Publications

Nature Seminar Series. A virtual rainforest – Professor Robert Ewers, Imperial College London

Ecologists study living organisms and their interactions with the physical environment, but as ecologists we seldom attempt to understand ecosystems in their entirety. This seminar will present a system-level overview of the ecological processes operating in a Malaysian rainforest, and explain how we are converting this knowledge into a digital twin ecosystem – the virtual rainforest.

Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez, Nicola Stevens, Erika Berenguer (2023). Valuing the functionality of tropical ecosystems beyond carbon. Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

Land-based carbon sequestration projects, such as tree planting, are a prominent strategy to offset carbon emissions. However, we risk reducing natural ecosystems to one metric – carbon. Emphasis on restoring ecosystems to balance ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration is a more appropriate strategy to protect their functioning.

Nature Seminar Series. Fixing our broken relationship with nature. Miles Richardson

This talk will consider our broken relationship with nature and introduce the science of nature connectedness, why it matters and how to improve it in order to unite both human and nature’s wellbeing.

The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners. The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, the Biodiversity Network, or their researchers.

Andrew Hector (2023). Positive effects of tree diversity on tropical forest restoration in a field-scale experiment. Science Advances.

Experiments under controlled conditions have established that ecosystem functioning is generally positively related to levels of biodiversity, but it is unclear how widespread these effects are in real-world settings and whether they can be harnessed for ecosystem restoration. We used remote-sensing data from the first decade of a long-term, field-scale tropical restoration experiment initiated in 2002 to test how the diversity of planted trees affected recovery of a 500-ha area of selectively logged forest measured using multiple sources of satellite data. Replanting using species-rich mixtures of tree seedlings with higher phylogenetic and functional diversity accelerated restoration of remotely sensed estimates of aboveground biomass, canopy cover, and leaf area index. Our results are consistent with a positive relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the lowland dipterocarp rainforests of SE Asia and demonstrate that using diverse
mixtures of species can enhance their initial recovery after logging.

The potential contribution of revenue from Biodiversity Net Gain offsets towards nature recovery ambitions in Oxfordshire

There is a major funding gap for delivering the UK’s nature recovery ambitions, including meeting the national and international ‘30×30’ target (30% of land protected and managed for nature by 2030). This work aimed to investigate the potential revenue that could be generated over the next ten years through purchase of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) offsets by developers in Oxfordshire, and the extent to which this could contribute to the estimated costs of nature recovery.

We compare potential BNG revenue with the costs of creating sufficient areas of semi-natural habitats in strategic locations (e.g. within Oxfordshire’s Nature Recovery Network) to meet the 30×30 target, and maintaining those habitats for 30 years. These costs are estimated at £800 million, but this excludes the costs of protecting and monitoring the sites, and any additional costs for organisations that wish to purchase land or compensate landowners for lost opportunity costs. Also, these are not the full costs of nature recovery in its broadest sense, as they do not take account of the cost of restoring species populations to sustainable levels. In particular, this analysis does not consider the cost of recovering any species and habitats lost as a result of the development that gives rise to the BNG revenue, i.e. it is assumed that the compensatory habitats created through BNG will successfully replace those lost and will prevent any loss of associated species. The estimates are simply intended to help organisations involved in nature recovery to understand the potential size of the BNG market, to inform future investment plans.

Urban grassland and verge guidelines

Why do we need to change the way we manage urban grass? Although uniformly short grass used to be seen as a sign of good management, people now are becoming more aware of the value of nature and the need for more nature-friendly management techniques. Frequent mowing removes flowers that provide nectar for bees and butterflies. It removes the eggs that butterflies lay on grass stems, crushes caterpillars and other insect larvae, and can kill or injure other wildlife such as frogs, snakes and voles. Our guidance booklet outlines Best Practice for managing these spaces.