Our research leads describe the main focus of their research groups work and provide links to explore further. Centre members If you are unsure who to contact, our research development team can help. Contact the ACE research development lead Helen Alexander Email As a theoretician, I am generally interested in how populations adapt to severe environmental changes that threaten their survival (i.e. how they can be “rescued” by evolution). I study the underlying processes of mutation and population dynamics in changing environments. I have a particular interest in the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, both as an experimental model system to test evolutionary principles, and as an applied problem in public health. Peter Alexander Email Our group is interested in the interactions within national and global food systems and land use, combining social, economic and environmental considerations. Our research applies data and computationally intensive techniques, such as agent-based modelling, to improve understanding of the human-natural interactions including behavioural aspects of decision making. The work explores the impacts of the global food system on environmental change, including climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as adaptation of land use to environmental change and food system consequences from land-based climate change mitigation actions Athanasios Angeloudis Email We work on the development, validation and application of numerical sustainable energy and environmental engineering challenges. The broader theme underpinning our research is environmental fluid mechanics using computational modelling approaches. Recent research regards low-carbon coastal infrastructure options, climate resilience and water quality solutions in estuarine engineering and the accurate simulation of nearshore and coastal ocean processes. Liz Baggs Email I am a soil biogeochemist researching plant-soil-microbe interactions in relation to greenhouse gas emissions from soils. I develop approaches to enable us to distinguish between different GHG-genic microbial processes and to aid development of mitigation strategies. I also work on understanding the impact of environmental change on smallholder farming systems (mostly in Africa), and developing climate smart approaches for food production. Chris Beckett Email I am a lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering and a soil mechanicist by research. I am the PI on an EPSRC project looking to characterise the engineering behaviour of hydrophobic sands, as a potential material for constructing, amongst other things, flood defences. My other research stream is the engineering characterisation of earthen construction materials, looking at how the construction industry can adopt more appropriate and lower impact building materials. Lindsay Beevers Email My research focuses on developing numerical models to understand and quantify hydrological extremes, their future evolution and associated impacts on society and the environment. This research is fundamentally interdisciplinary, exploring systemic risk and interconnected impacts associated with hydro-hazards (floods and droughts) and their impacts within cities. My work takes both a national and international dimension, and I have been involved in recent projects across Africa, Asia and South America. Andrew Bell Email A volcanologist and seismologist in the School of GeoSciences, my research includes understanding how climate change can influence volcanic and landslide hazards, and how we can detect changes in these systems. He uses this understanding to help inform risk reduction strategies in complex multi-hazard settings. Matt Bell Email My research investigates the mechanisms that limit selfishness in cooperative species, including humans. Environmental management can be effectively framed as a public goods game: the benefits of selfishness accrue to individuals, while the costs fall to an entire social group. I conduct field experiments to establish why levels of selfishness and cheating vary so much across different contexts. Nicolle Bell Email Our research aims to help the global effort to protect the World's largest terrestrial carbon store: peatlands. We use a combination of high-resolution spectroscopic techniques, such as NMR and FT-ICR-MS, and next-generation sequencing to uncover the key roles microbes and molecules play in the carbon cycling processes in peatlands. At the same time, peat is composed of organic matter (the most complex mixture on this planet!) and we create new 2D-4D NMR experiments to uncover just what exactly makes up this vital environmental mixture. Robert Bingham Email I am a glaciologist and work on a range of projects that address how the world’s land ice masses (glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets) have responded to climate change, how they have shaped the landscape, and how their future responses to climate change will affect global sea levels. For example, I am part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration presently acquiring measurements in West Antarctica to project its future contribution to sea level, and I lead the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research project “AntArchitecture”, which is using the internal structure of the ice imaged by geophysics to reconstruct past ice history. Massimo Bollasina Email My research focuses on mechanisms and physical processes controlling (past and future) changes in regional hydroclimate at seasonal to interdecadal time scales (and beyond) via global climate modelling and observational analysis. While the primary objective is to reduce the current uncertainty related to anthropogenic aerosol forcing, I also investigate the (non-linear) relationships with other anthropogenic forcing agents (e.g., greenhouse gases, land-use changes) and with the underlying natural climate variability. Julio Bros-Williamson Email My research focuses on low carbon performance of new and existing buildings, as wells as the building envelope performance and post occupancy evaluation of building users. I have experience in the implementation, optimisation and use of indoor air quality sensors, in-situ building performance tools. I also currently implement a whole suite of digital tools such as point cloud scanners (FARO) to capture interior and exterior dimensions into a .gbxml digital format transferrable to BIM and used as digital twins of buildings. Thalia Chatzisymeon Email My research focuses on the development of water and wastewater treatment technologies; advanced oxidation processes and life cycle assessment (LCA). Emily Clark Email My research is focused on providing high resolution annotations of the genomes of farmed animals. Highly annotated genomes for our main farmed animal species provide a resource to help mitigate the effects of environmental change in three ways: i) they provide knowledge of how the genome controls the traits of farmed animals that allow them to adapt to changing environments; ii) they help us understand and conserve genomic diversity and iii) they provide a tool that researchers can use to inform strategies that might improve animals abilities to cope with changing environments e.g. genome editing to breeding practices. Charles Cockell Email My research group is interested in astrobiology and microbiology. Our particular research focus lies in the study of life in extreme environments, understanding the diversity, processes and biosignatures of life in extremes, and the potential habitability of extraterrestrial environments. Nick Colegrave Email I want to understand the factors that enhance or limit the ability of populations to adapt to changing environments. I use experimental evolution in microbes to test directly the how factors such as mode of reproduction, population size and diversity affect the adaptive potential of populations over hundreds of generations. I am particularly interested in the interplay between demographic and evolutionary factors in determining whether a population adapts or goes extinct. Claudia Colesie Email I study stress physiology in cold climates by measuring carbon fluxes and photosynthetic activity of lichens, mosses, algae and other cryptogamic organisms. Most of my research is focused on Antarctic environments where the effects of environmental change are most dramatic. My goal is to understand if, and how terrestrial organisms in these unique environments can acclimatise to a quickly changing environment Sinead Collins Email I use experimental evolution and computer simulations to understand and predict how the traits of aquatic primary producers change under different aspects of ocean change. This includes linking environmental variability, plasticity (and/or epigenetic effects) and trait evolution; understanding the relative roles of genetic diversity and lineage plasticity in large microbial populations; developing novel methods for detecting limits on the available “trait space” for different primary producers; understanding how selection works in rapid growth, high biomass events (ie. algal blooms). I collaborate with marine microbiologists and modellers to apply my work directly to improving our ability to forecast primary production in the coming decades. Kate Crowley Email My research and teaching interests span climate change adaptation and risk reduction from risk tool development to engagement and communication. I am PI for a new GCRF AHRC research project examining community value of cultural heritage in terms of climate risk and resilience. I am also the co-director of ECCI and would like to explore the links between these two centres. Emma Cunningham Email We are interested in how environmental conditions alter key demographic traits that affect the success of animal populations (reproduction, migration, survival). We are particularly interested in the impact of infection and disease. We study the impact of environmental variation on immune traits, life history traits and social behaviour then explore how these effects scale up to affect the movement, transmission and impact of infection for wild and domesticated animal populations. Chris Dent Email I have broad interests across energy, infrastructure and public policy analysis, particularly in practical approaches for decision support under uncertainty. Particularly relevant is the Alan Turing Institute project “Managing Uncertainty in Government Modelling” of which I am Principal Investigator. One specific interest relating to environmental change is quantification of uncertainty in assessments of social value and natural capital, which bring interesting questions of how to assess imprecisely defined concepts linking quantitative modelling and measurements to how the environment is perceived. Kyle Dexter Email I lead a diverse group of Plant Evolutionary Ecologists and Biogeographers (PLEEBs). The group's research spans from cross-biome and cross-continental studies of entire floras to detailed studies of individual clades. I manage a global network of researchers with permanent sampling plots in tropical dry forests and savannas (as part of the NERC-funded SECO large grant), which serves to monitor and predict the effects of environmental change in the dry tropics. Peter Doerner Email My lab studies how plants control their growth, particularly in response to environmental change. We focus on below-ground processes and interactions, which are particularly affected by global change, and which are crucial to success for many of the UN SDGs. Ruth Doherty Email My research interests lie in the areas of modelling climate and air pollution and its impacts on regional/urban air quality and on human health. I use global, regional and urban atmospheric chemistry transport models to study environmental changes driven by climate-chemistry interactions, intercontinental transport of air pollution, urban impacts on air quality, the impacts of air quality on human health, climate change and air quality. I am also interested in indoor air quality –we have a NERC-funded network to explore the health and equity impacts of climate change mitigation measures on indoor and outdoor air pollution exposure (HEICCAM). Xavier Donadeu Email My group seeks to translate knowledge on RNA biomarkers in livestock to develop novel diagnostics to improve reproductive efficiency and milk/meat production particularly in cattle. We are also working on developing cell lines and other in vitro resources that could be used in cellular agriculture. Andrew Dugmore Email I am an environmental geographer who pioneered the development of crypto tephrochonology in the UK, and have used tephrochronology to refine environmental studies to better understand change in complex social ecological systems. I have developed chronologies of environmental change, identified limits to cultural adaptation and studies cross scale interactions, impacts of compounding vulnerabilities and early warning signals of critical transformations. The geographical focus of my work is the North Atlantic islands and areas of medieval Scandinavian settlement, although tephra studies have taken me to the Pacific NW of America, and collaborations include study of the pre-Hispanic American southwest. Valentina Erastova Email In my groups we do molecular modelling with focus on adsorption and retention of various substances by minerals, layered materials and now also biochar. Large part of our research focuses on emergent pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals. Janet Fisher Email I am an environmental social scientist interested in the interfaces between conservation, climate change and human development. My recent work is oriented around ecosystem services: their role in supporting human wellbeing; policy mechanisms including Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and the use of economic and deliberative valuation of ecosystem services to support decision-making. Andrew Free Email The Free group studies the environmental microbiology of natural systems, and the applications of microorganisms in environmental biotechnology. Our field studies include work on the microorganisms of lochs, soils and contaminated environments, and their responses to changing environmental conditions. We also investigate sustainable energy and lipid generation from waste, bioremediation of pharmaceutical contamination and antimicrobial resistance in the environment Hannah Froy Email My research focuses on the causes and consequences of life-history variation, and the processes that generate individual-level heterogeneity in wild vertebrate populations. I use statistical analyses and population modelling in combination with data from long-term, longitudinal field studies. I am especially interested in the interaction between ecological and evolutionary processes, and the consequences of these interactions for natural populations in the current context of environmental change Gregor Gorjanc Email We are managing and improving populations using data science, genetics, and breeding. We focus on populations used to produce food, feed, and fibre with some spillover to other populations. Margaret Graham Email My research expertise is centred around potentially toxic elements – although we think we know a lot about these because of legacy contamination (mining, smelting, other industrial activities), there are very many new materials and processes which give rise to elemental contamination in new “guises” – for example, as we transition to a fossil-fuel free world, the use of new materials such as metal-organic framework compounds (MOFs) has been increasing exponentially. These are used for carbon storage, Li batteries (energy storage systems) but also for drug delivery and as pesticide “nano-carriers”. There is emerging concern that certain elements (Cd, Pb, Cr are a few of particular concern) are more bioavailable than in traditional anthropogenic contamination and so we rapidly need to know more about their potential impact on our ecosystems Tobias Grosser Email I am working on HPC and Software Infrastructure. In my research I developed software to accelerate climate simulations. Katerina Guschanski Email We are interested in understanding how genetic diversity and the interactions of organisms with their environment change through time and space as a result of climatic and anthropogenic factors. Using museum-preserved and contemporary samples we obtain a temporal perspective, which allows us to quantify such changes. Our work encompasses studies of wild animal populations and their associated microbiomes, with the focus on endangered species, their health and the impact of human-induces environmental contamination for human and wildlife wellbeing. Jarrod Hadfield Email My work focuses on how organisms respond to a changing environment either through genetic adaptation or through phenotypic plasticity. I use mathematical models to understand when and why organisms should respond to environmental change and test these models using both experimental and observational field data. I am particularly interested in the connection between environmental change in time and environmental change in space. Karen Halliday Email I am the Dean for Systematic Inclusion within the College of Science and Engineering. In this role she provides strategic guidance on widening participation and diversification of the undergraduate student community. I have been an advocate for inclusion and diversity for over 10 years and currently co-Director of eBase, EPSRC-funded Inclusion Matters research project which aims to identify cultural and institutional constraints to grant funding. I am a plant molecular geneticist by training and my lab works on Environmental Control of Plant Growth and Development. Our work focuses on trying to understand how molecular pathways integrate light and temperature signals. We also investigate how light activated pathways control carbon assimilation and resource partitioning in plants. Matt Hartfield Email I study the forces underlying the evolution of reproductive modes. I am particularly keen on studying mating–system evolution, and how it affects the fundamental evolutionary process of adaptation. These findings will be useful in elucidating the consequences of environmental change. Kate Heal Email I study surface freshwater hydrology and water quality. My research focuses on the interaction between hydrological and biogeochemical processes and how they are affected by land use and climate change to impact on water resource quality and quantity. This includes causes of diffuse water pollution from forestry, mining, agriculture, and urbanisation, and sustainable ways of addressing it, such as through green infrastructure. Gabi Hegerl Email I focus on climate change from a climate physics and climate dynamics perspective. I am interested in changing precipitation pattern and changing extreme event frequencies and intensities, and interested in their implication in a coupled earth system. I also use observations to constrain future climate change. I collaborate on a project that focuses on climate change impacts on vegetation. Sian Henley Email My research focuses on marine environmental change in Earth's polar regions, and how this can be managed to mitigate the most significant impacts and safeguard the sustainability of these sensitive and important regions. My major research themes are around marine biogeochemistry and ecosystem functioning in the context of climate change in the Arctic and Antarctica, and range from observational oceanography and process-based studies to societal interactions and informing policy and decision-making. My work is highly interdisciplinary and has close links terrestrial, cryospheric atmospheric and social sciences, as well as implications for managing environmental change at the global scale. Seb Hennige Email I investigate the impact of climate change to marine ecosystem structure and function, from shallow environments to the deep sea. Lea-Anne Henry Email My research explores how deep marine ecosystems are changing and what different stakeholders can do to monitor, manage, mitigate and plan for this. As part of the EU H2020 iAtlantic project, I lead a Workpackage on Ecosystem Timeseries and Tipping Points where our team interrogates long term datasets from deep and open ocean ecosystems in the Atlantic Ocean. This effort uses geochemical proxies, classical fisheries and zooplankton datasets, in situ ocean observatories and even humpback whale fluke IDs to reconstruct changes in ecosystem structure and functioning over ecological and geological timescales. Knowing which ecosystems change, how and why, we can better inform decision-makers about what needs monitoring and how industry can help to mitigate impacts and even how we can improve ocean governance at the international level in an era marked by climate change and evolving human activities Sandy Hetherington Email I use interdisciplinary approaches to study how plants have evolved through geological time. In my current fellowship I am investigating if sugar transport in plants adapted to changing levels of atmospheric CO2 through time. Louise Horsfall Email The Horsfall Group is interested in applying Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology to help move us towards a more sustainable, circular economy - a vital component of climate change mitigation and environmental renewal. We are translating our academic research into novel industrially-usable platforms for the sustainable production of improved enzymes, bio-based chemicals and other biomaterials. Our cost-efficient and energy-saving innovations will lead to the development of unique and sustainable new products, derived from the wastes and by-products of industries that stretch from food & drink manufacturing to electric vehicles. Andrew Hudson Email We study Antirrhinum (snapdragon) species, which are adapted to different, often extreme environments, to understand the underlying traits and genes and how selection is acting on them. Gail Jackson Email I'm an agroecologist interested in the design of sustainable, climate change-resilient agricultural systems. I'm interested in agricultural landscape management to enhance functional biodiversity, both to enhance wild pollinators and to suppress pests and diseases. Specifically, I'm working to control pesticide resistant cereal aphids using Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques, by managing landscape design to enhance the success of natural and augmented aphid predators. Susan Johnston Email My research uses genomic information to understand selection and evolution in wild and domesticated populations, with a current focus on recombination, sexual conflict and immunity. I use data from long-term pedigreed studies in vertebrates such as Soay sheep (34 years of data), red deer (48 years) and house sparrows (26 years). This allows me to track selection on genetic variation that underlies fitness-related traits over time and to what degree genetic changes are driven by environmental factors within these populations. Aidan Keane Email My group's research focuses on the interactions between biodiversity conservation and society, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches. I am particularly interested in (a) improving the design of conservation interventions, (b) monitoring and evaluating the social outcomes of conservation, (c) quantifying patterns and trends in opinions of conservation and (d) learning from "messy" data. Ruth King Email My primary research area is in statistical ecology – with the focus of developing new statistical models and techniques for analysing a range of different forms of ecological data. In particular, I am interested in developing new statistical models and associated model-fitting tools for a range of ecological data collected over time, including capture-recapture-type data, count data, telemetry data and integrated modelling approaches combining different forms of data. Particular research areas include the use of hidden (semi-) Markov-type models, state-space models, Bayesian inference, dealing with missing data and incorporating different forms of heterogeneity (such as individual and environmental), with the aim of furthering our understanding of the system under study, and the associated underlying drivers. Loeske Kruuk Email My research studies the evolutionary ecology of wild animal populations. Guillaume Latombe Email My research in the context of environmental change: In the Anthropocene, climate change, land-use change and biological invasions are impacting ecological communities, and we are observing increasing biotic homogenisation. It is therefore crucial to monitor, describe, and understand the causes and consequences of this global phenomenon. I am especially interested in modelling ecological communities in the context of biological invasions to understand how ecological and invasion patterns, in particular spatial patterns, emerge from community assembly processes Tom Little Email I develop and deploy epigenetic biomarkers of ageing, with the aim of determining how environmental stress can cause individuals to be ‘old before their time’. Questions include ‘what is the effect of infection on ageing rate?’, ‘of nutrition?’, ‘of pollution?’, ‘of urbanisation?’, ‘of extreme weather?’. All of these effects are potentially modified by environmental change. Gary Loake Email We are working to enhance plant disease and stress resistance at the molecular level in response to climate change and developing plant immunity against emerging pathogens driven by climate change. We also study sustainable approaches for the production of high value chemicals from plants to help protect natural ecosystems under pressure from climate change. Konrad Lohse Email The main focus of my group is to develop tools that allow the reconstruction of past changes (both demographic and selective) in natural populations from genome sequence data. We apply these methods to a variety of insect systems to investigate how populations and species diverge, adapt and hybridise. This work spans the evolution of reproductive barriers, adaptive introgression and the study of bottlenecks and extinctions in ecological communities. Oisín Mac Aodha Email My current research interests are in the areas of computer vision and machine learning. I am also interested in applications in technology for nature such as automated biodiversity monitoring and mapping. Dan MacQueen Email I work on farmed and wild fish genomics for a number of reasons related to aquaculture, as well as to understand adaptation and the basis for evolutionary differences between species and populations. Environmental change is relevant to many of the topics my group researches, e..g. future sustainability of aquaculture and food production, species adaptations to changing environment etc. James Maddison Email I carry out numerical ocean modelling, particularly ocean turbulence and turbulence parameterization. Research is being developed towards implementation in the NEMO general circulation model. Also uncertainty quantification with applications in glaciological modelling. Simon Martin Email I study how the genomes of natural populations are moulded by various evolutionary forces, including natural selection, hybridisation and demographic change. These genomic footprints convey information about the mechanisms through which new species form, adapt or fail to do so. My current focus on African butterflies is strongly connected with environmental change, both over the long term, with changes in the distribution of habitat types, and the short term wich changing climatic cycles like the monsoon. Alistair McCormick Email My lab works in the area of plant and algal synthetic biology. A key focus is on improving the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants to increase productivity and robustness to climate change. Luke McNally Email We use a mixture of theoretical, statistical and experimental approaches to study the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of both our bacterial pathogens and commensals. One of the biggest changes that bacteria face is our use of antimicrobials and they are rapidly evolving resistance to these drugs. We aim to study how bacteria are evolving in response to this change in order to better guide the design of interventions to manage the evolution of antimicrobial resistance and limit its public health impact. Simone Meddle Email I study how wild birds respond to stressful environmental conditions and adapt their stress response and physiology when breeding in capricious environments such as the Arctic. One of my research projects is looking at how climate change affects birds breeding in the Arctic. We know that some migratory song bird species are breeding further north than they used to and we are collaborating with UC Davis to document what’s happening to them as they experience more extreme weather events during breeding. We’ve sequenced the entire genetic makeup of resident and migratory white crowned sparrows, and recently completed some RNA sequencing studies to identify genes involved in the mechanisms underlying stress hormone physiology. Encarni Medina-López Email My research focuses on the use of remote sensing to tackle the water-energy-environment trilemma. At present, I am using multispectral satellite imagery, in situ data, and machine learning techniques to investigate processes modelling the coastal environment. I am also interested in studying the interaction of marine energy converters and the coast, as well as the relationship between these, social and environmental factors, and the built environment. Marc Metzger Email I work with public, NGO and private sector stakeholders to understand interactions between the environment and society, anticipate future changes and support the development of appropriate strategies and policies to cope with these challenges. I lead international and local research to understand how society influences the environment and how changes in the environment affect society. I am especially interested in stakeholder and citizen engagement processes to understand visions of desired land use, to then use spatial mapping and modelling approaches that land managers to make strategic choices for a sustainable future. Edward Mitchard Email I develop and test new methods for using satellite data to map how the carbon storage of tropical forests and peatlands are changing. I aim to create more useful datasets so we can understand how tropical ecosystems are responding to climate change, and themselves causing/mitigating climate change. Further, I want to create datasets and tools so governments, NGOs and companies know better where deforestation/degradation are occurring, so they can target and monitor policy interventions and nature based solutions, ultimately giving them the tools to fight climate change. Attila Molnar Email Our lab studies epigenetics in plants and microalgae and develops gene editing tools for functional genomics, crop improvement and production of high value chemicals. Jacob Moorad Email I study the evolution of life histories and ageing from an evolutionary perspective. Environmental change can alter evolutionary trajectories for these traits by altering social interactions, demographic structure, phenotypic selection, and genetic architecture. My work uses theoretical modelling, secondary analyses of historical human data, and experimental investigation of a laboratory population of burying beetles to investigate these processes. Dominic Moran Email I study agricultural and environmental economics; climate change mitigation and adaptation in food systems; cost-benefit analysis, non market valuation, ecosystem services. Simon Mudd Email I have expertise in landscape response to environmental change in both upland in coastal environments. In the uplands, I have worked on landscape response to extreme flooding and landsliding due to high intensity rainfall events, which are predicted to become more frequent due to climate change. Along coasts, I explore the feedbacks between vegetation growth, sedimentation rates and sea level rise in salt marshes. Isla Myers-Smith Email I am a global change ecologist and the leader of the Team Shrub research group at the University of Edinburgh. Our research aims to understand the drivers of tundra vegetation change and resulting impacts for the global climate system. We also work at global scales on global change impacts on biodiversity and population change. I have been studying Arctic climate change for over a decade, integrating data from new technologies including drones and long-term ecological monitoring into my collaborative science. Mark Naylor Email I am interested in IoT monitoring of the mobilisation and transport of coarse bedload (boulders) in rivers, the risks this poses to infrastructure, how we can better understand flooding in this context, and how climate change might impact this highly erosive phenomena in the long term. Peter Nienow Email My research investigates the processes that control how glaciers and ice sheets behave in order to understand how they will contribute to changes in sea level and water resources in our warming world. The research has focussed on a range of ice masses including those in Greenland, the High Arctic, Alps, Andes and Himalayas. He has also undertaken a range of outreach activities including working with the media to report on the response of the cryosphere to climate change. Dan Nussey Email I study ageing, immunity and health in wild vertebrate systems from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. My work address how environmental variation impact disease, population and evolutionary dynamics in the wild. Darren Obbard Email We study the ecology and evolution of viruses, and how this interacts with the ecology and evolution of hosts. As the environment changes, new species interactions occur, giving rise to new patterns of host-virus interaction such as epidemics and host-switches. We are interested in how these processes will shape the evolution of both hosts and viruses. Eva Panagiotakopulu Email I am a palaeoecologist specialising in Quaternary fossil insects and working on biogeography, climate change and human impact on sites ranging from the North Atlantic islands to North Africa. I have particular interests in the impact of climate change on insect faunas, the consequences of human impact on the biota, particularly for islands, biological invasions, and insect borne diseases. Amy Pedersen Email The central aim of our research is to better understand how parasites and pathogens impact the fitness and dynamics of their wild hosts, specifically by recognising and understanding the complexities that are inherent in natural systems. We integrate an array of methodologies (experiments, modelling, statistical methods, meta-analysis, lab and field studies) to maximise the potential of ecological and evolutionary studies to address key questions about host- parasite interactions, including how to improve host health and develop effective disease control strategies in the face of changing biotic and abiotic conditions. Josephine Pemberton Email Long term studies of individual life histories, incorporating pedigrees, such as the Soay sheep and red deer studies with which I am involved, offer unique opportunities to study how habitats and populations change under environmental change and what the mechanism(s) underlying change are. In particular we can discriminate plastic change, demographic change and genetic change (Evolution). Ally Phillimore Email My work focuses on the spring phenology of plants and animals in relation to temperature change. Spring phenology tends to be very sensitive to temperature and plays a key role in determining the conditions and interactions a species is exposed to and in turn fitness. I am interested in estimating the effects of temperature change on species interactions and fitness. Subramanian Ramamoorthy Email I am a computer scientist with research specialisation in robotics and machine learning, including techniques for physics informed machine learning, active sensing and adaptive systems design. Specific examples include robotic sensors for environment monitoring, and predictive modelling of natural processes. I am keen to find applications of such technologies in domains of societal relevance, such as in finding ways to adapt to changing environments. David Reay Email I am Chair in Carbon Management & Education at the University of Edinburgh, Executive Director of ECCI, Policy Director of ClimateXChange and an advisor to the Scottish Government on climate change and land use. My research focuses on climate change and land use interactions, especially GHG fluxes and mitigation. Sarah Reece Email We are interested in uncovering the strategies parasites have evolved to cope with the challenges and opportunities of their lifestyle, with a focus on malaria (Plasmodium) parasites. Malaria parasites and their relatives cause some of the most serious infectious diseases of humans, domestic animals, livestock, and wildlife. They are also extremely interesting creatures and make a useful model system. Our aim is to interrogate how parasites work to better understand how natural selection operates and provide insight into how infectious diseases can be better treated. We are a multi-disciplinary team based in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, part of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. We use techniques and concepts from diverse fields, including: evolutionary theory, ecology, parasitology, immunology, chronobiology, behavioural ecology, genomics, epidemiology, mathematical modelling, cell and molecular biology, entomology and biophysics. Helen Rees Email I am a plant pathologist at SRUC. Many active substances currently used to control plant pathogens have been, or are at risk of, being withdrawn, leaving crops at risk from pathogen attack. My research focuses on using biological control agents and elicitors to control plant pathogens and how to effectively integrate their use in disease management programmes for farmers and growers. Ken Rice Email My research is in computational astrophysics with a particular focus on planet formation and the detection and characterisation of planets around other stars. However, I also have a strong interest in how we communicate about environmental issues and climate change and, through my work with Skeptical Science, have a particular interest in consensus messaging and in challenging how we think about these issues. Annis Richardson Email My lab studies the genetics and cellular dynamics underpinning the growth and development of cereal crops. We use maize and barley to identify genes that regulate leaf and floral organ development and understand how they define organ shape. We can eventually use this knowledge to fine-tune plant shape and architecture for specific growth environments and agronomic practices to enhance yield. Murray Roberts Email I am Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences. I lead the Changing Oceans research group and coordinate the European Horizon 2020 ATLAS and iAtlantic projects. I study structural habitats in the deep ocean, notably those formed by cold-water corals, in order to enhance plans for their long term management and conservation. Neil Robertson Email Our work is on materials chemistry applied to advances in solar energy conversion, application and storage. This includes emerging solar photovoltaic technologies that can be solution printable, light-weight and with attractive appearance, as well as battery and supercapacitor materials for electrical energy storage. We also work on solar photocatalytic water treatment, particularly in the context of rural areas of the developing world where surface water is currently consumed with no treatment. Casey Ryan Email I’m interested in land use change, particularly the ways it impacts livelihoods and ecosystems. I teach mixed methods, ecosystem services, and ecosystem ecology. My research combines remote sensing, ecological fieldwork and modelling, household surveys and interviews. I’ve applied these to understand a range of land use transitions with a focus on southern Africa and the dry tropics. Jonathan Silvertown Email I have previously worked on ecological and evolutionary change using long-term experiments, particularly the Park Grass experiment at Rothamsted where there is a record of >160 years of anthropogenic change. I am now working on the development of various forms of social and technical infrastructure that can be used to track ecological change. These range from the use of sensors connected to Edinburgh’s IoT (internet of things) network to monitor biodiversity and visitor use of city parks (ParkLife), to a mapping infrastructure for data about Edinburgh (Edinburgh Cityscope) and a charity that helps protect and promote long-term experiments (Ecological Continuity Trust). Hugh Sinclair Email I have expertise in long term landscape change revealed in geological records, particularly erosion and sedimentation in and around mountain ranges. In this context, my research contributes to our understanding of extreme events such as landslides, floods and mass flows and their impact on mountain communities. I also study flood risk in ODA countries linked to multi-disciplinary risk management strategies for urban expansion e.g. Kathmandu. Saran Sohi Email My research is focused on the soil C cycle and its connection to plants and the associated microbial community. As well observing and measuring changes in the balance of physical and chemical properties provided to soil, I am interested in how these changes can be managed and manipulated in agriculture and forestry. This can be conventionally, through plant selection and residue management, but also by augmenting the natural cycle of black carbon. Charcoal and biochar have long term effects on soil properties and have important implications and possibilities for future carbon storage. Per Smiseth Email I am interested in how animal behaviour can exacerbate or buffer against the detrimental effects of inbreeding and how social interactions may pass on some of the fitness consequences of inbreeding to outbred individuals interacting with inbred ones. I am also interested in how animal behaviour, and parental care in particular, provides animals with a means for coping with climate change. Steven Spoel Email The Spoel Research Group investigates how plants respond to changes in their environment, including abiotic stresses and pathogen infection. We aim to understand how plant cells modify their proteomes to signal for changes in gene expression that underpin resistance to the environmental stress encountered. Understanding how the dynamic proteome determines plant traits will help design novel strategies to enable plants to cope with extreme environmental change. Graham Stone Email I am interested in changes in the distributions of organisms associated with climate change over timescales from decades to millions of years, and the consequences of these changes for ecosystem composition and function. My research focuses on species interactions - particularly tritrophic interactions between natural enemies, insects and trees, and plant-pollinator interactions. I study community-wide impacts of environmental change in habitats ranging from urban city centres to arctic wildflower meadows in Greenland. Neil Stuart Email I am interested in how communities living in and near protected areas can mitigate and adapt their use of forest and agricultural resources as climate is changing. I have experience working with NGOs in Central America to change agricultural practices to reduce negative impacts on biodiversity/protected areas such as forest clearance, degradation and escaped fires. My research monitors these changes in land use using GIS and remote sensing. Alex Twyford Email My research integrates genomic, ecological and morphological data to understand the dynamics of plant populations over ecological and evolutionary timescales. I am particularly interested in adaptive traits that allow plant species to survive in harsh environments or allow them to colonise novel environments. Pedro Vale Email The overall aim of our research is to understand how individual-level host heterogeneity scales up to population-level disease outcomes. Using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as an established model of infection, immunity and behaviour, we take an experimental approach to investigate the biotic and abiotic causes and the consequences of individual variation in immune responses, life-history traits and social behaviours. Understanding how environmental change shapes host behaviour and immunity is therefore central to our research. Gerben Van Ooijen Email We investigate the 24h biological clock of plants and marine phytoplankton, which integrates environmental information such as temperature or light, and allows the organism to rhythmically regulate its physiology and metabolism in anticipation of predictable changes to the environment that occur on a daily or seasonal basis. Climate change threatens to disturb the ‘normal’ relationship between environmental signalling and healthy growth, and is likely to change for example the geographical areas or latitudes that crop plants can grow, or the efficiency of carbon assimilation by marine phytoplankton as primary producers. Understanding and modulating how the biological clock regulates biomass production under changing environmental parameters might become a critical tool to combat climate change as well as to aid organisms to adapt to it. Jacques Vanneste Email My research centres on geophysical fluid dynamics. I study waves (internal and surface), turbulence, their interactions and their impact on the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean. I also study the dispersion and mixing of particles and chemical in complex fluid flows, including environmental flows. Stephen Wallace Email I am a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and a Senior Lecturer in Biotechnology at the Institute of Quantitative Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology (IQB3) in the School of Biological Sciences. My lab uses a combination of chemical and biological tools to convert renewable feedstocks (e.g. CO2, sugar and waste material) into value-added chemicals (e.g. pharmaceuticals, flavours and fragrances). This multidisciplinary approach enables the bio-production of industrial chemicals that cannot be accessed via synthetic biology and would otherwise remain reliant on fossil fuels. Current projects in our lab include the use of unexplored microorganisms for green chemical synthesis, the construction of new biosynthetic pathways in bacteria, the evolution of new enzymatic function, and the valorisation of waste materials using designer microbial cells. Craig Walling Email I am interested in how genetic and environmental variation interact to determine key life history traits such as survival, reproduction and the trade-off between the two. Not only will environmental change have an important impact on these traits, but the nature of this impact will determine how and if natural populations can respond to environmental change. My lab investigates these questions in both laboratory (Drosohpila) and natural (red deer) systems. Patrick Walsh Email My research is focussed on understanding how animal behaviour is influenced by environmental conditions. I have previously focussed on the effects of environmental variables, like temperature, on critical life history decisions in amphibians. More recently, my interest has been on determining the causes and consequences of behavioural syndromes, specifically how environmental factors experienced during early life impact the development and persistence of behavioural syndromes. Baojun Wang Email My interests and expertise in the context of environmental change include developing new portable, accurate synthetic biology-enabled biosensors for various environmental and cellular signals, studying bacterial stress responses to environment changes, and engineering bacteriophages to achieve specific killing of certain bacterial populations in an environment or human body. Gary Watmough Email I am interested in the use of geospatial technologies such as satellite imagery to study the linkages between environment and human livelihoods and wellbeing. He is particularly interested in developing methods for using satellite imagery to map and monitor aspects of human livelihoods and how this could be used to support the targeting of resources and finances to areas that are in specific need as part of the sustainable development goals Mick Watson Email We work on reducing methane emissions from cattle by understanding and manipulating the rumen microbiome. Bruce Whitelaw Email My research revolves around the appropriate use of genetic engineering technologies in animals. This ranges for engineering disease resistance into livestock to humane approaches to pest population control. I aim to explore how new genetic biotechnologies can help in creating the right balance in animal-based ecosystems. Mat Williams Email I study the interaction of terrestrial ecosystems with the climate system, disturbance and management. My goal is to understand the dynamics of the carbon cycle, plant growth, and to support sustainable management of the global landscape. Linking to earth observations, I use models to upscale field measurements and ecological experiments, to investigate landscape processes and predict their sensitivity to disturbance and climate. Meriwether Wilson Email My research focuses on the science-policy-society intersections of transboundary marine ecosystems, e.g. biodiversity, ocean governance and climate adaptation for small island developing states (SIDS) and large-ocean island nations. Current research explores challenges in ocean governance and ecology regarding marine 'conservation vs blue growth'. I have a particular interest the growing dichotomy around the framing, stakeholder engagement and scale of marine protected areas (MPAs) e.g.: the establishment of large, species-oriented MPAs around small island states with large ocean exclusive economic zones (EEZ), in contrast with a parallel call for small-scale locally managed MPAs that primarily focus on society and traditional knowledge. This article was published on 2024-06-27
