Dr Becks (Rebecca) Spake

Nature is complex and multi-causal, leading ecologists to frequently describe ecological relationships as “context dependent”. This complexity makes attempts to gain understanding and guidance about critical issues including rates of biodiversity loss, or the effectiveness of actions such as tree planting, wickedly difficult and subject to poorly-substantiated assertions about their generality. My work tries to address this challenge and identify how conservation, management and restoration actions can be targeted to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions. I use analyses of large spatio-temporal datasets, simulation and synthesis methods to develop quantitative and qualitative tools that can be used to support applied landscape management. I focus principally on forest ecosystems, given their importance in tackling the climate and extinction crises.

Specific interests include:

• The application of principles and methodologies developed in health-related disciplines (epidemiology, public health and medicine), to improve the transferability of ecological research
• The use of meta-analysis and other quantitative synthesis methods in ecology and evolution
• The importance of scale to ecological inference
• The ecology of deer and grey squirrels and the implications for UK treescapes