The Applied Ecologist

Reliable habitat maps sit at the heart of biodiversity monitoring, natural capital accounting and nature recovery planning. Recent policy developments in the UK have made this even more important. The UK Land Use Framework highlights the need for a coherent national land-use evidence base and better integration of spatial data across sectors. However, producing consistent habitat maps at large sc…

Written by Alec Christie, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London. For more than two decades, conservationists have been encouraged to use the best available evidence to inform their decisions – a concept called ‘Evidence-based Conservation’. The idea is simple: rather than relying only on personal experience, tradition, or intuition, practitioners should draw on evidence from th…

We discovered that climate change could dramatically break the natural highways that connect coral reefs across the southwestern Pacific Ocean, but one location may survive as a critical refuge. Coral reefs don’t exist in isolation. When reefs are damaged by bleaching or storms, they recover through baby corals (larvae) that drift from healthy reefs on ocean currents. These “larval highways” conn…

Shortlisted for the Georgina Mace Prize About the research Overview Our paper focuses on understanding whether the ecological fears surrounding tidal energy are actually backed by evidence. Tidal power is a reliable, clean, and predictable renewable energy source, yet projects are frequently delayed or cancelled due to concerns about environmental harm. We systematically reviewed the empirical li…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Seeds can accelerate the restoration of degraded landscapes. But where should practitioners source them, especially as the climate changes? In our latest paper, we address this by proposing a spatially explicit tool that identifies the best areas for sourcing seeds for ecosystem restoration under different strategies, from prior…

Shortlisted for the Chico Mendes Prize About the research Overview My research investigates the ecological adaptation of a translocated sub-adult male Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) as a strategy to mitigate increasing human-elephant conflict (HEC). By tracking a satellite-collared individual relocated from its original conflict zone, I sought to determine if a relocated elephant can successful…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Coastal areas are increasingly vulnerable to hazards such as erosion and flooding, and there is growing recognition that nature-based approaches can play an important role in coastal protection because they can adapt to changing environmental conditions. As new approaches are developed, it is important to test how well they perf…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Our paper explores how two closely related wild equids—Przewalski’s horses and Asiatic wild asses—coexist in the extremely water-limited deserts of the Dzungarian Gobi. Classical niche theory would predict competitive exclusion under such scarcity, especially since horses are more water-dependent. By combining controlled water-u…

Shortlisted for the Chico Mendes Prize About the research Overview Our paper asks a simple but uncomfortable question: why do so many species recovery strategies fail to translate into recovery outcomes? Using more than a decade of collaborative work on the endangered semi-aquatic queensnake (Regina septemvittata) in Ontario, we developed and tested a framework for coordinating recovery actions a…

Shortlisted for the Georgina Mace Prize About the research Palaeoecology – the ecology of the past – has much to offer in addressing complex conservation challenges. By providing a long-term perspective of ecological change, palaeoecology can provide insight on pre-disturbance conditions, long-term processes, and the responses of ecological systems to dynamic climatic and anthropogenic change. Ho…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview The eastern Himalaya is a global biodiversity hotspot housing nearly 10% of the world’s bird diversity. In recent years, the region has experienced rapid climate warming (three times faster than the global average), which is further compounded by habitat degradation. The determinants of how various bird species respond physiolog…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Seabirds and fisheries almost inevitably meet at sea because we depend on the same marine resources. Interactions become direct when seabirds deliberately follow vessels to take advantage of what seems like an easy meal. We have long known this can pose a serious threat. A seabird may dive for bait on a longline or approach a tr…

Shortlisted for the Chico Mendes Prize About the research Overview Farmer Clusters are groups of neighbouring farmers that come together to select their own biodiversity targets in a “bottom-up” approach and therefore offer an amazing opportunity to tackle agricultural biodiversity declines across the landscape. They allow farmers to take control of the conservation initiatives on their land, eac…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Our paper explores the community, population, and functional aspects of tropical savanna grasses in response to an extreme, prolonged fire regime of seven consecutive annual dry season fires. We were interested in understanding how the repeated fires would affect community composition, species persistence, population turnov…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Our study was part of my PhD thesis. I tried to understand how increasing diversity within cropping systems changes trophic interactions and crop damage, together with my knowledgeable promotors, Erik Poelman and Dirk van Apeldoorn; an analytical behemoth, Daan Mertens; and two diligent MSc thesis students, Yufei Jia and Ne…

Shortlisted for the Georgina Mace Prize About the research Overview Jammu and Kashmir has been an extremely understudied area, especially its high elevation. Over 2 years of political instability has made this task even more challenging. In this paper, we wanted to first understand where snow leopards are found in Jammu and Kashmir. Following this large-scale survey, we then wanted to understand …

Shortlisted for the Georgina Mace Prize About the research Overview Our research provides evidence on the severe impacts caused by a widespread invasive species in Brazil: Leucaena leucocephala (white-popinac). We reinforce the urgency of avoiding the use of white-popinac in restoration projects and agroforestry, and focusing on early detection and management in recently invaded areas. Against so…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview For decades, research has focused on the breeding grounds of migratory shorebirds in Northwest Europe. Yet much of their annual cycle is elsewhere along the East Atlantic Flyway, particularly in West Africa. Using tracking data from black-tailed godwits alongside field data from a key nonbreeding site, the Senegal Delta, we exam…

Shortlisted for the 2025 Southwood Prize About the research Overview Agricultural expansion is the main driver of forest loss in many tropical regions including Madagascar, leading to increasingly fragmented habitats and forcing many species to persist in human-dominated landscapes. This creates a major challenge: how can we conserve biodiversity while supporting local livelihoods? Agrofores…

Shortlisted for the Georgina Mace Prize About the research Overview Our research produced an ecological monitoring framework for practitioners developing nature-based solutions (NbS) projects. Biodiversity should be at the heart of NbS, underpinning the benefits they provide to humans. Being able to effectively track above- and below-ground biodiversity outcomes of projects is key, but can be an …