Assoc. Professor Richard Walters

My research addresses how changes in biodiversity due to land-use and climate change impacts ecosystem function and services. As a functional ecologist I am interested in the mechanisms underpinning effect and response variables and how this knowledge can be used to help identify nature-based solutions that maximise services and minimise disservices for the benefits of both people and nature. 

Previous trans-academic projects conducted with farmers, the Woodland Trust and the Organic Research Centre focused on trait-based approaches to help to establish to what extent silvo-arable agroforestry in the UK can both benefit biodiversity and be economically viable. Current BECC-funded projects in Sweden aim to investigate how changes in functional diversity evident at a local and regional scale in both space and time relate to climate and local forest management practices. This knowledge aims to inform our understanding of sustainable forest management practises and identify suitable remote sensing variables to upscale findings for monitoring purposes. Finally, by applying an evolutionary perspective, we aim to better understand the importance of habitat connectivity among isolated forest stands for fragmented populations and to identify the most cost-effective measures to restore and maintain their long-term viability.