Can land sparing mitigate climate change?

I provide strategic leadership and oversight of BTO science, which encompasses both monitoring and research. Our monitoring includes both volunteer-based and professional surveys to assess changes in the abundance, distribution and demography of bird populations, and of selected non-avian taxa.  We also lead on the analysis of these data, conducting research to understand causes of population change, the processes that underpin observed ecological patterns, and to inform what is required to manage species and habitats. In addition, I lead BTO’s climate change research which involves documenting impacts on UK biodiversity, undertaking projections of likely future impacts on species’ distributions and abundance, and informing the development of climate change adaptation. In 2014 CUP published Birds and Climate Change. Impacts and Conservation Responses, which I co-authored with Rhys Green.

I am a Professor of Conservation Science in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, where my research focuses on how to reconcile biodiversity conservation with meeting human food needs and other land-demanding activities; the costs and benefits of retaining intact ecosystems; and identifying what works in conservation. I collaborate closely with conservation practitioners and with colleagues in other disciplines, including economics and psychology. In my book Wild Hope he argues that cautious, evidence-based optimism is vital in tackling environmental challenges. I helped establish the Student Conference on Conservation Science, the Cambridge Conservation Forum, Earth Optimism, and most recently the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Credits.

My research concerns the effects of human land use, climatic change and conservation management on populations of birds and other organisms. In particular, I attempt to measure and model the effects of agricultural development and management, disturbance, illegal killing, climatic change and conservation measures on the demography of bird populations. I then use the insights this provides to devise conservation programmes and strategies. With Andrew Balmford and Rosie Trevelyan, I am a founder and organiser of the annual Student Conference on Conservation Science in Cambridge which has been bringing early career-stage conservation scientists together since 2000.

Much of my current research follows from the discovery in my Norwich laboratory of a novel type of regulatory RNA – siRNA. Current projects in the laboratory focus on the mechanisms of siRNA-mediated regulation and their influence on natural variation. I am also interested in the influence of siRNA on heritable effects that do not involve changes to the sequence of the genome. Understanding these ‘epigenetic’ effects is central to any discussion about nurture and nature.

Outside the laboratory I promote the use of plant biotechnology for crop improvement. I am particularly interested in technologies addressing problems in developing countries and participate in a consortium that addresses sweet potato virus disease. I plan to initiate other projects on strategies for developing disease resistant germplasm. These strategies include but are not restricted to GM technologies.

I investigate plant molecular, physiological and environmental processes which regulate productivity and CO2 sequestration, and aim to improve the operating efficiency of the primary carboxylase, Rubisco, and match water availability to use. Stable isotope methods are used to evaluate the origins and regulation of diverse photosynthetic carbon concentrating mechanisms (CCM). These include the C4 pathway and Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM), as well as the biophysical CCM in algae and hornworts, where my particular focus is on the molecular determinants of the chloroplast pyrenoid. My work translates via fieldwork into food security and biomass crop productivity, as well as natural community diversity.

I am interested in ecosystem-based climate change mitigation, through improved land management and conservation.  I concentrate on arable agro-ecosystems and peatlands in the UK, Europe and Africa.  I am particularly concerned with the potential synergies between climate regulation ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation, both in protected areas and across land expected to provide multiple benefits to a burgeoning human population.