Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
We are proud of the work we have been doing to promote and improve biodiversity and have developed a biodiversity improvement plan to be implemented across all three of our campuses.Wwe also collaborate with a number of local partners, such as Doddington Hall Estate and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to protect and support life above land.
Our work extends beyond the borders of Lincolnshire, and for the last ten years our students have had the opportunity to visit the cloud forests of Ecuador as part of their degree programme. Students are taught about the biodiversity of the forest and its history and importance by members of our host community. We also work with scientists in the reserve to monitor the fauna and environment by supplying camera traps and environmental data loggers that can both be used for scientific research and teaching.
Research Spotlight
The group is a multidisciplinary community of academics, students, and postdoctoral researchers that aims to understand the evolution and ecology of populations, species, and communities across all levels of biological organisation.
Our academics are engaged in an array of research projects which are linked to biodiversity. Their research has wide reaching aims, including understanding the role of soils and forests in storing carbon; investigating the biomechanics of invertebrates used in jumping, sound-making, and hearing; developing more sustainable pest control methods; and understanding ecology and evolution of sperm.
Our Life Sciences and Computer Science staff and students have been collaborating with colleagues from the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Plantlife, and the Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership to develop novel ways of identifying and monitoring biodiversity using machine learning. This has resulted in a jointly authored publication on the classification of the vegetation of roadside verges. The initial output of this work is now the subject of a significant funded project.
We have a proud history of partnership with the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, including working on the Love Lincolnshire Plants project. Designed to inspire the next generation of botanists, this project gave our students the opportunity to gain extra botanical training and attend talks and events on campus.
We have established a partnership with Doddington Hall, a local estate that has begun a 100-year rewilding project, to restore biodiversity over its 770 hectares. Our students and scientists have contributed baseline data for the biodiversity and ecosystem services of the estate and continue to contribute data as the estate re-wilds. Students can benefit from the ongoing opportunities the estate provides to learn about biodiversity and ecosystem restoration.
A number of our students are now working in exciting roles in biodiversity management and recovery for government agencies and NGOs. Leah Vollans, who studied the invertebrates of Doddington, started a career at Natural England shortly after graduation, and is now working on catchment sensitive farming. Hannah Curtis completed a dissertation on soils at Doddington and then took up a role as a conservation officer with Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust. Ashley Reaney is now working as a conservation officer with Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust. Chloe Francis, who is researching dung beetles at Doddington, is contributing a blog article to the Dung Beetle Trust, a group initiated by livestock farmers, vets, and dung beetle conservation practitioners.
We had 17 outputs relevant to SDG15 in 2022 and 21 in 2021.
Islam, M.T., et al. (2022) Assessment of the domestic energy use impacts of unplanned refugee settlements on the forest ecology of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh Ecocycles 8 86-98
https://www.ecocycles.net/ojs/index.php/ecocycles/article/view/225
Rozendaal, D.M.A, et al. (2022) Aboveground forest biomass varies across continents, ecological zones and successional stages: Refined IPCC default values for tropical and subtropical forests. Environmental Research Letters 17
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac45b3
Eze, S. et al. (2023) Meta-analysis of global soil data identifies robust indicators for short-term changes in soil organic carbon stock following land use change. Science of the Total Environment 860
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722075866
We recognise that sustainability is not just a concern for today, but an ongoing project. That is why we have developed a suite of courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level which educate and develop the next generation of conservationists. These courses make use of our wide range of industry standard facilities and the subject experts that are part of our academic community.
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
