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Nick Littlewood

Dr

 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4461-8833

  • Ferguson Building, SRUC

    AB21 9YA Aberdeen

    United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

20062026

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research interests

Nick is a conservation ecologist and researches the impacts of management on species and habitats. His work spans plant, invertebrate, bird and mammal assemblages and the interactions between these. He also carries out work on individual species, and these have included rare or threatened taxa ranging from Narrow-headed Ant to Scottish Wildcat. Nick works closely with conservation practitioners, land managers, NGOs and agencies to produce outputs that have conservation policy and management relevance. Past work has provided policy and practical advice for responding to the threat from tree diseases, including Ash Dieback and Chronic Oak Decline. Nick has also worked with the Conservation Evidence group at the University of Cambridge and advocates for use of evidence in conservation practice.

 

Previous employer

Nick has worked in both conservation practice and research. He spent several years as a nature reserve warden and site manager before completing a PhD (University of Aberdeen, 2001-05) on biodiversity responses to moorland restoration. Subsequently, he managed the North-East Scotland Biological Records Centre (2005-07) and carried out research at the James Hutton Institute (formerly Macaulay Institute) in Aberdeen (2007-14). Nick then worked on freelance ecological contracts (2014-17), reserached upland bird assemblages for Newcastle University (2017-18) and worked within the Conservation Evidence group at the University of Cambridge (2018-19). He joined SRUC as a Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation Management in January 2020 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2023.

 

Teaching

Nick leads delivery of the following units/modules:

 

Campus-based

Classification & Identifcation of Organisms

Wildlife Management

Ecological Surveying

Conservation Management Planning

Field Study Skills

Habitat Management

 

Distance Learning

MSc: Advances in Land Management

MSc: dissertation module for Wildlife & Conservation Management MSc

 

Nick is Programme Leader for the part-time MSc in Wildife and Conservation Management and is Director of Studies for first-year students on this programme. He is also Director of Studies for year-4 Wildlife & Conservation Management students at Craibstone.

 

Supervision

Nick supervises honours projects and MSc dissertation projects on the Wildlife & Conservation Management programme.

 

Current PhD supervision:

2021-2025: Rochelle Kennedy, Sustaining biodiversity through mixed farming systems. In partnership with University of Stirling. Funded by SRUC through EastBio DTP.

2022-2026: Rob Hughes, Peatland afforestation: impacts and restoration. University of the Highlands & Islands. Funded by RSPB and carried out in partnership with Forest Research and SRUC.

2022-2026: Vicky Graves, Interactive effects of moorland management and wilding on predator/prey relations. In partnership with Newcastle University. Funded by SRUC.

2023-2027: Claire Stainfield, Sustainability of Seal Tourism in the Ythan Estuary. Funded by SRUC.

2024-2028: Laura Sharp, Understanding and reversing the decline of moorland moths in the UK. Funded by Butterfly Conservation and SRUC.

2025-2029: Charlotte Wood, Insect communities: measuring nutritional robustness across agricultural landscapes. Funded by EastBio DTP.

 

Completed PhD students:

2014-2018: Lisa Malm. The impacts of habitat modification on avian food web structure and resilience. Newcastle University. Funded by the Macaulay Development Trust, Newcastle University, University of Hull and British Trust for Ornithology. Lisa is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at Umeå University, Lund, Sweden

2014-2018: Ainoa Pravia, Evaluating peatland management and restoration for multiple outcomes. University of the Highlands & Islands. Funded by the James Hutton Institute and University of the Highlands & Islands. Ainoa is now a Research Entomologist with Forest Reseach at Roslin, Scotland.

2009- 2016 (part-time): Gabor Pozsgai, Long-term dynamics in ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages. University of Aberdeen. Funded by James Hutton Institute. Gabor is now a Post-doc Researcher at Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, University of the Azores.

 

Education/Academic qualification

PhD, The Response of Plant and Insect Assemblages to the Restoration of Heather Moorland, University of Aberdeen

2001 → 2005

External positions

The James Hutton Institute

2014 → …

University of the Highlands and Islands

2014 → …

Insect Conservation and Diversity

2010 → …

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  • Conservation notes: A new article type promoting evidence-based insect conservation

    Saunders, M. E., Bowler, D. E., Bried, J., Davis, A., Evans, E., Garratt, M. P. D., Gebert, F., Littlewood, N., Marsh, J. R., Menz, M. H. M., Naujokaitis-Lewis, I., Stewart, A. J. A., DeSouza, O., Tercel, M. P. T. G., Vila, M. & Didham, R. K., Jul 2026, In: Insect Conservation and Diversity. 19, 4, p. 733-736 4 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial

    Open Access
    File
    15 Downloads (Pure)

  • Contrasting effects of mixed farming on bats are mediated by local and landscape features and differ between seasons

    Kennedy, R., Littlewood, N., Park, K. J. & Fuentes-Montemayor, E., Apr 2026, In: Biodiversity and Conservation. 35, 5, 139.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

    Open Access
    File
    3 Downloads (Pure)

  • Does mixed farming benefit moths? Exploring how different farming systems shape both local features and the wider landscape

    Kennedy, R., Fuentes-Montemayor, E., Park, K. J. & Littlewood, N., 1 Feb 2026, In: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 396, 109996.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

    Open Access
    File
    95 Downloads (Pure)

  • Optimization of passive acoustic bird surveys: a global assessment of BirdNET settings

    Pérez-Granados, C., Funosas Planas, D., Morant, J., Marín Gómez, O. H., Mendoza Sagrera, I., Mohedano-Munoz, M. A., Santamaría, E., Bastianelli, G., Márquez-Rodríguez, A., Budka, M., Bota, G., De la Peña-Rubio, J. M., de la Morena, E. L. G., Santa-Cruz, M., de la Nava, P., Fernández-Tizón, M., Sánchez-Mateos, H., Barrero, A., Traba, J. & Osiejuk, T. S. & 79 others, Hart, P. J., Navine, A. K., Montoya Muñoz, A. F., de Araujo, C. B., Rosa, G. L. M., Torres, I. M. D., Catalano, A. L. C., Simões, C. R., Llusia, D., Morales, M. B., Acebes, P., Medina, J. A., Brown, N., Astaras, C., Karmiris, I., Navarrete, E., Cauchoix, M., Barbaro, L., Arend, D., Müeller, S., González-García, F., González-Romero, A., Mammides, C., Pontikis, M., Jacuzzi, G., Olden, J. D., Bombaci, S. P., Marcacci, G., Jacot, A., Zurano, J. P., Gangenova, E., Varela, D., Di Sallo, F., Zurita, G. A., Atemasov, A., Tremblay, J. A., Hutschenreiter, A., Monroy-Ojeda, A., Díaz-Vallejo, M., Chaparro-Herrera, S., Briers, R. A., Sousa-Lima, R., Pinheiro, T., da Silva, W. C., Calvente, A., Molin, A. D., Antonelli, A., Gogoleva, S., Palko, I., Trọng, H. V., Duarte, M. H. L., Dos Santos Saturnino, N., Silva, S. R., Rainho, A., Lopes, P., Schuchmann, K. L., Marques, M. I., De Oliverira Tissiani, A. S., Littlewood, N. A., Tuanmu, M. N., Cheng, Y.-R., Chao, H., Kepfer-Rojas, S., Aguilera, A. L., Brotons, L., Feldman, M. J., Imbeau, L., Panwar, P., Weed, A. S., Dehwal, A., Attisano, A., Theuerkauf, J., Oliveira-Júnior, D. D., Lima-Santos, C. S., Salustio-Gomes, C., da Paz, R. V., Pichorim, M., Goodale, E. & Sebastián-González, E., 22 Mar 2026, In: Ibis. 14 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Short communication › peer-review

    Open Access
    File
    3   Link opens in a new tab Citations (Scopus)
    20 Downloads (Pure)

  • WABAD: A world annotated bird acoustic dataset for passive acoustic monitoring: A world annotated bird acoustic dataset for passive acoustic monitoring

    Pérez‐Granados, C., Morant, J., Darras, K. F. A., Marín‐Gómez, O. H., Mendoza, I., Muñoz‐Mohedano, M. A., Santamaría‐García, E., Bastianelli, G., Márquez‐Rodríguez, A., Budka, M., Bota, G., De la Peña‐Rubio, J. M., de la Morena, E. L. G., Santa‐Cruz, M., de la Nava, P., Fernández‐Tizón, M., Sánchez‐Mateos, H., Barrero, A., Traba, J. & Osiejuk, T. S. & 82 others, Hart, P. J., Navine, A. K., Montoya Muñoz, A. F., de Araujo, C. B., Rosa, G. L. M., Denóbile Torres, I. M., Camargo Catalano, A. L., Simões, C. R., Llusia, D., Morales, M. B., Acebes, P., Medina, J. A., Brown, N., Astaras, C., Karmiris, I., Navarrete, E., Cauchoix, M., Barbaro, L., Funosas, D., Arend, D., Müeller, S., González‐García, F., González‐Romero, A., Mammides, C., Pontikis, M., Jacuzzi, G., Olden, J. D., Bombaci, S. P., Marcacci, G., Jacot, A., Zurano, J. P., Gangenova, E., Varela, D., Di Sallo, F., Zurita, G. A., Atemasov, A., Tremblay, J. A., Lamarre, V., Hutschenreiter, A., Monroy‐Ojeda, A., Díaz‐Vallejo, M., Chaparro‐Herrera, S., Briers, R. A., Sousa‐Lima, R., Pinheiro, T., da Silva, W. C., Calvente, A., Molin, A. D., Antonelli, A., Gogoleva, S., Palko, I., Trọng, H. V., Lage Duarte, M. H., dos Santos Saturnino, N., Silva, S. R., Rainho, A., Lopes, P., Schuchmann, K., Marques, M. I., de Oliveira, A. S., Littlewood, N. A., Tuanmu, M., Cheng, Y., Chao, H., Kepfer‐Rojas, S., Aguilera, A. L., Brotons, L., Feldman, M. J., Imbeau, L., Panwar, P., Weed, A. S., Deshwal, A., da Paz, R. V., Salustio‐Gomes, C., Oliveira‐Júnior, D. D., Lima‐Santos, C. S., Pichorim, M., Pan, W., Goodale, E., Attisano, A., Theuerkauf, J. & Sebastián‐González, E., 1 Feb 2026, In: Ecology. 107, 2, e70317.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Data article › peer-review

    Open Access
    File
    3   Link opens in a new tab Citations (Scopus)
    9 Downloads (Pure)
View all 54 research outputs
  • 1 Editorial work
  • 1 External examiner (viva)
  • 1 Membership of professional body
  • 1 Oral presentation