This is the research website of me and the people I work with at the University of Edinburgh. Our work focuses on how we measure biodiversity and understand humanity’s impacts upon it. This includes projects aiming to:
- Understand the impact of interventions (such as protecting or restoring habitat) on biodiversity
- Investigate how we use data to track progress towards national and international biodiversity-related policy targets (especially data on population trends)
- Assess the viability of biodiversity credits - which propose to measure discrete ‘units’ of nature
- Quantify the impacts of climate change and invasive species on species distributions and abundances.
Where we work
Much of our work is based on large data sets at large scales, or is focused on developing general methodologies, but many projects are also based on local scale field work. Currently group members are working on projects looking at: the impacts of restoration and/or invasive species on habitats in Scotland, Ghana and French Polynesia; which protected area management strategies work best in the UK and Ireland; and how climate change in The Yukon, Arctic Canada is affecting both tundra plants and population dynamics between snowshoe hare and lynx.
Who we work with
The work of this group aims to be as real-world relevant as possible, and we have collaborated with many government and non-government organisations, including The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), WWF, Wetlands International, The Swiss Ornithological Institute, Tree Aid, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Australian Antarctic Division.
We also collaborate with a wide range of academic institutions.
Interested?
To find out more about individual projects see the ‘People’ page. If you’re interested in joining the group, you’ll find more info on the ‘Contact’ page.