Five of Britain's top research universities have been successful in securing funding towards understanding how to manage the natural environment in the future, as it changes in response to human pressures and climate change.
UKPopNet has been launched today () and is a network of researchers from five of Britain's leading research universities - Aberdeen, East Anglia, Leeds, Sheffield, York - and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. It has core funds of £1.5M from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for three years, and additional funding from English Nature of £300k.
UKPopNet's goal is to work towards answers to two questions of pressing importance to science and society, namely:
· how will biodiversity change affect the sustainability of ecosystems, landscapes, and livelihoods?
· how can we mitigate those effects?
To this end, it is funding a programme of seven research projects, all of which are inter-disciplinary and link several institutions, and a series of workshops and working groups. The Director of UKPopNet is Professor Alastair Fitter at the University of York.
The University of Aberdeen plays a central role in three out of its seven projects. The first, co-ordinated by Professor Jim Prosser, School of Medical Sciences, will determine whether plant communities drive microbial species composition and diversity. The other two projects involve Dr Xavier Lambin, and Dr Tim Benton School of Biological Sciences, and are aimed at predicting population dynamics in a changing environment and providing a framework for sustainable livelihoods, biodiversity change and conflict resolution.
Dr Tim Benton, School of Biological Sciences, is leading the project on how to predict the response of wildlife on farmland to changing farming practices and changes in climate. He said: "UKPopnet is a prime example of how, by pooling strengths across the UK, we can make progress towards understanding how to manage the natural environment in the future, as it changes in response to human pressures and climate change."
UKPopNet is working closely with NERC's other Centre of Excellence in population biology, the Centre for Population Biology at the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College, London, especially to develop programmes of workshops and working groups. UKPopNet is keen to involve a wide spectrum of population biologists and those in related disciplines in the workshop programme, and will make regular calls for proposals.
For further information on the UKPopNet projects and workshops, visit: http://www.ukpopnet.org
Contact Dr Xavier Lambin, or Dr Tim Benton, University of Aberdeen for further details on the projects they are involved in, tel: (01224) 273259 or 272399.