doesn’t provide what was promised, this is exploitation. If a company, organisation, or individual is mistreating its employees, this is unacceptable and should be reported to the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM).

 

Our Guest:

Paul is a Chartered Ecologist with fourteen years’ experience working as an ecologist and environmental consultant. His career began in Cheshire working on a number of large projects including gas pipelines, waste recovery centres, Liquid Natural Gas installations, and other commercial developments. After a short spell working back in his hometown of Petworth, Paul set up Azure Ecology in 2009, a small independent ecological consultancy working with a network of sub-contractors across south east England.

Paul founded The Ecology Co-operation in March 2014 to replace Azure Ecology and accommodate the expanding team of ecologists. Paul has working experience with a wide variety of British terrestrial wildlife and has managed projects of all sizes including writing Ecological Impact Assessments (EcIA), working as an expert witness at planning enquiries, and completing 23 Farm Environment Plans as part of Higher Level Stewardship applications across seven different counties. He has survey licenses for bats, dormice, and great crested newts and has held a number of European Protected Species licenses.

Aside from ecology, Paul’s interests include rugby, vegetable gardening, free diving, and pretending to be good at DIY.

 

Team Leadership Training for Ecologists:

Also, why not join us on 16 March at 11:00am for a FREE 45-minute Discovery Webinar to find out more about 'Team Leadership Training for Ecologists' from our course partners.

Register your interest here: https://training.ecologyacademy.co.uk/courses/discovery-webinar-team-leadership-training-for-ecologists 

 

How to get in touch

You can follow us or get in touch via our socials or at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk: 

Website: https://training.ecologyacademy.co.uk/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecology-academy/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecologyacademy 

Instagram: @ecology_academy 

Twitter: @ecology_academy 

#27 - Taking Action on Your Goals and How to be a Better Manager

We all need to make plans, but more importantly take action in implementing them!

This episode is not aimed to help you set goals, but instead it is focused on how to be a better manager. Whether you are a first line manager or a senior executive, we all need the tools to help us support ourselves and others.

If you're just starting out, you can download a copy of our Skills Wheel and Guidance Notes which will help you to make a start in recognising your areas of strength as well as those areas that could benefit from a little extra focus.

If you are new to 'managing' people then what support have you received to enable you to deliver the best results for your team, your company, and for you? Do you know what management style you need to use, when to use it, and why? Can you do so consistently? These are the questions that you need to ask yourself in how competent a manager you are and what action you may need to support you and others.

The Ecology Academy is developing a management training course for those new to, or soon to be, managing people. We recognise that management is not innate and needs to be developed over the entire duration of your time as an ecologist. This is not something you can learn after 1 day of training!

If you are interested in participating in our management training courses, then email us with an expression of interest to find out more at: hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk.

The podcast is available on all major streaming platforms, just search for 'Ecology Academy'.

If you have any recommendations for a future podcast topic, or would like to appear on the show, please do get in touch at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk. We would love to hear from you!

How to get in touch

You can follow us or get in touch via our socials or at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk

Website: https://training.ecologyacademy.co.uk/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecology-academy/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecologyacademy 

Instagram: @ecology_academy 

Twitter: @ecology_academy 

 

#26 - What is Biodiversity Net Gain and the Biodiversity Metric? Interview with Dr Nick White, Natural England

During this episode, host Richard Dodd interviews Dr Nicholas White, Principal Adviser on Net Gain for Natural England, and discusses what skills we need as ecologists to help deliver Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). We get to hear Nick's insights into the Environment Act and the delivery of BNG, the newly updated biodiversity metric, standards, and guidance, as well as marine net gain!

Our Guest

Nick works across Government (at both a national and local level), and with developers, NGOs, and academia to advance policy, practice, and standards around net gain (including biodiversity, natural capital, and environmental net gain).

The current focus of Nick’s work is on biodiversity net gain legislation, the biodiversity metric, and biodiversity net gain standards and guidance, as well as working on the evolving approach to marine net gain.

As a non-ecologist, Nick is interested in how biodiversity and the natural environment can contribute towards wider social and economic benefits, and has a strong interest in green infrastructure, especially in relation to urban areas and its ability to enhance wider (grey) infrastructure resilience.

Nick enjoys engaging with different sectors and seeking opportunities to help secure the delivery of shared outcomes and has previously worked in the health, cultural, and charitable sectors.

This Episode

During the interview Richard and Nick discuss; how the biodiversity metric tool is not to be used as a decision-making tool, the need to bring ecologists on board at the earliest opportunity, the difference between a S106 Agreement and a Conservation Covenant, where to seek out training, and the advantages of on-site and off-site BNG delivery for developers. 

We also talk about landowners offering land to help developers deliver BNG and the commercial incentives to doing so, the biodiversity off-set register, management plans, and monitoring.

This was a great discussion, and the Ecology Academy are very grateful to Nick for offering up his time to talk with us on the podcast.

The Ecology Academy will soon be launching our own Biodiversity Net Gain Fundamentals training course, so be sure to check that out if you would like to run through a case study on how to use the biodiversity metric.

The podcast is available on all major streaming platforms, just search for 'Ecology Academy'.

If you have any recommendations for a future podcast topic, or would like to appear on the show, please do get in touch at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk. We would love to hear from you!

How to get in touch

You can follow us or get in touch via our socials or at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk: 

Website: https://training.ecologyacademy.co.uk/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecology-academy/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecologyacademy 

Instagram: @ecology_academy 

Twitter: @ecology_academy 

#25 - Career Guidance with Tilly Tilbrook: great advice from application through to interview

This month’s episode is from a discussion which was recorded as part of a live Q&A session for students at Nottingham Trent University during the delivery of our six-week Career Accelerator for Aspiring Ecological Consultants course for 2nd and final year students studying for a BSc in Wildlife Conservation.

Throughout the six weeks, students gained a thorough understanding of; the role of an ecological consultant and ecological consultancy, planning policy and legislation relevant to their work as an ecological consultant, considerations of what to put into a quote that would go to a client, preliminary roost assessment, preliminary ecological appraisal (both theoretical and practical application), protected species surveys and licensing, using QGIS to generate a habitat plan, report writing for ecological consultants, and finally, career guidance.

It was for this final career advice session that Tilly Tilbrook, Director at Integrated Environmental Solutions Ltd, kindly joined to share her expert insights on the recruitment process and what she looks for in candidates coming through as early career ecologists.

Our Guest

Tilly Tilbrook is a Chartered Ecologist who has worked in the industry since 2002. Her background includes working for local government, Natural England, and both small and large environmental consultancies. She founded Integrated Ecological Solutions Ltd in 2009, partly through a desire to work more ethically. Over the past thirteen years, she has employed many freelance and early career ecologists, and is part of the CIEEM working group looking at employment issues in the sector. 

During this recording we discuss the job advert, job application cover letter, CV, interview process, and finally some extra thoughts on obtaining missing skills where time and/or money may be limited.

Resources

Here is a non-exhaustive list of ways to bolster your CV through online training courses suitable for early career ecologists looking to work in the UK. Some are free, others are not.

*Free*
Join this Facebook group to learn more about QGIS. It's not comprehensive and you will have to search for what you're looking for, so if you are looking for a more complete introduction then we do have a QGIS training course aimed at beginners (see *paid*).

Watch Joshua Styles MCIEEM’s excellent webinar on Botanical Surveys for Development. 

The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) often run free webinars or occasionally for a small £3-5 fee for non-members.

Recordings of free-to-attend webinars can be found on CIEEM’s YouTube and a list of paid-for recordings can be found under the ‘Webinars’ subheading of this webpage - a link is sent after access has been purchased.

There's also other early careers guidance on CIEEM’s website here: https://lnkd.in/dKSjmRCU.

Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust have several free online training courses here: https://lnkd.in/ddfpTW4D.

*Paid*
Ecology Academy has a range of courses covering many different topics, including; Introduction to QGIS for Ecologists, Introduction to Bryophytes, Preliminary Ecological Appraisal Fundamentals, or for university/group courses (or individuals at certain times of the year) there is the Career Accelerator for Aspiring Ecological Consultants.

The Arboricultural Association has training on Bats in Trees.

The Field Studies Council also offer a variety of courses both online and across their many field centres: https://lnkd.in/dUrHPJfY.

Bat Conservation Trust have a range of online courses such as Thermal Imaging Basics and various acoustic analysis courses: https://lnkd.in/dG4Xj2WW.

How to get in touch

You can follow us or get in touch via our socials or at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk: 

Website: https://training.ecologyacademy.co.uk/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecology-academy/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecologyacademy 

Instagram: @ecology_academy 

Twitter: @ecology_academy 

#24 - UK Habitat Classification System and the Digital Ecologist: interview with Paul Losse, Salix Ecology

Welcome to the first episode in a brand new season of the Ecology Academy podcast!

In this month's episode we focus on delivering everything you need to know about the UK Habitat Classification System (UKHab) and why, as a digital ecologist, it matters.

Our Guest

Our guest on this episode is Paul Losse of Salix Ecology. 

Paul worked as a Conservation Officer and Senior Specialist (land management and conservation) for English Nature and Natural England for 10 years. His roles have included providing advice to land owners on ecology, wildlife legislation, conservation land management, and carrying out habitat surveys. He has provided training and guidance to developers and local authorities on cases where nature conservation and protected species issues arise.

Paul also has nine years experience as a training consultant in the public sector.

Paul is the instructor on our popular training course, Introduction to QGIS for Ecologists.

UK Habitat Classification System

The UK Habitat Classification System was launched in 2018 and is a free-to-use, unified, and comprehensive approach to classifying habitats. It has been designed to provide a simple and robust approach to survey and monitoring for the 21st century.

The new classification, which covers terrestrial and freshwater habitats, is flexible enough for use in a wide range of survey types from walkover surveys of small urban sites to regional and national scale rural habitat mapping.

The classification, which includes a comprehensive Professional Edition and an abridged Basic Edition, will be a valuable tool for species and habitat research, ecological impact, ecosystem services, and biodiversity net gain assessments.

Ecology Academy News

Our popular 'Career Accelerator for Aspiring Ecological Consultants' course is back and we are ready for a brand new cohort of motivated students. This eight week online modular course kicks off on 17 October 2022 and will enable students/recent graduates/career changers to take significant steps towards achieving a permanent position as an ecological consultant in the UK.

To find out more about the course, or to enrol today, please click here.

 

Don't forget that you can follow us or get in touch via our socials or at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk: 

Website: https://training.ecologyacademy.co.uk/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecology-academy/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecologyacademy 

Instagram: @ecology_academy 

Twitter: @ecology_academy 

#23 - Season Finale - Join us for a NEW season and FREE Skills Wheel Training

We are taking a well earned break in September before springing back with a brand new season in October 2022.

Thank you to all of you for listening throughout the past year (and a bit). It's time for our annual appraisal... so what did you find of most value this season and would like us to do more of in the future? What did not really resonate with you? We would love to hear from you!

You can send your feedback to us at hello@ecologyacademy.co.uk or by posting a message on one of our social media platforms - Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Whilst you're there, why not also let us know who you would like to see as a guest on the show and why - you can even nominate yourself!

As mentioned during this short episode, we are running a FREE webinar on our popular Skills Wheel self-assessment tool. If you would like a copy of the Skills Wheel and training on how to use it, then head over to the Ecology Academy Training platform and sign up today!

Finally, we wish you well in whatever life has in store for you throughout September, whether that be going to university, job hunting, or looking forward to the end of the frantic survey season. We hope to see you back again in October as we start our new season.

Richard, and the dedicated podcast crew at Ecology Academy.

 

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Need some book recommendations? Head over to our book store where not only can you pick up some great books, but also support your local book store at the same time - it's better than that other site you're used to :-)

#22 - Big Data Analysis and the BTO Acoustics Pipeline: interview with lead scientist Stuart Newson

A not to be missed interview with Stuart Newson, lead scientist for the BTO Acoustic Pipeline, which brings cutting-edge sound identification of bats and other nocturnal wildlife to your desktop.

During the interview, Richard discusses Stuart's love for big data analysis and problem solving and his work with the BTO. We talk about his career profile as a researcher and how his desire to identify and understand what bats were in and around Norwich set him up to launch a county wide programme for the whole of Norfolk and led him to develop the BTO Acoustic Pipeline.

The Pipeline currently focuses on 34 species of European bat, but also identifies 14 small mammal species, 18 bush-cricket species and 2 moth species, where these are recorded as by-catch. 

 

Top bat detector recording tips include:

Consider the placement of your microphone -  Ideally the microphone, or detector (if the microphone is inbuilt) should be pole mounted, raised up into the bat’s flyway, and positioned at least 1.5 meters away from any flat surfaces or vegetation. The worst thing that can be done is to attach a detector, particularly if it has an inbuilt microphone to a flat surface like a tree trunk, or to try and hide the detector and microphone within or close to vegetation. This can result in acoustic mush, that is difficult to do much with by any means, particularly for some of the more cryptic species where recording quality is most critical. 

Positioning yourself near a bat roost - If recording at a bat roost, the performance of the pipeline will be considerably better if you position the bat detector directly away from emergence itself (10-15 meters away). If recording directly at emergence, the calls of bat are often elevated in frequency and are not very typical of the calls of free-flying individuals, on which the pipeline was trained. The performance of the pipeline is also likely to be reduced if recording is carried out inside a bat roost. In this situation, echolocation calls are often atypically short in duration (in extreme clutter), a broad range of social calls are often produced in this situation that are not encountered outside a roost, and the recordings can often be distorted, and or otherwise of poor quality. 

Chose your file type to suit the purpose of your survey - It is also recommended that you do not convert full spectrum recordings to zero-crossing before auditing the recordings / results. This is most likely to be done by bat workers who have used zero-crossing in the past, but it will result in a significant proportion of recordings that would have be assigned to species, being missed. It may also introduce biases in your data, which could influence your interpretation, which I will explain with an example. Suppose that bat recording is carried out at two locations, where there is similar level of barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) activity. However, at one location, there is also high bushcricket activity. The pipeline is efficient at finding weak barbastelle calls in noisy recordings like this, so based on the pipeline, the activity of barbastelle according to the pipeline should be similar. However, when the recordings are converted to zerocrossing, the barbastelle calls may be lost where there are noisy bush-crickets. This example highlights why converting full spectrum recordings to zero-crossing for auditing should be avoided, and that it has the potential to result in an incorrect interpretation.

Standardise your bat detector settings - Bat detectors are increasingly moving toward embedding metadata associated with e.g. the recording location, date and time in the wav file, using GUANO Metadata, which is a universal, extensible, open metadata format for bat acoustic recordings. It is important that wav files are named as described Bat detector file settings.

Standardise your length of recordings/calls - Lastly, and specific to the pipeline we recommend that bat detector settings are used that define the maximum wav file length to be 5 seconds. 5 seconds is the optimum for the pipeline to be able to identify multiple species in a recording. Longer recordings can be uploaded and will be processed by the pipeline, but it is important to understand that long recordings are split automatically by the desktop app into 5 second sections before they are processed. Note that the desktop app provides the option for the user to save a copy of the wav files as they will be processed, so including split wav files.

 

 

Stuart Newson Bio:

Senior Research Ecologist  in the Population Modelling and Ecology Research Team with the British Trust for Ornithology.

He’s responsible for survey design and analysis of data from large national surveys of wild bird and mammal populations. Projects include a number of collaborations involving the large-scale analyses of bat and bird survey data with UK and overseas university academics and NGO researchers.

He has been awarded the Marsh Award for Innovative Ornithology, a Member of Natural England’s Bat Expert Panel and Member of UK Avian Population Estimates Panel, a Research Fellowship on Bioacoustics, PhD and MSc supervisor and Norwich Bat Group committee member.

Whilst the core of his work has been on birds, he has a personal interest in bats and acoustic monitoring, and in particular how technology can deliver new opportunities for conservation and provide new ways to engage with larger audiences. Stuart is the lead scientist for the BTO Acoustic Pipeline, which brings cutting-edge sound identification of bats and other nocturnal wildlife to your desktop.