Research Fellow
Curriculum Vitae:
2018 - present: Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology, ZSL and Northern Illinois University
2017 - 2018: Post Doctoral Research Assistant, Institute of Zoology, ZSL
2013 - 2017: PhD: Institute of Zoology, ZSL, and The University of Southampton
2015 - 2016: Vertebrate Palaeontology Masters programme tutor, The University of Southampton
2009 - 2010: MRes, Ecology and environmental management, The University of York
2008 - 2009: YouThERIA project assistant at Institute of Zoology, ZSL
2004 - 2007: BSc, (hons), Zoology, Cardiff University
Research Interests
My work investigates patterns of speciation from the subfossil record and in modern animals. Taxonomy, or the description of species, forms the fundamental units of how we understand the diversity of life on the planet. I am interested in developing knowledge of how and why animal species have gone extinct within the archaeological period to develop a baseline of extinction dynamics before the global impact of humanity in the Anthropocene.
My PhD research concerned the extinct giant birds of Madagascar, the elephant birds (aepyornithidae). I investigated the history of their research to untangle their complex taxonomy through morphological analysis to understand their biogeography. Through radiocarbon dating, forensic analysis and statistical models I uncovered the timing and causes of their extinction and understanding the role of humans in their demise.
Publications
JP Hansford, ST Turvey (2018) Unexpected diversity within the extinct elephant birds (Aves: Aepyornithidae) and a new identity for the world's largest bird Royal Society Open Science 5, 181295
James Hansford, Patricia. C. Wright, Armand Rasoamiaramanana, Ventura R. Pérez, Laurie R. Godfrey, David Errickson, Tim Thompson, Samuel T. Turvey (2018) Early Holocene human presence in Madagascar evidenced by exploitation of avian megafauna. Science Advances 4 (9)
Samuel T Turvey, Kristoffer Bruun, Alejandra Ortiz, James Hansford, Songmei Hu, Yan Ding, Tianen Zhang, Helen J Chatterjee (2018) New genus of extinct Holocene gibbon associated with humans in Imperial China Science 360 (6395), 1346-1349
Samuel T Turvey, Jennifer J Crees, James Hansford, Timothy E Jeffree, Nick Crumpton, Iwan Kurniawan, Erick Setiyabudi, Thomas Guillerme, Umbu Paranggarimu, Anthony Dosseto, Gerrit D Van Den Bergh (2017) Quaternary vertebrate faunas from Sumba, Indonesia: implications for Wallacean biogeography and evolution Proc. R. Soc. B 284 (1861), 20171278
ST Turvey, J Almonte, J Hansford, RP Scofield, JL Brocca, SD Chapman (2017) A new species of extinct Late Quaternary giant tortoise from Hispaniola Zootaxa 4277 (1), 1-16
Samuel T Turvey, James Hansford, Selina Brace, Victoria Mullin, Shengxiao Gu, Guoping Sun (2016) Holocene range collapse of giant muntjacs and pseudo-endemism in the Annamite large mammal fauna Journal of Biogeography 44 (1), 1-11
Ian Barnes, Samuel T Turvey, Stuart Peters, Richard P Young, Nick Crumpton, James Hansford, José, M Nuñez-Miño, Gemma King, Katrina Tsalikidis, A Ottenwalder, Stephan M Funk (2016) Independent evolutionary histories in allopatric populations of a threatened Caribbean land mammal. Diversity and Distributions, 1-14
Turvey ST, Hansford J, Kennerley RJ, Nuñez-Miño JM, Brocca JL, Young RP. (2015)A new subspecies of hutia (Plagiodontia, Capromyidae, Rodentia) from southern Hispaniola. Zootaxa.
Hansford J, Nuñez-Miño JM, Young RP, Brace S, Brocca JL, Turvey ST (2012) Taxonomy-testing and the ‘Goldilocks Hypothesis’: morphometric analysis of species diversity in living and extinct Hispaniolan hutias. Systematics and Biodiversity 10: 491-507.
