Terrestrial ecology and forestry (including conservation and agriculture)

Ecological research in the School of Natural Sciences is strongly linked to the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, with a distinct focus on forests, as well as agricultural land, protected areas and integrated agroforestry systems, spanning a broad range of tropical and temperate environments.  

We place a particular emphasis on multidisciplinary research, linking our expertise that spans molecular ecology, ecophysiology, plant-soil and tree-pathogen/symbiont feedbacks, nutrient cycling and resources, pollinators, invasive species, landscape ecology, catchments, remote sensing, spatial-, systems- and bioeconomic-modelling, life cycle assessment, and bridges to the social sciences.  

Our applied research underpins the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services with a particular focus on climate change mitigation (both carbon sequestration and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions), and impacts of land use change and forest degradation, together with the challenge of combining sustainable food and fibre production with biodiversity conservation.  A second major strand is ecosystem resilience and restoration, with major foci on diversity-ecosystem function linkages, and climate change impacts and adaptation.  

The group’s research generates and synthesises key evidence for the development of innovative “nature-based solutions” and effective policy to address key global environmental and sustainable development challenges.