Operation Wallacea
Dr. Morgan Hughes is a distinguished ecologist and academic with extensive experience in research and education. Currently serving as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Umeå University since January 2024, Dr. Hughes is concurrently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton, where responsibilities include teaching ecology and supervising projects for undergraduates and postgraduates. With a progressive career, Dr. Hughes has held roles such as Lead Bat Scientist and Biodiversity Coordinator at Operation Wallacea and Ecologist at Network Rail, along with senior positions in various ecological consulting firms, specializing in bat surveys and biodiversity assessments. Dr. Hughes holds a PhD in Animal Behaviour and Wildlife Conservation from the University of Wolverhampton, complemented by advanced degrees in Biological Recording and Physical Geography.
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Operation Wallacea
Operation Wallacea is a series of biological and social science expedition projects that operate in remote locations across the world. These expeditions are designed with specific wildlife conservation aims in mind - from identifying areas needing protection, through to implementing and assessing conservation management programmes. Large teams of university academics, who are specialists in various aspects of biodiversity or social and economic studies, are concentrated at the target study sites. Research Assistants and dissertation students joining the surveys have the option of customising their own itinerary from a range of training and science options. The surveys result in a large number of publications in peer-reviewed journals each year, have resulted in 30 vertebrate species new to science being discovered, 4 'extinct' species being re-discovered and $2 million levered from funding agencies to set up best practice management examples at the study sites. These large survey teams of academics and volunteers that are funded independently of normal academic sources have enabled large temporal and spatial biodiversity and socio-economic data sets to be produced, and provide information to help with organising effective conservation management programmes.