Tropical forests are being destroyed at a rate of 1.5 acres every second due to human activities, thereby accelerating climate change through impacts on the carbon cycle and causing the extinction of species dependent on these habitats. Over the past 20 years the EU has been the largest net importer of 'embodied deforestation', significantly ahead of trading powers like China or North America. This trend is at odds with EU commitments to halt forest loss and mitigate climate change over the next 20 years. In the face of such immediate and globally significant issues, there is a lack of robust scientific knowledge on how tropical deforestation and degradation affects ecosystem stability and carbon pools. There is a need to develop systems that can rapidly assess tropical forest structure and relate this to carbon stocks stored in tree biomass and to habitat quality for keystone species, like primates. Remote sensing systems, such as those available from Earth observation satellites or aircraft, can deliver data on forest structure and composition. This project will utilise innovative new methods of acquiring detailed 3-dimensional data of tropical forests at a landscape-scale, using remote sensing systems on aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in order to model primate habitat and measure forest carbon stocks. The project will, for the first time, link forest structure in 3-D directly to primate behaviour and forest use, and will develop cost-effective remote sensing methods using UAVs for monitoring changes in habitats and forest carbon stocks. This innovative project brings together a researcher with expertise in the processing and analysis of data from airborne remote sensing systems, with an internationally recognised group with expertise in remote sensing, geospatial analysis, ecological modelling and primate ecology to evaluate and develop new methods to support a managed and appropriate balance of conservation and economic aims for tropical forests.

The WHO European Region has the highest incidence (and increasing) of obesity and non-communicable diseases (including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and food related cancers) caused by dietary factors. Localisation of sustainable food systems and processes that comprise a sustainable diet is a possible means to tackle this problem. There is a need to develop new research approaches to identify how these initiatives can promote nutritional well-being, to shape future nutrition and food policy and to document the new skills required by the public health nutrition workforce to support and foster healthy diets. This project will capitalise on the complementary expertise of the Fellow (with extensive practice experience in Australia and New Zealand as a community nutritionist) and the interdisciplinary research skills and expertise at Bournemouth University (BU) to generate new knowledge and understanding of the contribution of local food sustainable systems to nutritional health and well-being. This will be a unique, systematic research programme that combines quantitative and qualitative research methodologies which will enable first steps for the design of a model of nutritional health and well-being and identification of new competencies for training in public health nutrition. The key outcomes of this research will be i) a Toolkit for monitoring and optimising gains in nutritional health and well-being and ii) new Guidelines to deliver new competencies for the public health nutrition workforce. This knowledge will contribute towards shaping future policy directions in food and nutrition for EU citizens. The Fellow will be up-skilled (in new research skills and techniques) to advance her career significantly, to translate her background knowledge into a continuing research environment and to build and maintain links with other public health researchers in sustainable food environments throughout Europe, while maintaining strong links in Australia.

Environmental changes, including habitat loss and climate change, are negatively impacting biodiversity at global levels, with accelerating extinction rates of species. Whilst the EU Biodiversity Strategy aims to halt and then reverse these losses of species, data on the conservation status of many protected species is lacking, inhibiting their management. Effective conservation is reliant on robust data on protected species, yet there is a substantial knowledge gap between traditional monitoring methods that record abundances and conservation management frameworks that require the integration of species’ ecology with their adaptive responses to rapidly changing environments. The primary aim of this Fellowship is to thus deliver a novel conservation management framework for a model protected species, integrating ecological and genetic data, to provide a new predictive basis for European conservation management programmes. The sea lamprey Petromyson marinus is the model species, a protected species on Annex II of the EU Habitats Directive that provides multiple generations for testing the effects of environmental change on candidate genes. Research objectives quantify P. marinus European genetic diversity and structure, test for the presence of novel genetic mutations across populations, identify the genetic regions associated with adaptation to specific environmental parameters and develop an eco-evolutionary model of P. marinus population dynamics as the basis for its conservation management framework. As the project delivers highly innovative genetic and ecological research, it brings together a leading European researcher with high genetic knowledge with a European research group with exceptional expertise in conservation ecology. Together, their knowledge transfer and training activities will deliver novel conservation tools supporting European conservation strategies and launch a new research agenda in biodiversity and conservation management.

In European temperate regions, predicting how climate change will affect rates of biological invasions is crucial for conserving native biodiversity. A European Regulation adopted in 2014 aims to prevent new introductions and stop existing alien species from developing invasions. This requires robust predictions on how introduced alien species will respond to climate change and the management actions designed to prevent invasions. Predictions of ‘invasiveness’, the ability of an introduced alien species to invade, tend to be based on climate envelope models, but these lack environmental and biological complexity and so produce erroneous predictions. Our primary aim is thus to develop novel agent-based models (ABMs) for predicting the consequences of climate change and management actions for the invasiveness of introduced alien species in Europe by integrating climatic, environmental, management and hydrological data. Model regions are Great Britain and France, providing a large latitudinal and climatic gradient suitable. Model species are alien freshwater fishes, as they strongly represent invasive animals in Europe. The experienced researcher (ER) will complete the following research objectives to meet the primary aim: (O1) select the species for modelling and collate the data for modelling; (O2) develop an initial ABM for current climate conditions; (O3) parameterise, for each model species, the initial ABM to predict current invasion probabilities; and (O4) use these final ABMs to predict, via simulations of climate change and management actions, the future invasiveness of the model alien fishes in freshwaters. As the ER has high expertise on invasive species then strong knowledge exchange activities in the Fellowship will: (1) provide the ER with new competencies in predictive ecology and modelling to enable completion of this novel and innovative research, and (2) enable the hosts to develop new research agendas on biological responses to environmental change.