Department: History | Supervisors: Dr Sabine Clarke (History), Dr Nathan Smith (Kew & National Museum Wales)

Apply by 2 February 2025

Who gets to map biodiversity? What routes allow individuals to engage with the changing nature of the natural world? Mycology (the study of fungi and fungal-like organisms) is an unusual scientific field for the large numbers of women, amateurs and working-class individuals who made significant contributions to its knowledge. Female mycologists include the “Queen of the Slime Mould”, Gulielma Lister, renowned lichen expert Annie Lorrain Smith, the head of the Kew Fungarium from 1911 to 1944, Elsie Maude Wakefield, and the biologist-cum-military commander Helen Gwynne-Vaughan—all of whom served as President of the British Mycological Society (BMS). The papers of these individuals—and of the BMS and other societies—offer a fantastic opportunity to explore the workings of British mycology between 1900 and 1950. 

Mycology has been neglected by historians and its collections, such as the Fungarium at Kew, present challenges for curators in terms of public engagement (Smith, 2020). There has however been a recent surge of interest in the field as the importance of fungi to the environment and the economy is increasingly realised—aided through popular works by Tsing (2015) and Sheldrake (2020). The relatively unexplored history of mycology offers important insights into the social, political and cultural history of science in the first half of the twentieth century. In contrast to our impressions of modern science as abstract, generalised and laboratory-based, British mycology was a field enterprise that was practiced by of a network of localised individuals and groups who paid great attention to “place”. It offered routes for often marginalised individuals, with far greater numbers of women, and working-class naturalists than other sciences; plenty of “amateurs” contributed to, and even led, the work of the BMS in the 20th century.

The public understanding of science is still reliant upon the idea of the lone genius. When women are the focus, they are merely slipped into the same old stories - heroic narratives of women replace heroic narratives of men (Clarke, 2022). The case of mycology offers an alternative story; one that allows for a conversation with the public about how we can all engage with changes in biodiversity during the Anthropocene. Rather than focussing on the achievements of individuals, this PhD will examine how mycology operated through collective and collaborative modes of working and the importance of sociability—as exemplified by the “fungal foray”. The student will work with the mycology team at Kew to bring out the stories behind the Fungarium and write new narratives for the public that explore how local and national communities are built and function within modern science. Mycology is more than just an understudied field—it has the potential to offer a model of how science operates through exchange and collective endeavour and how the ideal of an inclusive citizen science can be fostered for the future. 

Department: Biology | Supervisors: Prof Lindsey Gillson (Biology), Dr Jonny Gordon (Archaeology), Dr Brennen Fagan (Mathematics)

Apply by 2 February 2025

Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by savanna and grassland ecosystems that have been targeted for tree planting initiatives in order to increase carbon stocks and mitigate climate change. However, the importance of these open ecosystems has been underestimated both in terms of carbon sequestration potential as well as for the suite of other ecosystem services that they provide including biodiversity, habitat, grazing, and game-viewing / nature tourism potential. At the same time, the history of landcover in these landscapes is often poorly understood, with little information on woody cover density, herbivore abundance and fire history dating from the many millennia of human management that preceded European settlement. The condition of landscapes during the establishment of National Parks in the early decades of the C20th are often perceived as “baselines”, but in fact may be unrepresentative of the long-term history of southern African savannas.

Decisions regarding desired tree cover have ecological, economic and social dimensions. In this project, a holistic assessment of ecosystem services will be complemented by insights from palaeoecological data that show how tree cover has varied over time. Palaeoecological data can potentially be used in defining the thresholds of potential concern associated with different scenarios and identify management pathways that promote desired levels of tree cover and carbon storage. Envisioning landscapes under different levels of tree cover could help in planning management responses to rising tree cover in response to changing CO2 and herbivore density.

You will:

• Assess existing carbon stocks based on vegetation surveys and soil analysis.

• Model tree cover and carbon stocks through time and into the future based on existing palaeoecological data, complemented by surveys of current woody plant cover and carbon stocks.

• Explore future scenarios of ecosystem service bundles as they relate to changing tree cover.

Your skills should include some of the following: knowledge of savanna ecology, data analysis, modelling and coding, palaeoecology, ecosystem services and stakeholder participation. You will be able to engage across academic and cultural boundaries. Further training will be provided as needed.

Department: Mathematics | Supervisors: Prof Jon Pitchford (Biology & Mathematics), Dr Brennen Fagan (Mathematics), Dr Harrie Neal (History), Dr Mo Verhoeven (RSPB Haweswater)

Apply by 2 February 2025 

Ullswater is England’s second largest lake and a thriving tourism hub, while Haweswater is one of the two biggest reservoirs in Cumbria, marking both as fundamental to life in and around the Lake District. Despite this, rewilding efforts in the Lake District have focused on primarily terrestrial work (Schofield 2022). For Ullswater in particular, the local economy was based on fishing for over 700 years until the mid-19th century when the industry collapsed. What remains is a fairly simple, low biodiversity fish assemblage, including perch, char, schelly and trout. Now, advances in knowledge of fisheries and modelling approaches such as Mizer present an opportunity to study not just the history of the lakes and their biodiversity, but how to revitalise them. This project comes at a critical time for the Lake District, offering an opportunity to integrate aquatic rewilding and consequences into ongoing terrestrial nature restoration efforts.

You will:

• • model the aquatic ecosystem of Ullswater and/or Haweswater, incorporating anthropogenic factors to understand the present day.

  • explore the past of the aquatic ecosystem, to understand better what caused the industry and biodiversity to collapse.

  • survey alternative stable futures that consider local beneficiaries of the ecosystem services.

You will have a background in mathematical modelling and familiarity with coding & programming languages as well as data analysis and data visualisation skills. You will have knowledge of aquatic ecosystems and ecosystem services and a willingness to engage with historical methods, cultural intersectionality and interdisciplinary approaches. 

Department: Environment and Geography | Supervisors: Prof Julia Touza (Environment and Geography), Prof Robert Costanza (UCL), Prof Lindsey Gillson (Biology)

Apply by 2 February 2025

The general aim of this PhD project will be to investigate the complex relationship between human well-being and functioning ecosystems and biodiversity.  It will take a hands-on approach to investigate the mechanisms by which taking a pluralistic value approach _with relative instrumental, right-based intrinsic, and relational values seen as complementary and mutually supportive_ enables better decisions to protect and restore biodiversity. Potential approaches that will contribute to this aim include: 

• • Conducting a systematic analysis to understand how the different value frameworks are being integrated (or not) in the working practices and experiences of conservation practitioners; and what are the political, institutional, social, cultural, and biophysical enablers of a pluralistic integration of values across multiple geographies. 

  • Building evidence on human behaviour and its links to ecosystem functioning, using landscape dynamic modelling as an interactive game platform that entertains, educates and reveals how preferences and pluralistic values towards ecosystems services and biodiversity are formed. 

  • To develop a framework and tools for use by public and private agents involved in conservation in addressing the complementarity of instrumental, intrinsic, relation, community values and others.

You could thus address these objectives via various approaches including literature synthesis, in-depth interviews to practitioners, structured questionnaires, ecological-economic modelling, and gamification. You will be familiar with literature on biodiversity and ecosystem services valuation, environmental valuation methods, statistics, and simulation modelling. 

Department: History | Supervisors: Dr Catriona Kennedy (History), Dr Harrie Neal (History), Prof Matthew Campbell (English and Related Literature)

Apply by 2 February 2025

The National Folklore Collection (NFC) based at University College Dublin is one of the largest archives of folklore and folklife in the world, and is inscribed into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The archive, the bulk of which was collected in the period 1935 to 1970, contains thousands of records of oral history relating to Ireland’s past and communal traditions right up to the present day, a great many of which give insights into the human-nature relations of those who lived and laboured on the land during periods of profound ecological and social upheaval. This project will draw on the NFC to investigate the ways Irish rural communities understood ecological pasts and futures and how these were shaped, in particular, by the catastrophe of the Irish famine (1845-52). You might, for instance, examine material relating to taxonomies of supernatural creatures, the folklore of particular habitats, the ecologies of sites of cultural significance, agricultural processes, folk medicine/wellbeing, or attitudes to different species and ecosystems. 

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) has an important role in moulding environmental agendas and this project's focus on Irish contexts has the potential to inform future biodiversity policy and shape how conservation initiatives are implemented at global, EU, and local levels. It is also uniquely placed for re-examining narratives of loss and preservation, and thinking about processes and narratives of change. Firstly, as an ever-growing historical record of predominantly ephemera material, the archive itself is constructed around ideas of loss, gain, conservation, and shifting values about cultural heritage. Secondly, the archive’s role in the nationalist project of the Irish Free State in the 1930s means the NFC is entangled in an ideology preoccupied with baselines, classifications, and constructing future narratives of the changing state. The project’s focus on representations of nature in the archive could lead to novel historical approaches to the NFC, Irish environmental history, and ecological debates about biodiversity change. 

This PhD’s focus on folk histories may also challenge dominant narratives of improvement, progress, and modernity that often characterise European attitudes towards nature from the early modern period onwards. At present there has been little scholarship on the NFC as a source for Irish environmental histories. The project would respond to a growing call from environmental historians to attend to marginalized, local, and subaltern perspectives. As such, the project may engage with ongoing questions about temporalities of biodiversity change in the Anthropocene, inequality, society-biodiversity feedbacks, ideas about ‘ideal’ climates, and who gets a say in ‘moulding the future’. You will undertake archival research at the NFC in Dublin and will develop your own methodology as the direction of research unfolds - drawing, perhaps, on the fields of environmental humanities, memory studies, folklore studies and/or literary studies and focusing on any period from around 1800 to the present.

Department: Archaeology | Supervisors: Prof Jon Finch (Archaeology), Dr Alison Dyke (SEI-York), Prof Lindsey Gillson (Biology), Dr Andreas Heinemeyer (SEI-York)

Apply by 2 February 2025

The landscapes of North Yorkshire such as the North York Moors (NYM) are shaped by a long history of human use and associated social-ecological systems, which have influenced the vegetation. In particular, tree density has changed in response to demand for favoured landscape elements, driven by people’s values, and what they expect the landscape to deliver. For example, growing demand for wool in the middle ages (often linked to monastic activity) would have led to woodland clearance for sheep farming, wood production, and peat harvesting and preference for open grazing landscapes. Subsequently, heather burning for grouse shooting prevented woodland regeneration. Now, many communities view sheep farming and grouse moors as part of their cultural heritage while others value the open landscapes of the NYM for aesthetic and recreational reasons. However, increasing enthusiasm for woodland regeneration and peatland restoration as a means of increasing carbon storage and improving flood prevention potential is leading to significant proportions of these landscapes being planted with trees of both indigenous and introduced species. Conflicting views as to what these landscapes once looked liked, and should or could look like in the future mean that participatory, evidence-based information is urgently needed so that decisions regarding desired tree cover, composition and relative proportions of open versus wooded landscapes account for ecological, economic and social dimensions. 

In this project, a holistic assessment of ecosystem values and functions (V&F) will be complemented by stakeholder narratives. You will: 

• • Use existing palaeoecological records to reconstruct how historic changes in vegetation composition are linked to periods of social-ecological and environmental change.

  • Analyse additional records of high resolution change based on plant macrofossils from peat bogs. 

  • Consider how attitudes to landscape have influenced recent decision making in the North York Moors. 

  • Construct scenarios of changing landscape composition and associated values and functions through participatory engagement with stakeholders.

  • Explore how information on long-term change in landscapes influences preference and prioritisation of ecosystem values and functions. 

You will have or will gain during the project, knowledge of landscape history, palaeoecology and/or archaeology of North Yorkshire as well as an understanding of ecosystem services, values of nature, participatory scenario planning and stakeholder engagement. 

Department: Biology | Supervisors: Prof Jon Ensor (SEI-York), Dr Liz Rylott (Biology), Dr Karen Varnham (RSPB)

Apply by 2 February 2025

The Isles of Scilly (IoS) are an internationally important habitat for seabirds, but predation of eggs by invasive brown rats is threatening populations. Domestic food waste on the islands is a significant food source for these rats. There is no food recycling locally, and the process of waste collection, storage and transport presents multiple feeding opportunities for rats. Approaches to manage food waste are thus pivotal to the work of the IoS Seabird Recovery Project (SRP) partnership, which aims to eradicate rats and restore seabird populations. 

The current approach to food waste has wider implications for people and the environment. All residual waste is currently transported to the mainland for incineration, incurring significant carbon emissions and financial costs. Food waste also represents lost nutrients that, as compost, could support local food production. Just as importantly, food waste presents a risk to public health and wellbeing as collection requires residents to aggregate mixed waste and store in large, difficult to access and frequently damaged sacks on the island quay. Reforming food waste management is a practical challenge, requiring technical, social and governance changes among multiple island communities with different histories, geographies and cultural norms and values, and each with informal arrangements that manage local cooperation. This challenge is complicated by a history of initiatives that have been imposed on islanders to achieve outcomes that poorly align with local priorities (including around shipping, energy efficiency and land management).

Responding to this complexity requires an integrated approach that draws in multiple public and private stakeholders and is anchored in lived experience on the islands. As a key part of this transdisciplinary project, you will undertake fieldwork alongside local stakeholders to better understand this multi-dimensional problem and identify viable solutions that maximise benefits for people, biodiversity and the wider environment. You will:

• • Undertake a literature review on small island food waste management arrangements 

  • Map and quantify current food waste pathways, including those associated with formal (e.g. council waste contracts) and informal (e.g. storing, composting, burning) practices

  • Assess the efficacy of current composting arrangements (in terms of nutrient capture, soil improvement, biosecurity)

  •  Facilitate community-led assessment of alternative technical and governance arrangements for waste management

You will have a background in social science from within human geography, environmental science or related disciplines; experience of working with participatory and/or creative approaches; strong communication skills in both academic and lay settings; and experience and/or willingness to engage with environmental monitoring and analysis.

Department: Any | Supervisors: Please contact us to discuss suitable supervisors for your project

Apply by 2 February 2025

An opportunity is available to submit your own research proposal for a fully funded PhD studentship that fits within the natural sciences, social sciences and/or humanities research of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, under the theme of Moulding the Future.  We are interested in supporting PhD studentships that provide insights into how we can build a better Anthropocene which foster gains in biodiversity, contribute to human well-being and safeguard historic biodiversity. 

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: 

• • Society-biodiversity feedbacks through time 

  • Environmental change and well-being

  • Conservation and food production

  • Conservation governance and environmental justice

  • Connecting people and biodiversity: values, behaviour change, attitudes to novel ecosystems

  • Engaging positively with biodiversity change through arts-based interventions

  • Valuing biodiversity, nature bioeconomy

Adopting the Convention on Biological Diversity definition, we take biodiversity to mean the variability among living organisms from all sources including diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems. Biodiversity, so defined, should be explicit in the proposal.

Before making your application please read our guidance document. Your research proposal should be as specific and clear as possible but should be no more than 1500 words and must include the questions or hypotheses to be addressed, the sources to be consulted and the methods to be used.  Research projects should, at the outset, be designed to be capable of completion (including submission of the thesis) within the period of funding provided.  

The focus of your work will be an independent research project but you will have the opportunity to interact with other PhD students and researchers across departments and institutions, and we will support you with additional training as required.

We welcome applicants who share our vision and want to undertake innovative and exciting research as part of the LCAB community.