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
Highlighting the conservation needs of underrepresented species to ensure a world where all wildlife flourishes.
To recover and restore wildlife, we first need to understand where it most needs our help. Sophie’s research focuses on monitoring global biodiversity and evaluating the extinction risks of underrepresented species, generating the evidence needed to explore trends in threats and recovery processes, and to best inform conservation actions and policy decisions.
Delivering more representative global biodiversity indicators: the sampled approach to the IUCN Red List Index (sRLI)
Sophie collaborates with experts to assess their global conservation status for the IUCN Red List and contributes to the IUCN Red List Index (RLI), a key biodiversity indicator used by countries to track progress in reducing biodiversity loss.
As part of the sampled approach to the RLI (learn more about the sRLI project here), assessments focus on a range of typically underrepresented species groups, including cephalopods, freshwater molluscs, dung beetles and butterflies. Sophie is also a member of the IUCN Butterfly and Moth Specialist Group and co-leads the comprehensive assessment of the world’s swallowtail butterflies.
Regional, National and local Red Lists
Tracking progress towards biodiversity and climate targets at local, national, and regional levels is crucial for countries to fulfil their intergovernmental commitments to halt and reverse the biodiversity and climate crisis. Sophie is a member of the IUCN SSC National Red List Working Group, which works to strengthen the application of IUCN Red List methods at these scales. Under the governance of this group, she leads the redevelopment of the National Red List Database, a unique platform hosted by ZSL that provides sub-global Red List data in a standard format, facilitating biodiversity data sharing and informed conservation planning and action across borders. To find out about National Red Lists and their role in conservation, visit www.nationalredlist.org
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
McRae Louise, Cornford Richard, Marconi Valentina, Puleston Hannah, Ledger Sophie E.H., Deinet Stefanie, Oppenheimer Philippa, Hoffmann Mike and Freeman Robin 2025. The utility of the Living Planet Index as a policy tool and for measuring nature recovery. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B38020230207 http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0207
National Red List Working Group of the IUCN Red List Scientific Committee. (2024). Domitilla Raimondo, Neil Cox, Caroline Pollock, Simeon Bezeng, Sophie Ledger, Tim Lyons, Emily Beech, Monika Böhm, Guillaume Gigot, Viola Clausnitzer. Guidelines for Establishing a National Red List Programme. Version 1.0. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN SSC. https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/national-guidelines-step-by-step
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