Ecosystems and Environment

The Ecosystems and Environment Research Centre is an interdisciplinary Centre with over 30 academics and 30 doctoral students which addresses some of the major environmental challenges of the 21st Century such as climate change, biodiversity, and spread of infectious diseases. Research is clustered around four topics: biodiversity, ecosystem services, disease ecology, and landscape dynamics.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Biodiversity research, conducted in tropical and temperate ecosystems, focuses on a wide range of invertebrate and vertebrate taxa - including microorganisms, insects, crustaceans, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals. Research extends from the organism level – investigating behaviour, life-histories, genetics, ecology, and symbiotic relationships – to the ecosystem level - assessing the services provided by natural, semi-natural and urban ecosystems and exploring how these ecosystems are affected by pollution and resource use. The over-arching goals of this group are to understand how human activities affect biodiversity (and vice versa), and how conservation and management practices can be tailored to specific needs and scenarios.

Disease ecology

Disease ecology is the study of the underlying principles that influence the spatio-temporal patterns of diseases and consequently much research lies at the interface of human biology, animal biology, and human health. Research particularly focuses on transmission ecology of non-vector and vector-borne zoonotic infections (both microbial and parasitic including echinococcosis, trypanosomiasis, microsporidiosis and tick-borne microbes) and molecular epidemiology of the diseases they cause.

Landscape dynamics

Research in landscape dynamics is concerned with the temporal and spatial dynamics of the Earth's land surface. This research involves the measurement, modelling, and analysis of land surface and atmospheric processes using techniques such as lidar, remote sensing of land surface vegetation change, glaciology, and sediment and nutrient dynamics. The Centre carries out high quality real-world research that contributes to scientific understanding of the nature and impacts of environmental change on the natural and human environment.

We currently have three, fully funded Graduate Teaching Studentships for studying in these areas. Find out more about the studentships and view the projects.