Oxford
Ecosystems
CURRENT PROJECTS
Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery
Project lead: Yadvinder Malhi
A hub for innovative thinking, discussion and analysis of nature recovery nationally and worldwide
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, based at the University of Oxford tackles the challenge of halting and reversing this loss of biodiversity by addressing the ecological, social, cultural and economic dimensions of nature recovery in a single framework, harnessing state-of-the-art technologies and thereby developing and testing an innovative model to deliver nature recovery at scale.
HERO - Healthy Ecosystem Restoration in Oxfordshire
Project lead: Yadvinder Malhi
HERO is a three year programme supported by the Oxford Martin School, under their new Programme on Biodiversity and Society. HERO explores how Oxford University can play a role in efforts to restore healthy ecosystems in Oxfordshire, by bringing the university’s strengths in academic knowledge, research capacity and convening power to support ongoing and planned nature recovery activities by a range of local partners and stakeholders. HERO is working with organisations from around Oxfordshire to maximise the potential for demonstration and research of HERO. With its active network of nature recovery groups, Oxfordshire presents a unique opportunity to test and showcase a portfolio of different ecosystem restoration strategies, to become a model county for nature recovery. HERO aims to build a community of practice between the University and local practitioners, and will also form a resource for the University and its constituent Colleges within broader institutional sustainability goals. The HERO network brings together researchers from the natural and social sciences with local authorities, environmental organisations, and community groups who are already working on a range of initiatives to help support nature’s recovery and enhance the multiple benefits that nature provides in Oxfordshire. We aim to support the emerging Local Nature Partnership, and the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy and a Natural Capital Investment Plan. We are working closely with BBOWT (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust) and Wild Oxfordshire, who already play a key role in convening and supporting local stakeholders, as well as the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) which is setting up a county trial to combine and coordinate different streams of environmental funding. We also aim to engage with local Catchment Partnerships, Farmer Clusters and community groups, as well as prominent supporters of Oxford’s biodiversity research in the business, finance, government and NGO sectors, to strengthen links with external stakeholders. HERO will hold a regular and frequent series of workshops and seminars to examine key opportunities, challenges and evidence gaps around nature recovery in Oxfordshire, and also provide a limited amount of research resources to help fill evidence gaps.
Global Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) network
Project lead: Yadvinder Malhi
The Global Ecosystem Monitoring network (GEM) is an international effort to measure and understand forest ecosystem functions and traits, and how these will respond to climate change. The GEM network aims to capture both ecosystem-level properties and the functional composition of the community. It encompasses many separately-funded projects, including projects in the Amazon-Andes, West and Central Africa, and Malaysia. We are always looking to incorporate new partners and plots into the network.
The multi-trophic impact of ash dieback
Project lead: Yadvinder Malhi
This project is lead by Prof. Yadvinder Malhi with Dr Cecilia Dahlsjö as co-investigator (U. Oxford), along with Prof. David Macdonald (WildCRU), Dr Daniella Linton (Zoology), Dr Eleanor Cole (Zoology), Prof. Mathias Disney (UCL), Dr Keith Kirby (Plant Sciences), Dr Curt Lamberth (SoGe), Dr Sarah Knowles (Zoology), Dr Anna Oliver (CEH), Dr Denise Pallett (CEH), Stefanie Schäfer (CEH).
The spread of the fungal pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus across the range of the European ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) has become a major concern, with its impacts leading to up to 90% ash mortality ("ash dieback"). Multi-Trophic Wytham is a NERC funded project examining the multi-trophic impact of ash dieback in Wytham Woods, a maritime woodland outside Oxford, southern UK. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration that incorporates expertise from departments across the University of Oxford (School of Geography and the Environment, Department of Zoology, Department of Plant Sciences, and WildCRU) and further afield (CEH Wallingford,University College London). The project has been organised into three overarching topics that provide a wider conceptual ecological framework around ecosystem response to extensive tree mortality beyond the specific case of ash dieback including (a) biochemical cycling, (b) vegetation structure and predation pressure, and (c) woodland connectivity. We will track the shifting ecosystem ecology under natural progression of the mortality event and also conduct manipulations of “accelerated ash dieback” to gain insights into longer-term dynamics, using ring-barking. This ambitious project will result in a novel multi-trophic understanding of the impacts of pathogen-induced mass tree mortality, providing better understanding of processes that are applicable to managing and mitigating the ecological consequences of tree dieback events more generally.
Tropical forests responses to a changing climate
Project lead: Jesús Aguirre Gutiérrez
A quest at the interface between trait-based ecology, forest dynamics and remote sensing
This project aims to improve our understanding of tropical forest responses to global change drivers by integrating established biodiversity metrics with state-of-the-art functional traits, spatially explicit multi-decadal vegetation information and remote sensing approaches. This novel approach and new understanding are essential for developing robust conservation and management strategies and will contribute to national and international biodiversity conservation goals.
Interdependence of tropical forests and soil biota as seen by remote sensing
Project lead: Jesús Aguirre Gutiérrez
Soil biota can enhance the capacity of plants to obtain nutrients. In turn, soil decomposers, affected by leaf nutrient status, drive the distribution of tree symbiotic partners around the world. The biodiversity-rich tropical forests, which are home to more than 50% of global biodiversity, urgently need answers to the above mentioned questions as evidence shows how climate change is affecting their biodiversity levels. By sampling tropical forests from South America, Africa, Asia and Australia this project will 1) determine how the soil biota is structured across tropical forests and if and how it is determined by the plant species diversity; 2) if such patterns of soil biota-plant diversity are determined by climatic conditions, and 3) if they can be captured by the tree canopies by means of the diverse traits plant species possess and which can be observed by means of remote sensing imagery (i.e. drone images). If the diversity of soil biota is determined by the diversity of plant species and their functional traits (e.g. leaf nutrient content) it would be a step change for our ecological understanding if we could track such soil biota-plant relations across spatial scales. If this is possible we would have a better understanding on how such soil biota-plant diversity feedback cascades across the tropical forests and on how forest functioning and resilience may be impacted by a changing climate.
The climate mitigation potential of Arctic rewilding
Project Lead: Marc Macias-Fauria (U. Cambridge)
This project is led by Prof. Marc Macias-Fauria (U. Cambridge), with Prof. Yadvinder Malhi as a collaborator.
This project is investigating the ability of animal activity to modulate the responses of vegetation to climate change and to engineer and modify habitats and niches, altering the properties of the Earth's surface and feeding back to climate. The large-scale effects of animals on vegetation –top-down effects– are only beginning to be understood and quantified. The project focuses on the potential for large mammal herbivory to modulate the response of tundra vegetation in Greenland to climate change and encompasses present observational and palaeo-ecological data. This research line informs Nature-based solutions, rewilding, and the field of biodiversity conservation.
NEO-FIRE: Understanding and scaling vulnerability of neotropical Amazon and transitional forests to altered fire regimes
Project lead: Imma Oliveras Menor
This project is led by Dr Imma Oliveras Menor (U. Oxford, IRD), with Dr Manoela Machado as postdoctoral researcher (U. Oxford, Woods Hole Climatic Research Centre) , Prof Jos Barlow (U. Lancaster) and Prof Yadvinder Malhi (U. Oxford) as co-investigators, and eight other partner institutions from Brazil, US and UK
The Amazon is the most important biome of South America, harbouring extraordinarily high levels of biodiversity and providing important ecosystems services. This biome is particularly notable for evolving independently from fire and in a moist, warm climate. In recent decades, altered fire regimes and an increasingly hotter and drier climate has pushed this key biome towards ecological thresholds that will likely lead to major losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services. Similarly, the ecotonal forests at the Amazon-Cerrado transition are unique ecosystems in terms of form and function, but they may be the first to suffer large-scale tree mortality and species loss due to the combined effects of increased anthropogenic disturbance, altered fire regimes and a drier climate. Vulnerability of fire and droughts are closely intertwined in Amazonian and transitional forests because fires in this region only occur when there is water stress and a human ignition source. Thus, drought increases vulnerability to fire, but we do not yet understand the magnitude and spatial variation of these vulnerabilities. Once a forest burns there is immediate tree mortality, but recent evidence also shows a significant time-lagged mortality that can last for decades, becoming an important carbon source. However, the mechanistic processes that lead to time-lagged tree mortality in this myriad of forest ecosystems encompassing the Amazon biome and the Amazon-Cerrado transition are still poorly understood. We also lack knowledge on how these processes might vary spatially across the biome and its transition. A better understanding of the mechanisms that lead to tree mortality after fires and droughts is needed to design future policies that emphasise nature-based solutions including restoration and natural regeneration. This project uses aims at deciphering the mechanisms that underly vulnerability to fire and time-lagged post-fire mortality across the tropical forests in Amazon and Amazon-Cerrado transition. To achieve this aim, we quantify fire vulnerability at three different scales and link them through an upscaling approach. First, we identify the ecological mechanisms that explain why individuals and species die after fires occur. Second, at the community scale, we examine how vegetation structure, community traits and microclimate affect the probability to burn. Third, we predict the vulnerability of the Amazon forests and Amazon-Cerrado transitional forests. This information will be directly applicable for the detection of sensitive hotspots (areas particularly vulnerable to fire) through satellite products. We will deliver quantifiable early-warning metrics of ecosystem vulnerability to fire that can be mapped and incorporated into fire management policies.
DIEBACK: Evaluating fire-induced impacts on tree dieback and carbon fluxes in human-modified Amazonian forests
Project lead: Yadvinder Malhi
This project is led by Prof. Yavinder Malhi and Prof. Jos Barlow (U. Lancaster), with Dr Erika Berenguer (U. Oxford) and Dr Imma Oliveras Menor as co-investigators.
Wildfires have become the new norm in many parts of the Amazonian humid forest, an ecosystem that did not co-evolve with this stressor. Large areas of previously undisturbed and human-modified forests are catching fire, jeopardizing the future of the largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest in the world. Despite the growing prevalence of Amazonian wildfires, we still have a very limited understanding of why these low intensity understorey fires cause very high rates of tree mortality, which species functional traits predict vulnerability or survival to these fires, what are the impacts of wildfires on the forest carbon balance and what are the patterns of taxonomic and functional recovery following a fire event. We propose a research plan to achieve major advances in our understanding of such wildfire impacts, including of the underlying mechanisms that cause both short-term and longer-term tree mortality. We will achieve this by combining a state-of-the-art forest burn experiment with continued monitoring of a unique set of long-term sampling plots, some of which we have tracked through a 2015-16 wildfire event associated with a strong El Niño. We are uniquely placed to address these fundamental questions given our network of burned and unburned forest plots that is already in place, and the numerous past datasets that we can use as baseline information. As well as advancing scientific knowledge about a pervasive and increasing threat to the future of tropical forests in the Anthropocene, our co-designed pathways to impact ensures we will also inform and improve approaches to minimise risk of fire-induced dieback of humid Amazonian forests.
Bertarelli Marine Science Project:
Implications of nutrient flow and feedbacks across the seabird-island-reef system
Project lead: Yadvinder Malhi and Lisa Wedding
This project is led by Prof. Yadvinder Malhi and Dr Lisa Wedding, with Dr Eleanor Thomson as a postdoctoral research fellow.
Seabirds are important vectors of nutrients on islands, feeding out in the open ocean and transporting fish-based nutrients onto land. These nutrient subsidies have been shown to increase vegetation productivity and invertebrate abundance on tropical islands, and run-off into surrounding coral reefs to enhance fish biomass and coral reef productivity. With introduced pests, such as rats, having decimated seabird populations on 90% of the world’s islands, the potential for pest eradication and island ecosystem conservation has gathered momentum. This is a joint project between Oxford, Exeter and Lancaster University, and aims to quantify the benefit of seabird-derived nutrients to tropical island forest and marine ecosystems. Our study sites incorporate islands with recent and ongoing rat eradication programs across the Chagos Archipelago, Seychelles and French Polynesia. The project works with partner organisations in these regions to support local tropical island conservation and restoration. The project has three aims. To quantify the influence of seabird nutrient subsidies on 1) island ecology and biogeochemical cycling, 2) coral reef spatial nutrient patterns, trophic propagation, and recovery trajectories, and 3) reef growth and island sediment supply critical to mitigating the impacts of sea-level rise. The project also has a large remote sensing component, using multispectral drone and satellite imagery to scale up field measurements and produce land-to- seascape maps of nutrient patterns and ecosystem productivity.
Lewa & Ngare Ndare Restoration, Biodiversity and Development Project
Project Lead: Dr Nicola Stevens
This project is led by Dr Nicola Stevens and Prof. Yavinder Malhi, with Natural State, Prof. Kate Parr (U. Liverpool) and Matt Rogan (Natural State) as collaborators
Natural State, a leading organisation in landscape protection, restoration, and rewilding, and The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at the University of Oxford, a premier interdisciplinary research centre, have partnered to drive landscape scale nature recovery in Kenya. This collaborative effort will leverage cutting-edge research and innovative financing mechanisms to address the urgent need for biodiversity restoration and sustainable development. Ecological Research Focus The ecological research position will be supervised by the Centre’s Director, Professor Yadvinder Malhi. The postdoctoral researcher will concentrate research on identifying the best indicators for degradation and recovery across various biomes, exploring the challenge of defining and measuring ecological degradation and health in ecosystems where disturbance is a key part of ecosystem functioning. There will be an initial emphasis on savanna systems and rangeland ecosystems. This work will provide insights into how severe droughts and land use changes have affected the ecological integrity of the landscape and how restoring nature may impact the resilience of the landscape. Nature Finance Research Focus The nature finance research position will be supervised by Dr Nicola Ranger who is Group Leader and Director of the Resilient Planet Finance Lab at the University of Oxford, as well as co-Director of the UKRI Integrating Finance and Biodiversity Programme. This research will address the growing recognition of the interconnectedness between nature, climate, and society. This research will design, analyse, test, and scale various financing mechanisms that deliver positive outcomes for nature, climate, and communities. By collaborating with green finance experts, this research will support the co-design of effective financial structures, building awareness and capability around the value proposition of nature finance. This work aims to close the financing gap for nature-based solutions in Africa, as highlighted by The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative. Future hopes The outputs from this research collaboration will play a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of ecosystem restoration and in developing sustainable financing mechanisms that benefit both nature and people. This partnership underscores the commitment of both organisations to fostering long-term, sustainable environmental solutions.
