Staff
Sophie de Becquevort
BSc, MSc, PhD
BSc, MSc, PhD
Sophie joined Forest Research in March 2023. Sophie is supporting the delivery of three NCEA (Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment) projects aiming to achieve biodiversity monitoring of multiple taxonomic groups (i.e. forest mammals, soil invertebrates and fungi, canopy and sub-canopy arthropods) on a large scale using DNA and eDNA metabarcoding. She also works on the development and trialling of novel methods of biodiversity assessment and the optimization of currently used protocols (e.g., using air eDNA to monitor forest biodiversity). Finally, she assists with the delivery of other FR projects (e.g., on the ecological value of Trees Outside Woodlands).
Sophie finished her PhD at Aberystwyth University at the end of 2022. During her PhD she applied genetic techniques to understand the ecology of conifer wood-boring and bark-feeding beetles in the United Kingdom. After finishing her PhD, she obtained funding to further her PhD work on Ips typographus invasive populations in the UK. She worked on identifying the sources and routes/mechanisms of introduction of Ips typographus into the UK and provided information on the nature of outbreaks (e.g. number of founding individuals) thanks to genomic and genetic analyses. Until March 2023, she explored the dynamics of ongoing outbreaks using Genome-wide scans at Aberystwyth University.
Member of British Ecological Society
Alice Holt
Sophie de Becquevort and others, Time series DNA barcoding provides insight into factors influencing wood-boring and bark-feeding insect communities in Scots pine, Sitka spruce, and Noble fir stands, Environmental Entomology, 2023;, nvad080, https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvad080