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My country:
Tree on a beach with waves hitting the sand

Conservation and Restoration of Resilient Ecosystems

We are an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in the School of Environmental and Natural SciencesÌýand the School of Ocean Sciences doing applied research with a direct impact on nature and climate emergencies.

Theme leaders: Professor Julia P G Jones, Professor Stuart Jenkins

1. Overview
2. Our Researchers
3. Key Projects
4. Gallery
5. News & Blog
6. Teaching

The world is facing interlinked nature and climate emergencies. The conservation and restoration of resilient ecosystems have a central role to play in tackling both.

Our highly interdisciplinary research in this area brings together researchers from across the School of Environmental and Natural Sciences and the School of Ocean Sciences and from disciplines as varied as ecology, land system science, oceanography, remote sensing, physiology, behaviour, forestry, economics and policy.

We carry out cutting-edge research in a full range of terrestrial and marine habitats, from polar regions to the tropics. Our research is highly impactful. For example, our research on the impacts of bottom trawling, advancing agroforestry, and reducing the social costs of conservation in low-income countries contributed to Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÒÅÆ×ÊÁÏ being ranked number one in the UK for the impact of our environmental science research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

Our research facilities in this area are world-beating and include our ocean-going research vessel the Prince Madog, the Henfaes research farm, and

Featured researchers

image of Julia Jones in recording studio

Professor Julia Patricia Gordon Jones

Professor Julia Jones is a conservation scientist with particular expertise in evaluating the impact of conservation interventionsÌý

Professor Stuart Jenkins standing on the shore with a forest behind him

Professor Stuart Jenkins

Professor Stuart Jenkins is an experimental benthic ecologist with interests in a range of anthropogenic impacts in coastal ecosystemsÌý

Image of Alex Sutton

DR ALEX SUTTON

Dr Alex Sutton is a behavioural and population ecologist interested in understanding how individuals respond to environmental change and how these responses scale up to influence populations and communities.

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Claire Carrington on a shore performing research.

Claire Carrington

Claire Carrington is a marine ecologist currently researching the behavioural responses of coastal seabirds to meteorological variability.

Katie Devenish standing in front of an excavation area

Katie Devenish

Katie Devenish is a conservation scientist using counterfactual methods to study the impact of mining on the forests of Madagascar, and whether efforts to mitigate that impact have worked.

man standing greenery behind him

Dr Craig Robertson

Dr Craig Robertson is a benthic ecologist specialising in the macrofaunal communities and has a keen interest in developing functional ecology approaches in marine habitats, particularly in deep-sea habitats.

Woman in hard hat with greenery around her

Dr Marielle Smith

Dr Marielle Smith is an ecosystem ecologist who combines field-based and remote sensing observations across scales to understand forest responses to land-use and climate change-related drivers.

Neal Hockley helping train protected area management staff in methods for collecting socio-economic data in Madagascar.

Dr Neal Hockley

Neal Hockley is a social scientist interested in the governance and economics of land, including community management institutions, land rights and the socio-economic impacts of biodiversity conservation and forest management.

Man standing with beautiful rolling mountains behind him

Dr Leejiah Dorward

Dr Leejiah Dorward is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist with broad interests in how we can apply social science methods to improve our understanding of how social and ecological systems interact.

Lady wearing glasses on boat, on the sea

Dr Katrien Van Landeghem

Dr Katrien Van is a marine geologist with expertise in evaluating seabed integrity, which impacts marine ecosystems.

Lady sat on rocks near water

Dr Harriet Ibbet

Dr Harriet Ibett is a conservation scientist who focuses on understanding peoples compliance with rules which protect biodiversity.

Man measuring a tree in the forest

Professor John Healey

Professor John Healey is a forest ecologist working to achieve the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of forest resources.

Lady standing surrounded by greenery

Dr Freya St John

Dr Freya St John is a conservation scientist interested in understanding the links between human behaviour, well-being and conservation.

Lady standing holding cameras on a boat in the sea

Dr Ewa Krzyszczyk

Dr Ewa Krzyszczyk is a marine zoologist interested in behaviour and conservation of marine mammals, fish, and a variety of marine ecosystems.

Lady standing in a forest on a sunny day

Dr Elena Cini

Dr Elena Cini is an interdisciplinary scientist with interests in ecology, conservation social science, and agro-environmental research.

Lady standing surrounded by beautiful mountains

Dr Eleanor Warren-Thomas

Dr Eleanor Warren-Thomas is an inter-disciplinary scientist using tools from ecology, economics and land systems science to support the conservation and restoration of forests and biodiversity.

Male standing with nice greenery behind him

Dr Edwin Pynegar

Dr Edwin Pynegar is a conservation scientist and practitioner who works on designing and implementing conservation agreement programs and robustly evaluating their effectiveness.

Man climbing to viewing tower, surrounded by trees

Dr Farnon Ellwood

Dr Farnon Ellwood is a community ecologist specialising in the development of theoretical frameworks that can be used to conserve tropical biodiversity by informing sustainable management practices.

Person standing on beach with sea and land behind them

Deanna Groom

Deanna Groom is a maritime archaeologist specialising in the development of maritime historic environment inventories (e.g. national and regional sites and monuments records) for coastal and underwater heritage sites. Particular research interests relate to the impact of climate change on the ecology of historic shipwreck sites.

Male standing with sea in the background

Dr Gareth Williams

Gareth is a marine ecologist specialising in coral reef ecology. His work focuses on identifying the natural and human drivers of coral reef community structure and function across scales and taxa.

Dr Peter Haswell standing on a grassy hillside holding an aerial

Dr. Peter M. Haswell

Dr. Peter M. Haswell is a wildlife biologist working to conserve, restore, and understand biodiversity and ecological processes. Species interactions, human-wildlife coexistence, carnivores, research methods, and environmental ethics present key interests.

Dr Svenja Tidau kneeling by a rock looking at a bird

Dr Svenja Tidau

Dr Svenja Tidau is a global change biologist interested in how natural and anthropogenic changes in the environment affect (marine) animals in their behaviour, development, and physiology. Ìý

Dr Tyler Hallman standing in a stream surrounded by trees with a scope and binoculars in his hands

Dr Tyler Hallman

Dr Tyler Hallman is a wildlife ecologist interested in modelling the spatial and temporal effects of anthropogenic environmental change on wildlife, particularly using remotely sensed and community science data.Ìý

Dr Winnie Courtene-Jones taking marine samples next to a boat

Dr Winnie Courtene-Jones

Dr Winnie Courtene-Jones is a global change biologist and plastic pollution expert whose research focuses on how anthropogenic stressors affect organisms and the environment.

Seumas Bates testing a prototype woodland management drone which uses a LIDAR navigation system and foliage harvesting tool.

Dr Seumas Bates

Seumas is an environmental anthropologist currently researching woodland diversification, and the use of autonomous drones to aid woodland management.

A small migratory bird, the reed warbler, about to be released after being tested for its ability to navigate across continents

Professor Richard Holland

Richard is a behavioural biologist investigating how animals orient, navigate and remember locations in space from small scale local movements to continental scale migration.

Sampling in the mangroves

Dr Nathalie Fenner

Dr Nathalie Fenner is a biogeochemist researching peatland ecosystems and their responses to environmental change, with a particular interest in carbon cycling.

Simon sampling water destined for a global assessment of lake biodiversity

Professor Simon Creer

Simon studies biodiversity across diverse biomes and assesses linkages to ecosystem function, environmental and human health.

Lauren Evans holds a Manx shearwater chick as part of monitoring chick growth.

Lauren Evans

Lauren is an ornithologist investigating how oceanographic variability effects Manx shearwater foraging behaviour and diet.

Amelia is sat on the ground with the sea in the background holding a Manx shearwater (a black and white seabird) on her lap

Amelia Corvin-Czarnodolski

Amelia is a marine ornithologist currently researching the diet of diving seabirds using DNA metabarcoding and stable isotope analysis.

Lorna presenting her research on estimating thresholds for good status

Lorna McKellar

Lorna is an interdisciplinary doctoral researcher looking at how we determine when a marine system has reached a 'good' environmental state.

Researcher Charlie Gregory sitting by a tree

Charlie Gregory

Charlie Gregory is an interdisciplinary researcher studying the consequences of extreme, rapid population decline within fish populations.Ìý

Abi walking through a flooded field, wearing brown waders, carrying clear plastic domes used for gas collection

Abi Cousins

Abi is a wetland scientist currently researching how wetlands can be used to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic pollution.

 Researcher collecting data in a forest in Thailand

Nisabhat Tonwoot

Nisabhat Tonwoot is a third year PhD student on the project " The opportunities of Forest Management Certification in Thailand".

Patrick Allsop recording the behaviour of Zanzibar red colobus monkeys in the trees

Patrick Allsop

Patrick is examining how the Zanzibar red colobus may show behavioural flexibility in natal dispersal, feeding ecology and territoriality in response to the changing risks and resources available across a gradient of anthropogenic disturbance.

This is a photo of Siyang Ren collecting soil in Yunnan Province in southwest China.

Siyang Ren

ÌýWorking to quantify the extent of plastic pollution and identify its potential sources in soils.

Full researcher list

  • Iain Lettice
  • Stevie Scanlan
  • Lauren Sansom
  • Emma Green

Key projects

Researchers in this theme work on a wide variety of applied projects.Ìý

A picture says a thousand words - so please enjoy the gallery of some of the examples of the work we are involved in

Postgraduate Research Project Highlights

Our cutting-edge PGR projects are driving innovation across fields by exploring transformative ideas, advancing knowledge, and offering real-world solutions.

Study with us

At Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÒÅÆ×ÊÁÏ research underpins the teaching that we do – you can study a wide variety of courses, at all levels, which build on the world-leading research we are doing which relates to the conservation and restoration of resilient ecosystems.

Study with us

At Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÒÅÆ×ÊÁÏ research underpins the teaching that we do – you can study a wide variety of courses, at all levels, which build on the world-leading research we are doing which relates to the conservation and restoration of resilient ecosystems.