Long-term Ecology
The history of biodiversity and ecosystems
We collect and analyse data spanning a wide range of temporal and spatial scales to understand the processes that underpin diversity, distribution and abundance of plants and animals across global landscapes in space and time.
Biodiversity & Conservation
Species and ecosystems
This evidence-base is then used to understand biodiversity baselines, the resilience of biological communities to various drivers of change, ecological risk associated with different landscapes, the effects of different aspects of biodiversity on human health (good and bad) and the impacts of different land-management practices over time on natural capital assets and ecosystem system flows.
Resource Stewardship Technologies
Tools to inform environmental descision making
Outputs from our work are disseminated through web-based tools and technologies, academic publications,policy briefings, workshops, conferences, and social media and we engage with a variety of stakeholders in industry, academia, the general public and governance to ensure our research achieves maximum societal as well as research impact.
Lab News
Spectroscopy Equipment Award
DPhil candidate Anna Lee-Jones was awarded a loan of spectroscopy equipment from the NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility in their allocation for spring/summer 2022: My application to loan high resolution reflectance spectroscopy and fluorometry field equipment was approved by the FSF steering group earlier this month and prioritised for funding. The equipment will be used this summer in my ozone experiment in the Bangor growth domes to monitor how ozone damage can be detected at the leaf level using spectroscopy. Next growth ... Continue reading
Cymru Collaborations
Last weekend Anna Lee-Jones, NERC DPhil student in the OXLEL group, traveled to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) site in Bangor, Wales to discuss an experimentation collaboration with plant ecophysiologist Dr Felicity Hayes: My trip to CEH Bangor was a great success last week, and well worth the hours stuck in traffic spent on the M6. I was able to take a tour of the Air Pollution Facility just outside Bangor where CEH run eight glasshouses (or "solardomes") ranging ... Continue reading
Government policy and targets insufficient to stem the tide of UK biodiversity loss
Professor Kathy Willis gave oral evidence as an expert witness to the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) inquiry into the the protection and enhancement of biodiversity and ecosystems in the UK November 2020. The findings of this committee were published yesterday. The full report can be found at the following site but the EAC's key findings of this report are as follows: Existing Government policy and targets are inadequate to address plummeting biodiversity loss. This is made worse by ... Continue reading
Natural capital in the nation’s forests
OxLEL was delighted to host Dr Eleanor Tew as guest speaker at our weekly lab meeting on the 11th of June. Dr Tew is the national Natural Capital and Resilience Programme Manager for Forestry England and is a visiting scholar at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. Dr Tew discussed some of the actions Forestry England is taking to maintain and enhance the ecosystem services provided by public forests, such as recreation opportunities and carbon sequestration. One programme she described ... Continue reading
New randomised control trial of the smartphone Humbug acoustic monitoring system starting this week in Tanzania
This Friday (23rd April 2021) a randomised controlled trial (RCT) aiming to understand use and uptake of the smartphone HumBug acoustic monitoring system will begin with 148 participants recruited from four villages in Tanzania: Kivukoni, Minepa, Mavimba and Milola. Each participant will receive a budget smartphone pre-loaded with our Mozzwear application mosquito sensor, and a modified mosquito HumBug bed net containing a pocket where the mosquito sensor will be placed. The study requires each participant to switch on the mozzwear sensor before ... Continue reading
Research Blog
Globally important plant functional traits for coping with climate change
By Nicola Kühn on December 1, 2021
“Look closely at nature. Every species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has survived.” E.O.Wilson From the early Greek philosophical musings of Empedocles and Aristotle in the 4th and 5th century B.C., through the naturalist ... Continue reading
The value of systematic evidence synthesis for land use decision-making and practice
By Dr Gillian Petrokofsky on November 9, 2021
Systematic evidence syntheses were adopted in environmental management and conservation in 2006 “to promote and deliver evidence syntheses on issues of greatest concern to environmental policy and practice as a public service.” Since then, the tools developed within ... Continue reading
Do flying cows have to pay a carbon offset?
By Professor Katherine J. Willis on October 26, 2021
Last week I learnt an interesting fact relating to carbon offsets when flying – if you fly business class you need to pay x 2.5 more carbon offset because of the additional space that you take up. This made me ... Continue reading