Sam Turvey's work focuses on using evidence-based conservation to guide recovery of some of the world’s most threatened species.
Sam's work also investigates how different types of data can contribute unique insights for conservation – especially for species that are so rare they cannot be studied easily with standard ecological techniques. This research addresses biodiversity conservation in China and on fragile island ecosystems (Caribbean, south-east Asia), and aims to provide baselines for conserving ‘neglected’ threatened species such as solenodons, hutias and giant salamanders.
Sam is involved both with targeted species-specific research and with projects that aim to understand wider patterns of conservation prioritisation within social-ecological ‘biocultural’ systems. He also utilises environmental archives (subfossil, zooarchaeological and historical records) to guide best-practice restoration of locally extinct species and degraded habitats.
Sam's goal is to identify optimal approaches for biodiversity recovery, and to identify ‘win-win’ solutions that can allow threatened species and people to coexist in a human world.
- 2018-present: Professor, Institute of Zoology.
- 2013-2018: Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology.
- 2009-2014: Royal Society University Research Fellowship, Institute of Zoology.
- 2006-2009: NERC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Institute of Zoology.
- 2004-2006: Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, Institute of Zoology.
- 2002-2003: Royal Society Banks Alecto Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
- 1998-2002: NERC/CASE D.Phil student, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford.
- 1995-1998: BA (Hons), Biological Sciences, University of Oxford.
- Winner of the Linnean Medal (Zoology), 2019
- Conservation Chair, IUCN SSC Small Mammal Specialist Group
- IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group: Section on Small Apes
- IUCN SSC Cetacean Specialist Group
- IUCN SSC Pigeon and Dove Specialist Group
Publications:
Turvey ST. 2024. The Tomb of the Mili Mongga: Fossils, Folklore, and Adventures at the Edge of Reality. Bloomsbury Sigma.
Turvey ST (Ed.) 2009. Holocene Extinctions. Oxford University Press.
Turvey ST. 2008. Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin. Oxford University Press.
2026
Gleave RA, Papworth SK, Bauman D, Portugal SJ, Zhang W, Yu Y, Turvey ST. In press. Seeing the wood for the trees: understanding resource selection at multiple spatial scales to inform conservation of a Critically Endangered species. Conservation Science and Practice.
Turvey ST, Yan F, Mao J, Zhao Z, Tang C, Wang Y, Borzée A, Tapley B, Cunningham AA. In press. Indigenous ecological knowledge suggests possible survival of giant salamanders Andrias sp. on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Oryx.
Kabuga E, Dufourq E, Luphade NL, Turvey ST, Ma H, Cheyne SM, Liu H, Bryant JV, Chen Q, Li W, Liu Z, Zhou Z, Britz S, Bah B, Durbach I. 2026. Passive acoustic identification of social groups in the Hainan gibbon. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation https://doi.org/10.1002/rse2.70088
Smith D, Ewen JG, Clarke RH, Wessels Z, Turvey ST. 2026. Inevitable fates? The recovery potential of small populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 293: 20262436.
Snyderman LS, Burgio KR, Anderson A, Olson OL, Turvey ST, Mychajliw AM. 2026. When dates disagree: radiocarbon and sighting-based models reveal range-wide variability in great auk (Pinguinus impennis) extinction estimates. Biology Letters 22: 20260223.
Simkins AT, Sutherland WJ, Petrovan SO, Brooks TM, Butchart SHM, Christie AP, Hilton-Taylor C, Hoffmann M, Senior RA, Turvey ST, Waite CE, Dicks LV. 2026. Effectiveness of current and potential conservation actions for amphibians, birds and mammals. Journal of Applied Ecology 63: e70555.
Turvey ST, McCormick H, Colclough SR, Snyderman LS, Collins RA, Kitchener AC, Ashby J, Jackson S, Debney A. 2026. Did sturgeon ever breed in Britain? Evaluating historical evidence and conservation implications. Royal Society Open Science 13: 260521.
Rayfield KM, Cooke SB, Mychajliw AM, Turvey ST, Upham NS, Vaccaro S, Dávalos LM. 2026. Interactions between intrinsic and extrinsic factors in island bat survival and extirpation in a global extinction hotspot. Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society 5: kzag014.
Webster SJ, Allcock JA, Majcher BM, Turvey ST, Bonebrake TC. 2026. Camera trapping reveals high mammal diversity within Hong Kong’s fung shui woodlands and high usage of tree hollows by small-bodied terrestrial mammals. Tropical Conservation Science 19: 1-14.
Granger M, Long B, Hudson MA, Barnes PA, Hansford JP, Brook SM, Groenenberg M, Sharma A, Mahmud R, Khairani KO, Sectionov, Steinmetz R, Tu I, Ma H, Turvey ST. 2026. Historical baselines reveal suitable conservation landscapes for Javan and Sumatran rhinoceros. Current Biology 36: 1571-1579.e3.
Turvey ST, Crees JJ, Mychajliw AM, Kennerley RJ, Hudson MA, Young RP. 2026. Integrating environmental archives into conservation: using historical data to evaluate species suitability for reintroduction. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 293: 20252589.
Tang C, Mao J, Bai H, Lü J, Zheng R, Qiao Z, Zou D, Zhang H, Turvey ST, Tapley B, Cunningham AA, Sun Y, Yan F. 2026. Genetic homogenization and conservation challenges associated with Chinese giant salamander release programs: insights from environmental DNA. Conservation Letters 19: e70013.
Stanton D et al. 2026. Genomic and morphometric evidence for Austronesian-mediated pig translocation in the Pacific. Science 391: eadv4963.
Mogensen LMW, Mei Z, Turvey ST. 2026. Evidence-based conservation management in China: understanding decision-making for a Critically Endangered Chinese cetacean. In Sage Handbook on China’s Environment. Sage Publishing.
Ma H, Papworth SK, Turvey ST. 2026. One size does not fit all: variable community interactions with protected areas in China and implications for conservation management. In Sage Handbook on China’s Environment. Sage Publishing.
Mychajliw AM, Viñola-López LW, Orihuela León J, Almonte-Milán JN, Turvey ST. 2026. Extinct family Nesophontidae and extinct species of the Solenodontidae. In Mammals of Middle and South America: Eulipotyphla. Springer.
2025
Turvey ST, Lamb AL, Rye P, Vale Nieves A, Cooper JH, van Calsteren P. 2025. Major body size change in an extinct tropical island mammal associated with glacial-interglacial environmental shifts. iScience 28: 113968.
Zicos MH, Naqqi Manco B, Blaise J, Kennerley RJ, Barnes I, Brace S, Turvey ST. 2025. Genetic evidence for invasive rat-caused vegetation damage has implications for endemic Caribbean mammal management. Ecological Solutions and Evidence 6: e70126.
Turvey ST, Mychajliw AM. 2025. When taxonomy cries wolf: ancient DNA research must embrace species frameworks to define biodiversity loss through time. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 146: blaf091.
Hayes S, van den Bergh GD, Sutisna I, Insani H, Wibowo UP, Setiawan R, Kurniawan I, Turvey ST. 2025. Insular Mid-Pleistocene giant rats from the So’a Basin (Flores, Indonesia). Quaternary 8: 44.
Lin M, Liu M, Ma H, Li Y, You Z, Cai Y, Turvey ST, Li S. 2025. Exploring the potential of interview-based sighting history to estimate the abundance of a coastal dolphin. Water Biology and Security 5: 100456.
Tough LF, Bamford AJ, Harrison A, Wood KA, Los S, van Biervliet O, Turvey ST, Hudson M, Hansford J, Duncan C. 2025. An open source, remote sensing-based methodology for wetland habitat condition assessments to aid conservation decision-making. Journal of Applied Ecology 62: 2844-2857.
Li J, Cui Y, Liu H, Wang Y, Ma H, Turvey ST. 2025. Continued survival of the Asiatic black bear Ursus thibetanus in Hainan. Oryx 59: 314-318.
Turvey ST, Ortiz A, Granger M, Brace S, Henriksen RA, Yang Q, Nguyễn TA, Buck LT, Ma H, Hansford JP, Booth T, Chatterjee HJ, Fan P, Chen X. 2025. Morphometric characterisation of Holocene mandibles expands the ecological baseline for understanding gibbon extinction dynamics. Royal Society Open Science 12: 242065.
Lau EYX, Hodge JA, Rio JP, Pan T, Mannion PD, Turvey ST. 2025. Using local ecological knowledge to identify land-use threats to the last wild population of the Chinese alligator Alligator sinensis. Oryx 59: 325-334.
Turvey ST, McClune K. 2025. Expanding the historical baseline: using pre-modern archives to inform conservation from ecological and human perspectives. BioScience 75: 240-250.
Zhang Y, Zeng Q, Turvey ST, Zhao L, Yong L, Lu X, Wang X. 2025. Rapid habitat fragmentation and niche shifting of an estuarine dolphin driven by coastal urbanization. Global Ecology and Conservation 58: e03448.