Sustainable Ecosystems and Global Change

Plant-soil interactions underpin globally important ecosystem processes, from the production of crops, through to the regulation of biogeochemical cycles. I am interested in the role of plants in regulating such processes, and identifying opportunities for exploiting them to address key global challenges. For example, selective breeding in wheat and other crops has altered belowground traits, affecting how plants interact with soils. Manipulating these interactions may create opportunities for low emission crop genotypes. Across ecosystems, plant regulatory processes are frequently not accounted for in relevant models, limiting our abilities to understand climate feedbacks on ecosystems.

Regenerative farming spans a suite of soil management techniques (including organic management, agroforestry, intercropping and zero tillage, amongst others), all with potential to address critical sustainability challenges in agriculture, including benefits to soil health, and reductions in environmental externalities. However, multiple questions remain regarding the benefits versus trade-offs from adoption, the impacts from synergistic practices, and implications for supply chains. Various tools are needed in order to quantify these impacts, and to inform farmer choices.

Climate impacts are already affecting fundamental ecosystem processes, particularly in the tropics. Many uncertainties remain regarding potential feedback mechanisms, for example in terms of ecosystem productivity, and implications for global biogeochemical cycling. Impacts are likely to vary both spatially and temporally, and there is a need to develop new approaches to quantify both.  There remain multiple opportunities for increasing climate resilience, for example through nature based solutions, which will provide multiple benefits, particularly for communities who rely on ecosystem service provision. 

Nature-based solutions describe a range of management interventions, aimed at better management, and the restoration of natural and modified ecosystems to address societal and environmental challenges. This can include interventions for enhancing carbon sequestration, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, building soil health, and increasing climate and livelihood resilience. Examples include the use of reedbeds for low emission wastewater treatment, through to wetland and peatland restoration, and afforestation, amongst other practices.