Dr KATE BROOKES
Research Fellow
work
+44 (0)1224 274425
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k.brookes@abdn.ac.uk
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Oceanlab 2, Main Street, Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, AB41 6AA
Lighthouse Field Station, George Street, Cromarty, Ross-shire, IV11 8YJ
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
BSc (hons) Biology (York), MRes Ecology and Environmental Management (York), PhD Ecology (Aberdeen)
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Personal Details
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Biography
I am currently based at Oceanlab, although I work within the research group based at the Lighthouse Field Station in Cromarty (www.abdn.ac.uk/lighthouse), where I completed my PhD in 2009.
Prior to my PhD, I worked on various projects relating to human interactions with wildlife, for example, reviewing the distribution of marine mammals in the Arctic in relation to military activity and researching the effect of pesticides on farmland wildlife.
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Research Interests
Broadly, my research interests are in human interactions and impacts on wildlife and much of my recent work has involved marine vertebrates. In particular, my research has focussed on impacts from offshore energy, such as offshore wind farms and more recently, seismic surveys for oil and gas.
My PhD looked at techniques for assessing seabird movements and potential impact of offshore wind farm developments. The case study was the Beatrice wind farm in the Moray Firth (www.beatricewind.co.uk), as part of the EU supported DOWNVInD project. Much of the work involved testing and validating the use of marine surveillance radar for tracking birds from an offshore oil platform. Other field work involved conducting line transect surveys for seabirds along a gradient of potential impact. The recommendations from the study will be of use to all new offshore wind developments taking place in the UK's Round 3 and the Scottish Territorial Waters Round of offshore wind (www.offshorewindfarms.co.uk/Assets/RPS_COWRIE_REMTECH-08-08_04062009_final.pdf).
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Current Research
The project that I'm currently working on is funded by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and investigates the potential impact of seismic surveys for oil and gas on cetaceans. The work is based in the Moray Firth and the main species of interest are bottlenose dolphins, for which the Moray Firth contains a Special Area of Conservation, and harbour porpoise. We aim to assess the time spent in different areas by the two species before, during and after seismic surveys, which happened in in the summer of 2011. To acheive this, we are carrying out broad scale visual line transect surveys for marine mammals as well as deploying static acoustic logging devices along impact gradients.
I'm also involved in projects relating to assessments of the risk to marine mammals from pile driving for offshore wind farms.
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Research Grants
2009-2013 Post-doc funding from Department for Energy and Climate Change
2008 Contract from COWRIE to work on a report entitled "Revised best practice guidance for the use of remote techniques for ornithological monitoring at offshore windfarms"
2005-2009 PhD funding from the EC supported DOWNVInD project (Framework 6) and Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd.
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Conference Presentations
May 2008, MAREE conference, Royal Institution of Great Britiain, London. Oral presentation: "How effective is automated radar in monitoring bird movements near offshore wind farms?"
October 2007, Waterbirds Society conference, Barcelona University, Spain. Oral presentation: "Using radar to measure offshore avian activity patterns"
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Reports
Thompson, P., Brookes, K., Cheney, B., Bates, H., Richardson, N. & Barton, T. (2011) Assessing the potential impact of oil and gas exploration operations on cetaceans in the Moray Firth. Second year report to DECC, Scottish Government, COWRIE and Oil & Gas UK. https://www.og.decc.gov.uk/environment/mf_results2.pdf
Thompson, P., Brookes K., Cheney, B., Cândido, A., Bates, H., Richardson, N. & Barton, T. (2010) Assessing the potential impact of oil and gas exploration operations on cetaceans in the Moray Firth. First year report to DECC, Scottish Government, COWRIE and Oil & Gas UK. https://www.og.decc.gov.uk/environment/mf_results.pdf
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Publications
Contributions to Journals
Articles
- Prosser, P., Brown, S. & Brookes, KL. (2004). 'Does the presence of a human tracker affect the behaviour of radio-tracked wood mice Apodemus sylvaticus?'. Mammal Review, vol 34, no. 4, pp. 311-314.
[Online] DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2907.2004.00051.x
Books and Reports
Commissioned Reports
- Walls, R., Pendlebury, C., Budgey, R., Brookes, KL. & Thompson, PM. (2009). 'Revised best practice guidance for the use of remote techniques for ornithological monitoring at offshore windfarms'. COWRIE, United Kingdom.
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