Ecologist, with an interest in how human-dominated landscapes can be managed for biodiversity, and associated ecosystem processes, with a particular focus on insects.
Research Area
Our research group has two main areas of interest. In the UK, we work in partnership with the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to study how reserves can be managed to help species cope with the ongoing impacts of climate change. This includes a current project which is creating artificial butterfly banks to manipulate microclimate. In SE Asia, we work with members of the oil palm industry (particularly Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology Research Institute, based in Riau, Indonesia), researchers at Universiti Putra Malaysia and IPB University Bogor, and Wild Asia (a Malaysia-based NGO) to investigate how existing oil palm can be managed more-sustainably. We currently have ongoing projects assessing alternative management options to restore forest along river margins in existing oil palm, and the impacts of variable management practices within smallholder-managed oil palm plantations. In both the UK and SE Asia, our work often takes a large-scale, field-based experimental approach, to assess the specific impacts of changing management on biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Being based in the Museum of Zoology, we often include public engagement and collection aspects to our research, broadening its impact.
Project Interests
I would be happy to develop projects in the UK assessing the impacts of varied microclimates on adult and larval butterfly responses to temperature change, using our network of butterfly banks as a focus. In SE Asia, I would be interested in developing projects assessing the long-term effects of alternative river margin restoration strategies on biodiversity, ecosystem processes and resilience to temperature change.
