Role
Postgraduate Research Assistant
Specialisms
Global Biodiversity Monitoring
Conservation
Ecology
Indicators and assessments
Extinction risk
Conservation
Ecology
Indicators and assessments
Extinction risk
Contact details
Institute of Zoology
Zoological Society of London
London
NW 14RY
United Kingdom
Contact links
Google Scholar
By developing predictive ecological models to understand the complexity of the challenge ahead, we are driving forward towards a world where wildlife thrives.
To recover restore wildlife, we first need to understand where it most needs our help. Sophie's research projects on monitoring global biodiversity and evaluating underrepresented species’ extinction risks generate the evidence basis from which we can explore trends and patterns in threat and recovery processes, and in doing so, best inform conservation actions and policy decisions.
Read more about global biodiversity monitoring
Professional history
2021-present: PGRA, Institute of Zoology (IoZ), managing Red List (global, sampled and national) research projects
2020-2021: Living Planet Report Fellow, IoZ
2018-2020: Conservation Programme Manager and country engagement lead for Angola, Stop Ivory and the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation (EPIF)
2017-2018: Researcher, Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew and Administration and Project Assistant, Stop Ivory
2016-2017: PGRA, ZSL, IoZ, Sampled Red List and National Red List Projects
2014-2016: Digitisation officer, Core Research Laboratories, Natural History Museum, London (NHM); Researcher, NHM, University of Cambridge and Tokyo Institute of Technology; Research assistant, Systematics of Euptychiina Project, NHM and University of Florida
2013-2014: Volunteer curatorial assistant in the Lepidoptera collections, NHM
2012-2013: Volunteer Research assistant at ZSL, IOZ, Sampled Red List and National Red List Projects
2009-2011: Field ecologist, Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and MbyRes in Wildlife Disease Management, University of Exeter
2008-2009: MSc in Conservation and Biodiversity, University of Exeter
2004-2007: BSc (Hons) Zoology, University of Bristol
Publications
Ledger, S.E.H., Loh, J., Almond, R. et al. Past, present, and future of the Living Planet Index. npj biodivers 2, 12 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-023-00017-3
Ledger, S.E.H., Rutherford, C.A., Benham, C., Burfield, I.J., Deinet, S., Eaton, M., Freeman, R., Gray C., Herrando, S., Puleston, H., Scott-Gatty, K., Staneva, A. and McRae, L. Wildlife Comeback in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for species recovery. Final report to Rewilding Europe by the Zoological Society of London, BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council. (ZSL/Rewilding Europe London, UK, 2022).
Marconi, V., McRae, L., Deinet, S., Ledger, S., and Freeman, F. (2020). Bending the curve of biodiversity loss: A deep dive into the Living Planet Index.in Almond, R. E. A., Grooten, M., and Petersen, T., editors. The Living Planet Report 2020. WWF, Gland, Switzerland
Böhm, M., Dewhurst-Richman, N. I., Seddon, M., Ledger, S. E. H., Albrecht, C., et al. (2020). The conservation status of the world’s freshwater molluscs. Hydrobiologia 848:3231-3254. doi: 10.1007/s10750-020-04385-w
Hoyal Cuthill, J. F., Guttenberg, N., Ledger, S., Crowther, R., and Huertas, B. (2019). Deep learning on butterfly phenotypes tests evolution's oldest mathematical model. Sci Adv 5:eaaw4967. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw4967
Cane, E., Laventhol, J., and Ledger, S. (2018). Surveying ultraviolet reflectance in moths: A method and workflow for data capture using opensource tools. Journal of Natural Science Collections 5:50-65
Blagoderov, V., Penn, M., Sadka, M., Hine, A., Brooks, S., et al. (2017). iCollections methodology: workflow, results and lessons learned. Biodivers Data J:e19893. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.5.e19893
Paterson, G., Albuquerque, S., Blagoderov, V., Brooks, S., Cafferty, S., et al. (2016). iCollections - Digitising the British and Irish Butterflies in the Natural History Museum, London. Biodivers Data J:e9559. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e9559