Conservation

Our conservation research includes long-term monitoring, field sampling and experimentation, and statistical modelling, to understand how landscape and habitat management can offset biodiversity threat posed by global change, such as climate change or tree disease.

Ecological Scale - Cryptogams challenge conservationists to work across a broad range of scales. Species often show strong biogeographic patterns, e.g. occurring abundantly in Scotland's oceanic climates, but they are also sensitive to microhabitat variation. The details of habitat quality can affect their likelihood of occurrence within optimal or sub-optimal climates.

Interactions - Cryptogams such as lichens are symbiotic; their distributions depend on the interaction between partners in space and time. We use this symbiosis to understand how close species interactions will affect biodiversity responses to global change.

Indicators - Cryptogams are sensitive to climate, air pollution, and landscape management, and we use them as indicators for monitoring conservation outcomes and environmental health, and to engage the public in the link between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human health and welfare.

Key contact: Dr Christopher Ellis