Dr Oscar Morton

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sheffield. My PhD focused on understanding the risks and conservation implications of the global wildlife trade. Namely this included assessing the state of knowledge regarding how extraction for trade impacts species populations and how effectively international trade policy protected threatened species.

My current research predominantly explores the drivers behind the selection of specific species being used for particular purposes, developing tools and indicators to evaluate the impacts of utilisation on species populations, and assessing the efficacy of global policies in ensuring sustainable use. Something I’m particularly interested in is how the functional dynamics of ecosystems can become changed and altered by the extraction of specific species and specific functional types and the spatial variation in whether this does or does not impact the ecosystems’ ability to provide key ecosystem services like seed dispersal or waste removal.

I also maintain a broader interest in global conservation and its intersection with the consequences of land use changes on species communities, as well as how various threats can synergistically endanger species. This is particularly the case for timber, a commodity in ever increasing demand and subject to a rapidly changing suite of threats (e.g. wildfires, competition with agriculture, disease etc.).