Helen Wheeler

Helen joined Anglia Ruskin University in January 2018 as a Lecturer in Zoology. From 2012-2017 she conducted postdoctoral research at University of Tromsø, Norway, University of Quebec in Rimouski, Canada, Centre of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, National Centre for Scientific Research, France and Aarhus University in Denmark. Prior to this, she was a PhD student at University of Alberta in Canada.

Her research focusses on wildlife change in complex systems and monitoring for effective stewardship. She studies direct and indirect consequences of changing climate on wildlife in the Arctic. She works to understand how rapid climatic, ecological and socio-economic change in the Arctic affect wildlife behaviour, population ecology, spatial distribution and interactions between species. Her research is increasingly socio-ecological, including studying how different types of knowledge and information such as Traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge can contribute to our understanding of wildlife change.

Research interests
Gaps in large scale ecological monitoring
Impacts of arctic vegetation change on wildlife (in particular shrubification)
Complex responses to phenological change
Incorporating multiple knowledge systems in to wildlife observation
Helen is a member of both our Applied Ecology Research Group and Behavioural Ecology Research Group. Her current research focuses heavily on evaluating gaps in monitoring across social and ecological drivers of change in large scale monitoring networks in the Arctic. Helen's interests are in both creating tools to rigorously assess bias in coverage and representation and evaluating the consequences of those biases. In addition, she has ongoing research on the ecological consequences of arctic vegetation change (shrubification), particularly with respect to wildlife and she's particularly interested in developing projects that help to incorporate multiple knowledge systems (including Indigenous knowledge) in to wildlife observation and decision-making.