Tree on a beach with waves hitting the sand

Conservation and Restoration of Resilient Ecosystems

We are an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Ocean Sciences doing applied research with a direct impact on nature and climate emergencies.

Theme leaders: Professor Julia P G Jones, Professor Stuart Jenkins

1. Overview
2. Our Researchers
3. Key Projects
4. Gallery
5. News & Blog
6. Teaching

The world is facing interlinked nature and climate emergencies. The conservation and restoration of resilient ecosystems have a central role to play in tackling both.

Our highly interdisciplinary research in this area brings together researchers from across the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Ocean Sciences and from disciplines as varied as ecology, land system science, oceanography, remote sensing, physiology, behaviour, forestry, economics and policy.

We carry out cutting-edge research in a full range of terrestrial and marine habitats, from polar regions to the tropics. Our research is highly impactful. For example, our research on the impacts of bottom trawling, advancing agroforestry, and reducing the social costs of conservation in low-income countries contributed to Bangor University being ranked number one in the UK for the impact of our environmental science research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

Our research facilities in this area are world-beating and include our ocean-going research vessel the Prince Madog, the Henfaes research farm, and Treborth Botanic Gardens

Featured researchers

image of Julia Jones in recording studio

Professor Julia Patricia Gordon Jones

Professor Julia Jones is a conservation scientist with particular expertise in evaluating the impact of conservation interventions 

Image of Alex Sutton

DR ALEX SUTTON

Dr Alex Sutton is a behavioural and population ecologist interested in understanding how individuals respond to environmental change and how these responses scale up to influence populations and communities.

 

Claire Carrington on a shore performing research.

Claire Carrington

Claire Carrington is a marine ecologist currently researching the behavioural responses of coastal seabirds to meteorological variability.

Katie Devenish standing in front of an excavation area

Katie Devenish

Katie Devenish is a conservation scientist using counterfactual methods to study the impact of mining on the forests of Madagascar, and whether efforts to mitigate that impact have worked.

man standing greenery behind him

Dr Craig Robertson

Dr Craig Robertson is a benthic ecologist specialising in the macrofaunal communities and has a keen interest in developing functional ecology approaches in marine habitats, particularly in deep-sea habitats.

Woman in hard hat with greenery around her

Dr Marielle Smith

Dr Marielle Smith is an ecosystem ecologist who combines field-based and remote sensing observations across scales to understand forest responses to land-use and climate change-related drivers.

Man standing with sea and sky behind him

Dr Neal Hockley

Dr Neal Hockley is an environmental social scientist interested in environmental justice, conservation, and management of natural resources.

Man standing with beautiful rolling mountains behind him

Dr Leejiah Dorward

Dr Leejiah Dorward is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist with broad interests in how we can apply social science methods to improve our understanding of how social and ecological systems interact.

Lady wearing glasses on boat, on the sea

Dr Katrien Van Landeghem

Dr Katrien Van is a marine geologist with expertise in evaluating seabed integrity, which impacts marine ecosystems.

Lady sat on rocks near water

Dr Harriet Ibbet

Dr Harriet Ibett is a conservation scientist who focuses on understanding peoples compliance with rules which protect biodiversity.

Man measuring a tree in the forest

Professor John Healey

Professor John Healey is a forest ecologist working to achieve the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of forest resources.

Lady standing surrounded by greenery

Dr Freya St John

Dr Freya St John is a conservation scientist interested in understanding the links between human behaviour, well-being and conservation.

Lady standing holding cameras on a boat in the sea

Dr Ewa Krzyszczyk

Dr Ewa Krzyszczyk is a marine zoologist interested in behaviour and conservation of marine mammals, fish, and a variety of marine ecosystems.

Lady standing in a forest on a sunny day

Dr Elena Cini

Dr Elena Cini is an interdisciplinary scientist with interests in ecology, conservation social science, and agro-environmental research.

Lady standing surrounded by beautiful mountains

Dr Eleanor Warren-Thomas

Dr Eleanor Warren-Thomas is an inter-disciplinary scientist using tools from ecology, economics and land systems science to support the conservation and restoration of forests and biodiversity.

Male standing with nice greenery behind him

Dr Edwin Pynegar

Dr Edwin Pynegar is a conservation scientist and practitioner who works on designing and implementing conservation agreement programs and robustly evaluating their effectiveness.

Man climbing to viewing tower, surrounded by trees

Dr Farnon Ellwood

Dr Farnon Ellwood is a community ecologist specialising in the development of theoretical frameworks that can be used to conserve tropical biodiversity by informing sustainable management practices.

Person standing on beach with sea and land behind them

Deanna Groom

Deanna Groom is a maritime archaeologist specialising in the development of maritime historic environment inventories (e.g. national and regional sites and monuments records) for coastal and underwater heritage sites. Particular research interests relate to the impact of climate change on the ecology of historic shipwreck sites.

Male standing with sea in the background

Dr Gareth Williams

Gareth is a marine ecologist specialising in coral reef ecology. His work focuses on identifying the natural and human drivers of coral reef community structure and function across scales and taxa.

Full researcher list

Dr Aaron Comeault  (evolution, conservation genomics, invasive species)
Professor Simon Creer  
Dr Farnon Ellwood  (insects, rainforests, oil palm)
Dr Alexander Georgiev  (primatology, conservation, ecophysiology)
Dr James Gibbons  (statistics, modelling, conservation)
Professor Robert Griffiths  (microbes, soil functions, resistance mechanisms)
Professor John Healey  (ecology, forestry, conservation)
Professor Jan Geert Hiddink  (fisheries, seabed ecosystems, bottom trawling)
Dr Neal Hockley  (land, governance, economics)
Professor Richard Holland  (behaviour, sensory biology, migration)
Professor Stuart Jenkins  (marine ecology, anthropogenic impacts, ecosystem management)
Professor Julia Patricia Gordon Jones  (conservation, impact evaluation)
Jonathan King  
Dr Ewa Krzyszczyk  (behaviour, marine animals, conservation)
Dr Lewis Le Vay  
Dr Mark Mainwaring  (impact of weather, nests and eggs, urbanisation)
Dr Shelagh Malham   
Dr Anita Malhotra  (herpetofauna, conflict, genetics)
Dr Lars Markesteijn  
Dr Tom Martin  (conservation, zoology, biogeography)
Dr Ian McCarthy  (behaviour, physiological ecology, conservation)
Professor Morag McDonald  (ecology, forestry, agroforestry)
Dr Kirsty McLeod  
Dr Eefke Mollee  (agroforestry, food security, urban forestry)
Dr Tim Pagella  (restoration, socio-ecological systems, gender)
Dr Sopan Patil  
Dr Craig Robertson  (benthic ecology ,deep sea, ecosystem function)  
Dr Peter Robins  (estuaries, hydrodynamics, modelling)
Dr Graeme Shannon  (behaviour, ecology, conservation)
Dr Marielle Smith  (forest ecosystems, remote sensing, global change)
Dr Freya St John  (conservation, social sciences, human behaviour)
Dr Katherine Steele  (genetics, breeding, sustainability)
Dr Alex Sutton  (climate change, population ecology, community ecology)
Dr William Teahan  (artificial intelligence, data science, simulation and modelling)
Professor George Turner  
Professor John Turner  
Dr Katrien Van Landeghem  (seabed integrity, habitat suitability, glacial legacy)
Dr Eleanor Warren-Thomas  (conservation, biodiversity, agroforestry)
Professor Simon Willcock  (resilience, social-ecological systems; ecosystem services)
Catrin Williams  
Dr Gareth Williams  (coral reefs, oceanography, climate change)
Dr Wolfgang Wüster  (herpetofauna, conservation genomics, venom) 

Dr Rosemary Moorhouse-Gann (conservation, restoration, island ecosystems)

 

 

Sophie Berenice Wilmes  
Dr Elena Cini  (conservation, ecology, social science)
Charlotte Colvin  
Dr Norman Dandy  (land, governance, society)
Dr Leejiah Dorward  (conservation, social sciences, human behaviour)
Dr Tom Galley  (sustainable aquaculture, bivalve biology, reef fish)
Charlotte Heney  
Dr Harriet Ibbett  (conservation, social sciences, human behaviour)
Dr Nick Jones  (sustainable aquaculture, molluscan biology, reef fish)
Dr Jessica Kevill  
Dr Amy (Spike) Lewis  (conservation, human behaviour, socio-ecological systems)
Lilian Lieber  
Dr Kirsty MacLeod  
Dr Alec Moore  (historical ecology, fisheries, elasmobranchs)
Dr Liz Morris-Webb  
Dr Edwin Pynegar  (impact evaluation, conservation, forests)
Dr William Schneider  (behaviour, ecology, migration)
Dr Vahid Seydi  (machine learning, data science, artificial intelligence)
Ping Shang Xu  
Dr Morwenna Spear  
Danielle Spring  
Jamie Thorpe  (aquaculture, climate change, molecular ecology)
Bex Turner  
Gemma Veneruso  
Dr Sophie Ward  (oceanography, climate change, ocean modelling)
Anna Wood  (forest restoration, molecular ecology, forests )

 

Dr Craig Shuttleworth  (red squirrel conservation)
Dr Simon Valle  (conservation planning, population dynamics, conservation ecology)
Dr Sophie Williams  (plant conservation, botanic gardens, socio-ecological systems)

Patrick Allsop  (dispersal, plasticity, anthropogenic disturbance)
Jack Atkin-Willoughby  (forester, conservationist, outdoor instructor )
Rebecca Bracegirdle  
Claire Carrington  (seabirds, behaviour, meterology)
Katie Devenish  (conservation, mining, impacts)
Penny Downes  (conservation, human-wildlife interactions, behaviour)
Ffion Evans  (agriculture, circularity, policy)
Lisa Goberdhan  
Deanna Groom  (underwater archaeology, ecosystems, climate change)
Alice Lawrence  (spatial ecology, reef fish, management)
Ben Owens  
Ivonne Liliana Salamanca Leon  (conservation, ecology, impact evaluation)
Saniye Smith  (marine policy, co-management, fisheries)
Marie Touchon  (marine conservation, socioeconomics, mangroves)

Iain Lettice  
Stevie Scanlan  
Lauren Sansom
Emma Green

 

Key projects

Researchers in this theme work on a wide variety of applied projects. 

Key projects

Researchers in this theme work on a wide variety of applied projects. 

A picture says a thousand words - so please enjoy the gallery of some of the examples of the work we are involved in

Study with us

At Bangor research underpins the teaching that we do – you can study a wide variety of courses, at all levels, which build on the world-leading research we are doing which relates to the conservation and restoration of resilient ecosystems.

Study with us

At Bangor research underpins the teaching that we do – you can study a wide variety of courses, at all levels, which build on the world-leading research we are doing which relates to the conservation and restoration of resilient ecosystems.

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