Landscapes are composed of multiple habitats as well as the biodiversity that resides within them, and are a product of interactions between species present, climate, geography and human use. They provide many ecosystem services, such as provision of food and water, regulation of climate and carbon cycling, which are vital for a stable future for our society, economy, health and wellbeing. Plants form the basis of all terrestrial ecosystems and are fundamental to providing these ecosystem services. Landscape decisions should therefore be underpinned by tools that enable prediction of plant responses to global change and landscape management. However, current approaches to modelling plant species distributions are deficient for this purpose as they focus on individual, or a small number of, species; ignore interactions between species; or only model a small number of plant functional types. A systems approach will be used to address this significant gap in current real-world landscape decision support by developing tools to predict (including uncertainty quantification) current and future distribution of all ~1,800 UK plant species in a manner that accounts for competitive interactions between species. This will enable effective assessment of the impacts of landscape decisions and/or climate change, e.g. in specific locations or on important habitat types such as peatlands. Invasive non-natives are considered a growing threat to ecosystem services and through extension to ~200,000 plant species worldwide this tool also enables assessment of the impact of invasive non-native plant species on current and potential future UK landscapes. Pests and diseases also represent a significant challenge and tools developed by this project will be a valuable resource for managing landscapes for plant health, for example, by providing distributions of at-risk populations - i.e. the distribution of plant hosts for any disease or pest of interest. Future work could explore the potentially critical feedbacks between the dynamics of plant community distributions and the transmission of pests and diseases by coupling models of these processes. This project builds on an existing coarse spatial scale model for all plant biodiversity on Earth and an ongoing NERC-funded project developing a higher resolution version for UK plant species. The latter project makes use of the more detailed climate, land use and plant coverage records available for the UK. However, further refinements are needed to properly quantify structural and process uncertainty within this framework. Without such work predictions of the effect of climate change and land use decisions that emerge from these models could be misleading. Currently niche preferences are parameterised by observational data with no uncertainty assessment. In terms of structural uncertainty, it is critical to account for between-species heterogeneity better by establishing how each species grows and reproduces (its functional type). Building on existing digitisation expertise at the Natural History Museum we therefore propose to extract relevant functional type information from existing taxonomic descriptions to create a more extensive trait database for all UK native and non-native plant species. As well as being a valuable resource in its own right and extensible to all global plant records, this work will be used within the project to enhance the simulation model to capture the relative differences in growth, competition and dispersal between species. Comparison with the current model based on a limited number of functional types will highlight the role of structural complexity and the impact of non-linearities on model output. We will also develop tools to quantify uncertainty in these models using available plant species distribution data so that we can correctly capture the impact of planned and expected land use and climate change, and ultimately guide future landscape decision making.

Context of the Research: Measurement of the distribution and abundance of marine mammals has been identified as one of the SOFI priority areas (SO14). This proposed studentship is specifically aimed at this objective but also takes the 'next step' in the assessment of these spatial data, by investigating how to use maps of marine mammal distribution and abundance to inform policy decisions, namely the development of offshore marine protected areas (MPAs). The development of offshore MPAs is increasingly advocated, particularly with the increasing demands on the marine environment, most recently due to marine renewable energy sources. However, there are currently few guidelines available as to how to base decisions on location, let alone size, and spacing of such protected areas. Different criteria are often suggested to guide the design of reserves but problems could be foreseen with many of these. For example, identifying MPAs based on hotspots of animal use might give priority to commoner species and neglect those that are of most concern (endangered or threatened species). Similarly, identifying MPAs based on high biodiversity (areas where the most species are found) may suggest protecting areas where species overlap, but due to avoidance between these species, these may be at the boundaries of their ranges and therefore represent only marginal habitat for them. Conducted in collaboration with the Sea Mammal Research Unit, this studentship will use their datasets on the distribution and abundance of seals and whales in UK offshore waters. This project aims to develop an ecologically-based computer framework for the design of offshore MPAs for marine mammals around Britain based on quantitative objectives, with the broader aim of providing a generic framework that can be used in other areas and for other species. Aims and Objectives: 1) To develop a model framework for the objective identification and design of offshore MPAs based on ecological first principles; 2) To inform the model with analysis of existing data on the abundance and distribution of marine mammals and human activities around Britain; 3) To investigate the impact of a range of different objectives and constraints on the resulting selections of MPAs; 4) To develop objective criteria that could ultimately be used to advise national and international policy on marine protected areas for wide ranging marine mammals. Potential Application and Benefits: The primary outcome of this project will be the assessment of priorities and constraints for offshore MPA design for marine mammals. This will be of primary interest to policy-makers and the major project deliverable to this community will be software for use in dynamic ongoing assessment and prioritisation of areas based on updates for species maps, population estimates and variations in anthropogenic risk. This software will also lend itself well to public exhibition, illustrating how management of the open ocean can be achieved. Within the Oceans 2025 community, this work is also likely to be of interest to the Sustainable Marine Resources theme, particularly elements concerning marine spatial planning and analysis of marine policy drivers to enhance decision-support. We aim to forge links with these researchers, and to feed the data and outcomes associated with this project into this broader analysis.

As well as being important in human and agricultural populations, it is increasingly recognised that infectious disease has important impacts in natural systems. In particular it is now clear that infectious disease can be important in conservation and may affect the ability of foreign organisms to invade natural communities. Ecological theory has been important in showing the general importance of disease in natural systems, but has only been rarely used to direct conservation programs. The project investigators have a track record in translating established research on disease-mediated ecological invasion into mathematical tools that can be used to direct conservation management decisions and policy. This project will answer current, pressing questions outlined by conservation agencies on the red-grey-squirrelpox system in Scotland. The objectives in the project have been specified by the project partners (Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Wildlife Trust) who need to know the potential impact of squirrelpox on remaining red squirrel populations, whether grey squirrel control can prevent squirrelpox spread and the critical locations and effort at which control is required. This information is essential to allow our conservation partners to formulate current and future management plans that allocates limited resources in a manner that maximises red squirrel protection. The modelling framework, which predicts temporal and spatial disease dynamics on large-scale, complex landscapes, is the best tool available to underpin these conservation efforts. Therefore, this NERC Innovations proposal provides a unique opportunity to translate established research into effective conservation strategies that provide direct tangible benefits to end-users.

Coastal dune habitats provide a diversity of habitats for a number of rare and threatened plants and animals. The movement of windblown sand within these dune systems is critical to maintaining a high level of biodiversity as it creates a mosaic of habitats for plants and animals to live. The conservation status of mobile coastal sand dunes in the UK has declined dramatically in the last 50 years, making it a habitat in urgent need of attention. As a result, managers of coastal sand dunes, including Natural England and National Resource Wales, have implemented a number of habitat restoration interventions including the removal of invasive species and mature vegetation. The most efficient strategy to improve the short-term mobility of sand has been the large-scale removal of vegetation and excavation of trough and bowl-shaped depressions, in locations where mobile dunes previously existed. This technique, however, is also the most expensive. Additionally, evidence from similar dune remobilisation efforts in the Netherlands and Canada have reported that the mobility of these dunes is not sustained after management interventions, resulting in revegetation. This lack of sustained mobility has been attributed to a lack of understanding of the natural processes that drive dune mobility. Using a combination of remote sensing and in-situ measurements, this program of study will statistically identify the landscape-scale factors that correlate with mobile dunes in the UK landscape. This information will then be discussed and disseminated with key stakeholders in the coastal dune environment. The knowledge gained from the research will be used to guide decision making with regards to the technique, location, and scale of dune rehabilitation interventions throughout the UK and around the world.

The aim of this project is to validate a new and transformative remote sensing method to address the goals of the soil security programme by providing an improved and predictive understanding of; the ability of peat to perform multiple functions in different landscape and climate settings on a wide range of scales; the ability to peat to resist, recover and adapt to climate perturbations. This will be achieved by measuring the vertical motion of the surface of peatland, a direct indicator of mass (water, gas or organic matter) gained or lost from a peat body and powerful indication of peat soil condition. Peat accounts for 1/3 of Earth's terrestrial carbon, a quantity equivalent to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Peat contains up to 95% water and 5% organic matter so peatland and its associate ecosystems are highly vulnerable to both economic and societal pressure and climate change. As peatland degrades erosion and organic matter loss have a detrimental impact on flood regulation, and water quality. Consequently, protecting peatland is a priority and considerable effort is being expended on its management and restoration. To understand the threats to peatland and effectively manage peatland requires us to consider peat over long periods of time and large areas. Due to the extent of peatland both globally and within the UK, continuous field monitoring required to answer large scale research questions is both difficult and expensive. Alternative methods are urgently needed. A satellite technique known as InSAR uses radar waves to measure vertical land surface motion. Established InSAR techniques provide only patchy coverage over rural areas and where therefore ineffective over peatland. What we are going to test is a new transformative InSAR technique which unlike previous techniques provides near continuous coverage across all land surfaces irrespective of ground cover. This new approach therefore has the potential to reduce long term monitoring cost and guide peatland management decisions by enabling 1) targeted management of degrading areas of peat 2) evaluation of restoration methods 3) data to enable effective management plans for large areas. The accuracy of this new InSAR technique been demonstrated over solid slow moving surfaces however to realise the potential that InSAR offers over peat the field validity of the results needs to be demonstrated. This is essential as the unusually dynamic peat surface can move rapidly over short periods of time in response to changes in water budget, gas content, compaction and drainage. The challenge validating by either approach is that there are currently not enough monitored sites of sufficient extent to validate the satellite data over peatland. This mismatch of scale arises because a single pixel on an InSAR map represents an area 100x100m a scale rarely replicated by field monitoring. In this proposal we will determine the validity of the InSAR measurements by addressing the following two research questions 1) Is the ground motion measured by InSAR a true indicator of the magnitude and direction of the ground motion? 2) Does the InSAR indicate the general condition of the peatland? These questions will be answered by collecting data on soil condition and surface motion from two sites in Scotland's Flow Country the single largest soil carbon store in the UK and the largest blanket bog in Europe. Field sites have been chosen to complement other projects and maximise the impact of the research and the potential for collaboration.