Land Economy & Environment

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I am an agricultural ecologist with a particular interest in the relationships between European farming systems and wildlife ecology.

After completing my PhD on the feeding ecology of the red-billed chough in 1990, I first worked on an investigation into the relationships between moorland vegetation and upland invertebrates at the University of Newcastle. 

I then moved to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) where, between 1992 and 1995, I helped highlight the nature conservation importance of High Nature Value (HNV) farming systems throughout Europe and the likely implications of the first round of major Common Agricultural Policy reform which was happening at that time.

I joined SAC in 1995 and manage a variety of projects looking at the relationships between farm management practices, vegetation composition and structure and invertebrates of importance in the diet of farmland birds. I also work closely with the Scottish Chough Study Group and colleagues at Aberdeen University and Glasgow University studying the conservation needs of the chough on the Hebridean island of Islay.

I have been involved with the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism (EFNCP) since its inception in 1988 and have helped EFNCP plan, organise and publish the outputs from various seminars held in Brussels and conferences held across Europe.

Through my links with EFNCP, I have also continued to be involved in the development of the HNV farming systems concept and hence highlighting the impacts of policy on HNV systems has been a focus of much of my work at a European level.

I am a member of the UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group, serve on the Programme Management Committee of Defra's Sustainable Arable-Link Research Programme and over the years have acted as independent scientific evaluator for research proposals submitted to a variety of Defra and European Commission research programmes.

I served on the editorial board of Journal of Applied Ecology between 1995 and 2004 and have been an Associate Editor of that journal since January 2005. I was awarded a Readership in Agricultural Ecology by SAC in July 2007.

Research projects

Current projects which I manage or contribute to include:

• Defra: Modified management of agricultural grassland to promote in-field structural heterogeneity, invertebrates and bird populations in pastoral landscapes
• Scottish Chough Study Group: Annual assessment of breeding success of red-billed chough on the island of Islay.
• Scottish Government: The potential for improving the biodiversity value of intensive grasslands
• Scottish Government: Policy impacts on biodiversity as a background context to research concerned with the management of biodiversity change
• Scottish Government: Can landscape-scale predictive models of the effects of habitat structure and management practice on upland biodiversity be developed?
• UK Land Use Policy Group: Estimating the scale of future environmental land management requirements for the UK
• UK Natural Environment Research Council: Turning population ecology into conservation strategy: development of a natural care scheme for red-billed choughs in Scotland

Recently completed projects which I have contributed to include:

• European Environment Agency: Developing a high nature value farmland indicator
• EU DG Agriculture: High Nature Value (HNV) Indicators for Evaluation
• EU Concerted Action: PASTORAL: the agricultural, ecological and socio-economic importance of extensive pastoralism in Europe
• EU Specific Targeted Research Project: MEACAP: impact of environmental agreements on the CAP)
• EU Thematic Network: PAN - European Thematic network on cultural landscapes and their ecosystems
• UK Land Use Policy Group: An analysis of the potential effectiveness of a Payment-by-Results approach to the delivery of environmental public goods and services supplied by Agri-Environment Schemes
  

Teaching

I am joint supervisor for a student, Dawn Thomson, conducting a MSc by Research project focused on 'The ecology of yellowhammer and other granivorous songbirds on grassland-dominated farms in south-west Scotland'. This MSc by Research is funded by Scottish Natural Heritage and The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and registered jointly at the University of Glasgow and SAC.

I also give guest lectures on farmland biodiversity topics to undergraduates taking Agriculture, Applied Biosciences and Countryside Management degrees as well as to postgraduates taking a MSc in Environmental Protection and Management.