Offsetting is widely promoted but poorly founded in ecology Our modelling study shows: effective offsetting requires restored areas larger than those impacted & protection over long timescales high habitat conversion rates reduce offsetting success conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Deer 🦌 activity limits tree 🌳 recruitment in woodland creation sites - Journal of Applied Ecology besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Where should I put my acoustic monitor? If you're looking to study #biodiversity using #ecoacoustics, #PhD researcher @ecologybarnett.bsky.social can advise! Here he is talking at the BES Symposium 🔊

“Drivers of complexity in ecosystem restoration” Waddell 2026 - Journal of Applied Ecology - besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Drivers of complexity in ecosystem restoration

This study shows that ecological complexity is empirically measurable, and its development in restoration can be influenced by key variables, which have mechanistic underpinnings. The foundational ro...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Is habitat fragmentation good or bad for biodiversity? This debate is stymied by studying snapshots of current landscape patterns Our paper reminds us fragmentation is the breaking apart of habitat over time Suggesting approaches to assess fragmentation as a process www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Resurrecting habitat fragmentation as a process over time

Habitat loss and fragmentation occur over time. Despite this truism, understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation has, in recent years, predominantly focused on interpreting snapshots of current...

cell.com

Excited to share a new article from the lab & wonderful co-authors. We argue that habitat fragmentation research needs to be recalibrated to focus on changes over time. We hope that doing so will advance understanding, isolate attribution, and diminish heated debate. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Resurrecting habitat fragmentation as a process over time

Habitat loss and fragmentation occur over time. Despite this truism, understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation has, in recent years, predominantly focused on interpreting snapshots of current...

cell.com

“Resurrecting habitat fragmentation as a process over time” - Trends in Ecology & Evolution www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Resurrecting habitat fragmentation as a process over time

Habitat loss and fragmentation occur over time. Despite this truism, understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation has, in recent years, predominantly focused on interpreting snapshots of current...

cell.com

www.forestresearch.gov.uk/news/launch-...

Launch of the Large-scale Ecosystem Recovery Network (LERN) - Forest Research

On 17 February 2026, the Knowledge Exchange Network for the Large-scale Ecosystem Recovery Network (LERN) was launched at Harold’s Park Wildland in Essex.

forestresearch.gov.uk

We’re #Hiring a Tree & Woodland Officer 🌳 Do you have a passion for trees, nature, and tackling the climate crisis? Join our growing team and help deliver impactful woodland creation and tree planting projects across the region. 📅 Apply by 13th April 2026 Find out more: forestofavon.org/careers/

Exciting new dataset on 🌳'Trees Outside of Woodlands' in Wales - created by @forestresearchuk.bsky.social datamap.gov.wales/layers/geono...

Trees Outside of Woodlands | DataMapWales

datamap.gov.wales

Structural complexity across a continuum of woodland establishment methods from planting to natural colonisation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌳Structural complexity across a continuum of woodland establishment methods from planting to natural colonisation🌳 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Looking forward to the #BES2025 Annual Meeting next week! If you're interested in restoration, food webs, landscapes and species recovery, join me for the session: "Species interactions and recovery under global change" - Tuesday 16th - 5:30pm - Lammermuir 1

There are problems with binary definitions of nativeness “Dilemmas arise from the dynamic nature of species' distribution ranges on longer time scales, in the application to smaller regions defined by arbitrary borders, & limited knowledge of species' past distributions” doi.org/10.1002/oik....

A graduated nativeness definition for overcoming dilemmas and difficulties of vascular plant species

Nativeness is a concept central to biodiversity conservation and invasion biology, but there are several problems related to a classic binary nativeness definition. Dilemmas arise from the dynamic na...

doi.org

Looking forward to #BES2025 this week! If you're interested in restoration, complexity and ecoacoustics you should definitely check out my talk on Thursday 🌳🌲🌳🐦🐦‍⬛

Could a 'lightweight' digital twin of a river system be a low cost tool to help us manage water quality and other pressures? We have a new PhD opportunity between Cardiff University and @natreswales.bsky.social to test this idea 🌍🧪 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

NERC RED-ALERT CDT: Using digital twins to improve river surveillance and management. at Cardiff University on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - NERC RED-ALERT CDT: Using digital twins to improve river surveillance and management. at Cardiff University, listed on FindAPhD.com

findaphd.com

It’s been a busy few days in the field, but we’ve now established 200+ experimental plots for the LERN (Large-Ecosystem Recovery Network) across four post-agricultural sites in England. A major milestone for the project and exciting to see the configuration finally taking shape 🌳🦅🐝🌼

Kevin Watts@watts-km.bsky.social · 8mo ago

We managed to add in some ground preparation treatments to our 2nd LERN site before the plough broke - experiments seem a lot easier on paper 🤣

Very timely paper on the importance of long-term large-scale experiments 🌍 We’re just in the process of trying to set up the ‘Large-scale Ecosystem Recovery Network’

Paulina Arancibia@pauliarancibia.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Check out our new preprint. In this review we show the comparative decline of experimental approaches in community ecology and discuss some alternatives to push the field forward

🌎 Experiments are central to understanding community dynamics, yet their use is declining. We're trying to understand why. If you work in community ecology, we'd really appreciate your input in a quick survey (<5 mins). 👉🏼 link.webropolsurveys.com/S/2022629791... Reposts welcome!

Webropol Survey

Survey Powered by Webropol

link.webropolsurveys.com

Check out our new preprint. In this review we show the comparative decline of experimental approaches in community ecology and discuss some alternatives to push the field forward

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Experimental community ecology in decline: A call to embrace technology https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.22.683879v1

Experimental community ecology in decline: A call to embrace technology https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.22.683879v1

We managed to add in some ground preparation treatments to our 2nd LERN site before the plough broke - experiments seem a lot easier on paper 🤣

Kevin Watts@watts-km.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Another 48 plots laid out on our 2nd LERN site in Herefordshire (incl some ground prep treatments) 👍🏼 2 more sites still to go 🌳

Another 48 plots laid out on our 2nd LERN site in Herefordshire (incl some ground prep treatments) 👍🏼 2 more sites still to go 🌳

Kevin Watts@watts-km.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Another LERN (Large-scale Ecosystem Recovery Network) field site in the bag 💼 @forestresearchuk.bsky.social Next task is to put in the plots for interventions & controls. Most importantly these are co-developed & agreed with land managers 🌳🌳

On my way to Research-Practice Event to talk about using natural processes to create new woodlands 🌳 britainsforestfuture.zohobackstage.eu/event

Britain’s Forest Future: Research-Practice Exchange

britainsforestfuture.zohobackstage.eu

🚨Job opportunity🚨 We are hiring a 3yr research technician. If you love fieldwork, are passionate about forests & mountains, and want to up-skill in remote sensing, sensor networks and running field experiments this could be the dream job for you! 🧪🌳⛰️🛰️🌡️🍄 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

You'll be working closely with a team of researchers @bristolbiosci.bsky.social and alogside some amazing partners at Forest Research @watts-km.bsky.social and a wider network of collabroators across Europe. Do get in touch if you have questions about the role. Applications close on 27 November

Amazing 3-year ‘field technician’ position at @bristoluni.bsky.social to work with @tommaso-jucker.bsky.social @forestresearchuk.bsky.social & others on some really cool forest 🌳 experiments 👇 #dreamjob

Tommaso Jucker@tommaso-jucker.bsky.social · 9mo ago

🚨Job opportunity🚨 We are hiring a 3yr research technician. If you love fieldwork, are passionate about forests & mountains, and want to up-skill in remote sensing, sensor networks and running field experiments this could be the dream job for you! 🧪🌳⛰️🛰️🌡️🍄 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

If we focus on restoring ecosystem processes rather than a reference species assemblage Can we derive general rules? Here we find plant-pollinator networks in grasslands & plant-herbivore ones in woodlands both become more complex with restoration age & area www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Restoration of ecological interactions: The influence of site and landscape factors

Restoration has been extensively used in agricultural landscapes as a mitigation measure to reduce biodiversity loss in response to historic habitat d…

sciencedirect.com

Restoration of ecological interactions: The influence of site and land... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... New output from the restreco.com project

Restoration of ecological interactions: The influence of site and landscape factors

Restoration has been extensively used in agricultural landscapes as a mitigation measure to reduce biodiversity loss in response to historic habitat d…

sciencedirect.com

🚨PhD opportunity🚨Come and work with us & Stirling Uni to understand the role of woodland creation 🌳in nature recovery 🌺🦋 iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

Understanding the ecological interplay between tree planting and natural processes to create future forests

iapetus.ac.uk