ڹϳ

ڹϳ cookie policy

We use cookies on reading.ac.uk to improve your experience, monitor site performance and tailor content to you

Read our cookie policy to find out how to manage your cookie settings

Luke Christopher Evans

Luke Christopher Evans

Areas of interest

In my research I work predominantly with insects, and I attempt to use ecological theory and large-scale observational data to understand the relationships between insect abundance, diversity, and ecosystem function. I am a member of the Social and Applied Ecology research group at ڹϳ where I am currently a post-doctoral researcher on the DRUID project (Drivers and Repercussions of Insect Declines) assessing the impact of UK insect declines on ecosystem function. I am also interested in understanding population and community responses to climate change, environmental disturbance, and extreme weather.

Expertise

  • Quantitative ecology
  • Ecological modelling
  • Bayesian statistical approaches
  • Programming languages: R, Julia, stan, python  
  • Agent-based modelling

Background

I completed a PhD at ڹϳ in 2019. The project focussed on developing agent-based models to explore butterfly movement behaviour.

Awards and honours

I co-organised the 2022 BES symposium: Climate Science for Ecological Forecasting and a workshop at the 2017 BES conference on constructing and calibrating agent-based models. I have won an award for best talk at the 2018 Syngenta Biological Sciences Collaboration review conference, and I was part of a team that placed 2nd in the NERC digital spring hackathon (2019). I was a scientific presenter at Animals on the Move 2020 public outreach event and I have been invited to teach short-courses and modules on R programming and statistics. 

Selected publications

  • Bearman-Brown, Lucy E, Philip J Baker, Dawn Scott, Antonio Uzal, Luke Evans, and Richard W Yarnell. “Over-Winter Survival and Nest Site Selection of the West-European Hedgehog (Erinaceus Europaeus) in Arable Dominated Landscapes.” Animals 10, no. 9 (2020): 1449.
  • Bearman-Brown, Lucy E, Louise E Wilson, Luke C Evans, and Philip J Baker. “Comparing Non-Invasive Surveying Techniques for Elusive, Nocturnal Mammals: A Case Study of the West European Hedgehog (Erinaceus Europaeus).” Journal of Vertebrate Biology 69, no. 3 (2020): 20075–1.
  • Boult, Victoria L, and Luke C Evans. “Mechanisms Matter: Predicting the Ecological Impacts of Global Change.” Global Change Biology 27, no. 9 (2021): 1689–91.
  • Evans, Luke C, Richard M Sibly, Pernille Thorbek, Ian Sims, Tom H Oliver, and Richard J Walters. “Behavior Underpins the Predictive Power of a Trait‐based Model of Butterfly Movement.” Ecology and Evolution 10, no. 7 (2020): 3200–3208.
  • Evans, Luke C, Richard M Sibly, Pernille Thorbek, Ian Sims, Tom H Oliver, and Richard J Walters. “Integrating the Influence of Weather into Mechanistic Models of Butterfly Movement.” Movement Ecology 7, no. 1 (2019): 1–10.
  • Evans, Luke C, Richard M Sibly, Pernille Thorbek, Ian Sims, Tom H Oliver, and Richard J Walters. “Quantifying the Effectiveness of Agri-Environment Schemes for a Grassland Butterfly Using Individual-Based Models.” Ecological Modelling 411 (2019): 108798.
  • Evans, Luke C, Richard M Sibly, Pernille Thorbek, Ian Sims, Tom H Oliver, and Richard J Walters. “The Importance of Including Habitat-Specific Behaviour in Models of Butterfly Movement.” Oecologia 193, no. 2 (2020): 249–59.
  • Evans, Luke C, Ian Sims, Richard M Sibly, Pernille Thorbek, Tom H Oliver, and Richard J Walters. “Data on the Movement Behaviour of Four Species of Grassland Butterfly.” Data in Brief 27 (2019): 104611.
  • Evans, Luke Christopher, Yolanda Melero, Reto Schmucki, Philipp H Boersch‐Supan, Lluís Brotons, Colin Fontaine, Frédéric Jiguet, Mikko Kuussaari, Dario Massimino, and Robert A Robinson. “Bioclimatic Context of Species’ Populations Determines Community Stability.” Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2022.
  • Evans, Luke Christopher, Tom Henry Oliver, Ian Sims, Matthew Peter Greenwell, Yolanda Melero, Arron Watson, Felix Townsend, and Richard John Walters. “Behavioural Modes in Butterflies: Their Implications for Movement and Searching Behaviour.” Animal Behaviour 169 (2020): 23–33.
  • Greenwell, Matthew P, Marc S Botham, Michael W Bruford, John C Day, Luke C Evans, Melanie Gibbs, Ian Middlebrook, David B Roy, Kevin Watts, and Tom H Oliver. “The Influence of Chalk Grasslands on Butterfly Phenology and Ecology.” Ecology and Evolution 11, no. 21 (2021): 14521–39.
  • Johnson, Thomas F, Lisbeth A Hordley, Matthew P Greenwell, and Luke C Evans. “Associations between COVID-19 Transmission Rates, Park Use, and Landscape Structure.” Science of The Total Environment 789 (2021): 148123.
  • Johnston, Alice SA, Rob J Boyd, Joseph W Watson, Ayla Paul, Luke Christopher Evans, EL Gardner, and VL Boult. “Predicting Population Responses to Environmental Change from Individual-Level Mechanisms: Towards a Standardized Mechani