Country: UK

The Healthy Ecosystem Recovery Oxfordshire (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. We are 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 Oxfordshire’s Local Nature Partnership, and the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy and a Natural Capital Investment Plan.

You can view our Oxfordshire-based projects here 

 

 

 

Thanks to the Oxford Martin School and the Leverhulme Trust for their support in making these programmes possible.

Ecological monitoring using acoustic data of the whole ecosystem (the soundscape) from passive acoustic sensors and AI is now a common approach for understanding impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and habitat health.  However, scaling AI across different habitats, consistently separating the individual biotic, anthropogenic and geophonic sounds and classifying species specific sounds remains a significant challenge. The main bottleneck is limited amount of publicly available labelled data from many regions or underrepresented taxonomic groups to train the AI to classify target sounds, which is prohibitively time consuming and expensive to generate, requiring manual annotation of reference recordings.  This is where unsupervised AI methods, such as self-supervised learning, would be an advantage, allowing us to learn representations and find hidden structure in unlabelled data.

Motivated by the recent success of AI large language models, we are exploring self-supervised learning, to learn the ‘grammar’ of soundscapes from unlabelled data.  These methods generate internal representations of soundscapes (the AI ‘embeddings’) that separate and cluster individual species from other sounds, sub-cluster their behaviours and isolate unanticipated ‘anomalous’ sounds from unlabelled data.  The AI models can be extended to applications when some labelled data is available, for example, for species classification.  As a head-start we are adapting and refining models developed for bird sound to orthoptera, geophonic and anthropogenic sounds.

A key driver of our self-supervised approach is the use of ecoacoustics for soil health assessment, where limited knowledge of many below ground sounds constrain the applicability of the passive acoustic monitoring approach. Labelled soil sounds data is currently sparse, yet the self-supervised approach could circumvent the need for extensive reference soil sounds collection.

For information on the different habitats under investigation please see our associated project ‘Ecoacoustics for assessing ecosystem health and function, from air to soil’.

There is mounting evidence of the many benefits of green infrastructure (GI) (e.g. parks, gardens, street trees), including health and wellbeing benefits. Yet although less affluent communities, which typically experience health inequity, derive greater benefits from greenspace, they often have less access to it. Identifying these communities would allow local authorities to develop policies that promote equitable access to GI benefits, potentially reducing health and social care costs.

During this six month Fellowship I will be collaborating with Plymouth City Council (PCC) and the Woodland Trust to develop a novel, transferable methodology (tool) that allows local councils to assess equity of access to GI, building on existing work by Woodland Trust and myself. The close collaboration with PCC will allow us to directly support equitable green infrastructure policy development in Plymouth, as well as ensure that the method is fit for real-world application. The tool will bring together elements of the Woodland Trust’s Tree Equity Score (https://uk.treeequityscore.org/) and my own previous work in Oxfordshire (https://www.naturerecovery.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Oxfordshires_greenspace_deprived_neighbourhoods_APR2024_online-compressed.pdf).

Project outputs will include:

1. A tool that can be used to assess green infrastructure (GI) deprivation in urban areas according to a range of green infrastructure metrics, weighted by socio-economic and demographic factors.
2. A report outlining the methods and findings that can inform PCC’s GI planning and policy, and can be used as a case study and road map by other local authorities wishing to use the method. This would include a baseline for greenspace enhancements in Plymouth.
3. A plain English blog to share the aims and outcomes of the project with the general public; to be shared on PCC website and other appropriate channels.
4. An ‘Action Research’ paper outlining how the tool was developed and evaluated, demonstrating the value of co-design and using PCC as a case study to show how the tool can be used in practice.

 

The state of nature in cities is a topic of concern. As the proportion of the global population in urban areas nears 60%, it has become vital to consider ways we can protect nature in these human-dense areas.

The urban sprawl brings with it fragmentation, and losses of ecological connectivity and biodiversity. This impact is well-known and motivated Target 12 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to “increase the area and quality and connectivity of, access to, and benefits from green and blue spaces in urban and densely populated areas”. In addition to the targets of the GBF the London Boroughs have Local Neighbourhood plans, the London Environment Strategy and the City Plan, all of which include guidelines to green London. But, as of yet there is no ecological assessment of the city as a whole.

Few papers have employed ecological evaluations used in so-called “natural” areas within the urban context, fewer still looking in London. I hope to perform such an assessment and provide a pathway to creating an urban landscape for nature and people. I will assess ecosystem structure and composition through the AGILE initiative mapping program, and quantify ecosystem connectivity through models like Circuitscape, the Spatial Resilience Index, Graphab, and/or Conefor.

Then I will consider ecosystem functioning, looking at urban heat island mitigation, carbon storage, flood prevention, and air quality improvement. I also hope to look at the state of ecosystem services and avenues for improvement. This would involve crossovers between biodiversity and social science, such as health, wellbeing, natural capital, and the impact of biodiversity on people.

This would generate an assessment of the impact of people on nature and nature on people, considering the way the city currently is and ways this could change not only in London but in cities worldwide.

This project will focus on testing the co-benefits of green infrastructure and nature-based interventions on mental health and human wellbeing at different scales in the UK and expand to the Global South. The overall aim is to provide evidence through a multi-scale analysis of green infrastructure and mental health, encompassing national (macro), regional (meso), and local (micro) perspectives at population level within the UK.

From the national level, the project will start by quantifying how much green space is needed to provide justified mental health benefits, as well as determining the format in which those benefits should be. To answer this question, the first study is an assessment of the mental health impact of an urban forestry rule: the 3-30-300 on population mental health outcomes. The 3-30-300 rule sets guidelines for cities to ensure fair access to nature. It suggests that people should be able to see three trees from their home, have a neighbourhood with 30% tree coverage, and be within 300 meters of a green space. The project plans to test whether the different components of these three rules make a difference in mental health outcomes and if tree canopy density might have a threshold in impacting resident’s mental health.

Following that, the project will test whether different types of green infrastructure might have different impacts on mental health and how the relationship differs when looking at self-reported mental health and wellbeing status versus NHS diagnosis records. The second study is designed as a spatial-temporal disparity in the relationship between different types of green space and objective mental health outcomes, considering urban, peri-urban, and rural contexts and socio-economic factors. The study will employ longitudinal data of mental health outcomes, alongside green space indicators such as grassland, woodland, trees, and water bodies. The aim is to identify how green space type, quality, and accessibility impact mental health and whether these effects vary across socio-economic groups and geographic settings.

On the regional level, the third study will investigate spatial and social disparities of school greenness and the impact on physical activity and mental health in children and adolescents. This study will explore the impact of school greenness on the physical activity, mental health, and overall well-being of children and adolescents in Liverpool and Oxfordshire, UK. Using longitudinal survey data, the study will examine spatial and socio-economic disparities in school greenness and their associations with health and well-being outcomes. The research aims to provide actionable insights for improving school environments and informing urban planning and environmental policies that promote healthier, more equitable settings for young people.

The national and regional findings from the initial research plan will then lead to the next stage of the project, which will focus on a local case study of the co-benefits of green infrastructure.

Wendee is a postdoctoral researcher in the Health and Wellbeing theme at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Flourishing and Wellbeing Theme of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre.

Rewilding is a nature recovery approach that prioritises functionalism and ecosystem autonomy, using low-impact interventions that aim to create resilience and self-regulation. However, whilst rewilding has seen many successes above-ground, little attention has been paid to those communities below. This project responds to the call to improve our knowledge on the responses of below-ground taxonomies generally by studying mycorrhizal communities at the Knepp Wildland, a large ~3500acre ex-farmland site in West Sussex, UK. This site provides unique opportunities to study one of our longest, largest, and more mature rewilding projects and the dynamic environment created by its reintroduced disturbance actors.

Mycorrhizal fungi build symbiotic relationships with plant roots, exchanging nutrients that usually helps bolster survival for both fungi and plant. Mycorrhizal fungi send out long, thin strands of hyphae that explore the local soil environment and forage for resources, extending the reach of the roots far beyond the traditional rhizosphere. These strands come together to form mycelium, which can fuse with those extending from other plants to create extensive common mycorrhizal networks. These networks help seeds germinate (with some completely dependent on them!), aid plants in their growth and survival, and have been reported to translocate resources and nutrients around the soil system. These characteristics make this a ‘keystone’ below-ground organism, making their study imperative as they could be an important ingredient to catalysing UK nature recovery.

Utilising novel technologies, this project uses soil eDNA to resolve changes to both mycorrhizal community composition and function to see if rewilding is serving the below-ground ecosystem as it is above. A space-for-time comparison to a local conventional farm is used to track change from the initial land-use to the outcomes seen ~20 years later. It is hoped that as these new technologies become cheaper and more widespread, frameworks such as this can be more routinely applied to nature recovery monitoring, normalising the inclusion and consideration of soil biodiversity in these initiatives.

We have large eDNA datasets for both fungi and bacteria and would be open for collaboration.

71% of the UK land area is farmland, which without transformation will mean no realistic chance of solving this nations biodiversity crisis. Regenerative agriculture promises a way to farm with and bolster nature, helping provide the many varied habitats and resources needed for functional and flourishing ecosystems, whilst also helping feed the country. This project aims to assess the ecological impact of arable regenerative agriculture methods on soil biodiversity, helping build an evidence base to reveal how these organisms drive this approach.

Utilising the emerging framework of ecosystem energetics, this project aims to apply this methodology to the soil environment to establish a consistent approach to assessing nature recovery progress in this traditional ‘black box’. By tracking energy flows from the sun to the soil, we can follow its cascade through the below-ground food web to understand where it pools and flows. With energy translating into the ability to ‘do work’, we can use this as a proxy to understand how the activities of these organisms emerge to provide services we take advantage of for farming, such as water infiltration and nutrient cycling, amongst others. In comparison with chemical farming, we aim to show how these organisms support regenerative agriculture without expensive or environmentally damaging additives.

Working at FarmED in the Cotswolds, we are able to take advantage of their 8 year arable chronosequence and conventional control plot to demonstrate the ecological impact of herbal leys and their lingering effects during cropping to reduce our reliance on agrichemicals. Taking the opportunity this novel chronosequence provides in one location, we have built a very large and detailed dataset for each plot, accounting for its diversity of soil life (micro, meso, and macrofauna), soil characteristics (pH, SOM, cations, particle size, temperature, moisture, bulk density), and net primary productivity (vegetation biomass, dung, and respiration). It is with this data that we ultimately aim to build a streamlined and unified framework for assessing nature recovery in soils, and encourage its routine monitoring as apart of restoration initiatives.

We are open to collaboration and are keen to be able to use this wealth of data to understand more about these systems to help accelerate UK nature recovery.

Tree pests and diseases are doubling every decade, some of which cause widespread damage to existing woodlands. Ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus), a disease caused by an ascomycete fungus, has killed millions of ash trees in Europe. It is estimated to cost £15 billion in Britain, and a population decline of ash obligate and highly associated species. Forests across the world face similar challenges, where tree pandemics eradicate certain species within decades, followed by slow forest recovery.

The increasing interconnectedness of our world through trade and travel, and the lack of biosecurity, have accelerated the spread of invasive tree pests and pathogens. Despite plant sanitation regulations, the exponential growth of these threats continues. While early detection and response can sometimes be useful, in most cases, it is too late to effectively control the disease. In addition, some disease agents may suddenly reproduce fast when climate conditions exceed specific thresholds. In a world with rising temperatures and changing precipitation regimes, we are not sure whether this will lead to unforeseen disease outbreaks and severe ecological consequences.

This project focuses on predicting ecological effects of tree pests and pathogens in the future. As part of an NERC-funded project on ash dieback, we established experimental plots in Wytham Woods (Oxford) in 2020 to monitor the disease’s impact on tree health, nutrient cycling, habitat structure, woodland connectivity, and biodiversity. With the support of the Scottish Forestry Trust, we are developing a comprehensive global database of tree pest and disease outbreaks, covering a wide range of disease types. Through developing a wealth of data and modelling products, this project seeks to forecast future tree mortality rates, changes in nutrient cycling, and their consequences for forests in a changing world. This will be crucial for tree pest management and mitigating, which are important for successful nature recovery.