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Teaching Staff

Professor HUGHES Alice Catherine

Professor HUGHES Alice Catherine

Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, HKU

BSc (University of Bristol, UK); PhD (University of Bristol, UK)


  • 3917 3836
  • 2858 3477
  • KBSB 6N08

Teaching Areas

  • Conservation biology
  • Spatial Ecology
  • Macroecology
  • Biogeography
  • OneHealth and Ecosystem health
  • Species distribution modelling and analysis
  • Sustainable development
  • GIS

Research Interests

  • Conservation biology
  • Bat diversity and evolution
  • OneHealth
  • Conservation target setting
  • Species ecophysiology and distributions
  • Best practice in data analysis and understanding biases in data
  • Ecosystem monitoring and assessment
  • Developing effective priorities for conservation
  • Spatial analysis and conservation
  • Wildlife trade
  • Tools for sustainable development, mainstreaming sustainability policy across sectors and using data to ensure metrics are accurate

Current Research

  • Targets and trade-offs for biodiversity and climate targets
  • Converting policy targets into implementable tools
  • Understanding species use of space and implications for management and conservation
  • What does OneHealth mean for ecosystem management and how can it be applied
  • Best practice for data-use, identifying and overcoming data bias
  • Mapping targets for conservation across scales
  • Bat ecology, evolution and priority assessment tools
  • Wildlife trade and implications for species survival and risk
  • New tools for monitoring diversity across space and time

Fellowships

  • Postdoctoral position: OneHealth approaches to landscape management based on species and ecosystem health
  • Postdoctoral position (may be taken): Evolution and biogeography of Rhinolophid bats in Asia
  • PhD fellowship: Modelling and mapping species responses to environmental changes
  • PhD fellowship: New conservation tools for processing biodiversity data using deep learning
  • PhD fellowship: Bats in urban landscapes, how does distribution vary across space, time and conditions

Publications and News

  • Hughes, A.C. (2021) Understanding the dimensions of wildlife trade-a Primer. Current Biology. 31(19), R1218-R1224.
  • Hughes, A. C., Marshall, B., & Strine, C. (2021). Gaps in global wildlife trade monitoring leave amphibians vulnerable. eLife. https://elifesciences.org/articles/70086
  • Zhu L., Hughes, A.C.*, Zhao, X.Q., Zhou, L.J, Ma, K.P., Shen, X.L., Li, S., Liu., M.Z, Watson, J. (2021). Regional scalable priorities for national biodiversity and carbon conservation planning in Asia. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe4261
  • Zhou, H., Ji, J., Chen, X., Bi, Y., Li, J., Hu, T., ... & Hughes, A.C.*+, Holmes, E., Shi, W. (2021). Identification of novel bat coronaviruses sheds light on the evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses. Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.008
  • Hughes A. C., M. C. Orr, K. P. Ma, M. J. Costello, J. Waller, P. Provoost, C.D. Zhu, H. Qiao (2021) Sampling biases shape our view of the natural world. Ecography. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05926
  • Hughes, A.C., Orr, M.C., Qinmin, Y., Qiao, H., (2021) Effectively and accurately mapping global biodiversity patterns for different regions and taxa. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 30, 1375–1388
  • Hughes, A.C*., Qiao, H., Orr, M.C. (2021) Extinction targets are not SMART (Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Timebound). Bioscience. 71. 115 – 118.
  • Orr, M.C., Hughes, A.C.*, Chesters, D., Pickering, J., Zhu, C.D., Ascher, J.S.  (2021) Global patterns of bee distribution. Current Biology. 31. 451 – 458.e4.

Awards and Honours

  • High-level talent of Yunnan Province 2018