Dr Stephen Ellwood

Currently I am pursuing two main avenues of interest. The first addresses questions on the fundamental spatio-social biology and ecology of the European badger (Meles meles), specifically exploring the inter-social group movements and activity patterns which reveal the trade-offs between territoriality and non-territoriality, and inbreeding versus out-breeding. This research is being conducted through my second major area of interest, which is using an interdisciplinary approach to solve fundamental biological questions through the integration of biology and tracking technology. As such, I am the zoological component in the WILDSENSING project.

Autobiography

2007-2010:     Post-doc., 'The Wildsensing Project', WildCRU, Oxford. 
Wildsensing is an interdisciplinary team of zoologists and computer scientists from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. We use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagged badgers (whose presence/absence at focal resources are automatically detected and logged by field based 'Nodes') to investigate contact networks within the animal population, whilst devising novel data dissemination algorithms to communicate information wirelessly between nodes and to researchers.

2000-2006:     DPhil student, WildCRU, Oxford. 
A comparison of the precision and accuracy of dung-counting and distance sampling (using a thermal imager) for estimating deer population density, against a reference cohort-analysis generated population count.  My study population was reduced 13 fold over the course of my work, providing the contrasts required to investigate possible density dependent effects on skeletal size and body condition.

1999-2008:     Founder member (one of five) of OxLoc Ltd.
An Oxford University spin-out company initially formed to exploit GPS and GSM technologies to track wild animals, but later specialising in tracking unpowered assets using GPS, GSM, GPRS and RFID technologies.

1999-2000:     Research Assistant, WildCRU, Oxford.
Field manager of an extensive field experiment investigating the potential effect of social perturbation on Bovine Tuberculosis disease dynamics in a wild population of European badgers.

1998:    Research Assistant, WildCRU & Edward Grey Institute, Oxford.
Facilitator in Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF) application seeking to finance the Wytham Telemetry Network (WyTNet) and rationalising the inputs of zoologists, botanists, technologists, and industry specialists.

1996-1998:  Research Assistant, WildCRU, Oxford.
Development of chemical repellents for use on European badgers and Red foxes.  Experiment and video equipment design, fieldwork and video data analysis.

1995-1996:   Volunteer then general field assistant, WildCRU, Oxford.
Radiotracking and surveying for European badgers. Development of video surveillance systems for remote wildlife monitoring.

Peer reviewed

Dugdale, H.L., Ellwood, S.A., Macdonald, D.W., 2010. Alloparental behaviour and long-term costs of mothers tolerating other group-members in a plurally breeding mammal. Animal Behaviour 80, 721-735.

Dyo, V., Ellwood, S.A., Mascolo, C., Trigoni, N., Pasztor, B., Markham, A., Macdonald, D.W., Wohlers, R., 2010. Evolution and sustainability of a wildlife monitoring sensor network. In, Proceedings of the International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys) 2010.

Markham, A., Ellwood, S.A., Macdonald, D.W., Trigoni, N., 2010a. Revealing the hidden lives of underground animals using magneto-inductive tracking. In, Proceedings of the International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys) 2010.

Markham, A., Trigoni, N., Ellwood, S.A., 2010b. Effect of rainfall on link quality in an outdoor forest deployment. In, International Conference on Wireless Information Networks and Systems (WYNSYS) 2010.

Pásztor, B., Mottola, L., Mascolo, C., Pietro Picco, G., Ellwood, S.A., Macdonald, D.W., 2010. Selective Reprogramming of Sensor Networks through Social Community Detection. In, Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN2010).

Dyo, V., Ellwood, S.A., Macdonald, D.W., Markham, A., Mascolo, C., Pasztor, B., Trigoni, N., Wohlers, R. 2009. Poster Abstract: Wildlife and Environmental Monitoring using RFID and WSN Technology. In, Proceedings of the International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (Sensys) 2009.

Wohlers, R., Trigoni, N., Zhang, R., Ellwood, S.A., 2009. TwinRoute: Energy-Efficient Data Collection in Fixed Sensor Networks with Mobile Sinks. In, Proceedings of the 2009 Tenth International Conference on Mobile Data Management: Systems, Services and Middleware, pp. 192-201.

Baker, S.E., Ellwood, S.A., Slater, D., Watkins, R., Macdonald, D.W., 2008. Learned food aversion plus odor cue protects crop from mammalian wildlife foraging. Journal of Wildlife Management 72, 785-791.

Baker, S.E., Ellwood, S.A., Watkins, R., Macdonald, D.W., 2005a. A dose-response trial with ziram-treated maize and free-ranging European Badgers Meles meles. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 93, 309-321.

Baker, S.E., Ellwood, S.A., Watkins, R., Macdonald, D.W., 2005b. Non-lethal control of wildlife: using chemical repellents as feeding deterrents for the European badger Meles meles. Journal of Applied Ecology 42, 921-931.

Macdonald, D.W., Buesching, C.D., Stopka, P., Henderson, J., Ellwood, S.A., Baker, S.E., 2004. Encounters between two sympatric carnivores: red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and European badgers (Meles meles). J. Zool. 263, 385-392.

Flowerdew, J.R., Ellwood, S.A., 2001. Impacts of woodland deer on small mammal ecology. Forestry 74, 277-287.

Morecroft, M.D., Taylor, M.E., Ellwood, S.A., Quinn, S.A., 2001. Impacts of deer herbivory on ground vegetation at Wytham Woods, central England. Forestry 74, 251-257.

Stewart, P.D., Ellwood, S.A., Macdonald, D.W., 1997. Remote video surveillance of wildlife:  An introduction from experience with the European badger Meles meles. Mammal Rev. 27, 185-204.

Book Chapters

Buesching, C.D., Clarke, J.R., Ellwood, S.A., King, C., Newman, C., Macdonald, D.W., 2010. The Mammals of Wytham Woods. In: Savill, P.S., Perrins, C.M., Kirby, K.J., Fisher, N. (Eds.), Wytham Woods, Oxford's Ecological Laboratory. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Ellwood, S.A., Wilson, R.P., Addison, A.C., 2007. Technology in conservation: a boon but with small print. In: Macdonald, D.W., Service, K. (Eds.), Key Topics in Conservation Biology. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, pp. 105-119.

Articles

Ellwood, S.A., 2004. The deer of Wytham Woods:  The importance of body condition. Deer 13, 34-36.

Ellwood, S.A., 2003a. The deer of Wytham Woods:  A managed decline in numbers. Deer 12, 461-463.

Ellwood, S.A., 2003b. The deer of Wytham Woods:  How can we tell what they eat? Deer 12, 35-37.

Ellwood, S.A., 2000. Using a dung clearance plot method for estimating Fallow, Roe and Muntjac numbers in mixed deciduous woodland. Deer 11, 417-423.