Changing the landscape of conservation
We use high-resolution remote sensing to understand how forests are responding to global environmental changes including logging, land management and climate change, addressing key issues in ecology and conversation.
“Conserving the world’s dwindling biological diversity is one of the most pressing issues facing mankind. I lead a research group that is actively engaged in addressing these issues, as well as tackling more fundamental ecological questions. Focusing on forest conservation and ecology, my research uses large databases and modern computational approaches, alongside traditional field approaches.”
Head of Group – Professor David Coomes
Latest News
Treetops protect forest life from global warming
The cooling leaf canopy protects forest organisms from extreme temperatures and has a significant influence on their adaptation to global warming. This study led by Florian Zellweger appeared as the cover story on Science.
River flow does not recover after planting trees
River flow is reduced in areas where forests have been planted and does not recover over time. Rivers in some regions can completely disappear within a decade. Read more
Tropical forests may never fully recover from logging
Continually logging and re-growing tropical forests to supply timber is reducing the levels of vital nutrients in the soil, which may limit future forest growth and recovery. Read more
Expedition finds tallest tree in the Amazon
New research has discovered the tallest known tree in the Amazon, towering above the previous record holder at a height of 88.5 metres. This giant could store as much carbon as an entire hectare of rainforest elsewhere in the Amazon. Read more
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About Us
Who we are
Human population growth and resource consumption are placing enormous pressures on natural ecosystems. We are interested in how and why the world’s forests are changing and using our research to inform conservation policy.
What we do
Laser Scanning Forest Carbon
Airborne laser scanning (ALS) and hyperspectral imaging provide a new perspective on ecological dynamics, allowing us to track both the demography of individual trees and properties of the canopy over vast areas…
Forest Biodiversity
We are interested in modelling plant distributions and patterns of species diversity…
How Forest are Responding to Global Change
Our group seeks to describe and quantify processes such as mortality, regeneration and species interactions, and how they change over time and across the landscape…
What Types of Interventions Work in Conservation?
We are investigating the social and environmental performance of a suite of interventions aimed at reversing trends in forest loss…
Where we are
Department of Plant Sciences 
David Attenborough Building
We are a group of researchers at University of Cambridge. Being a part of the Conservation Research Institute, our offices are in David Attenborough Building at New Museum site; Being a part of Department of Plant Sciences, our wet labs are at Downing site.
Latest Publications
Treetops protect forest life from global warming
The forest canopy mitigates peak summer temperatures for the understorey. When that shade disappears, the organisms living there suffer. The cooling leaf canopy protects forest organisms from extreme temperatures and has a significant influence on their adaptation to global warming, according to this study which was published in the journal Science. The climate in theContinue reading “Treetops protect forest life from global warming”
Standardizing Ecosystem Morphological Traits from 3D Information Sources
3D-imaging technologies provide measurements of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems’ structure, key for biodiversity studies. However, the practical use of these observations globally faces practical challenges. First, available 3D data are geographically biased, with significant gaps in the tropics. Second, no data source provides, by itself, global coverage at a suitable temporal recurrence. Thus, global monitoringContinue reading “Standardizing Ecosystem Morphological Traits from 3D Information Sources”
Protecting biodiversity and economic returns in resource‐rich tropical forests
In pursuit of socioeconomic development, many countries are expanding oil and mineral extraction into tropical forests. These activities seed access to remote, biologically rich areas, thereby endangering global biodiversity. Here we demonstrate that conservation solutions that effectively balance the protection of biodiversity and economic revenues are possible in biologically valuable regions. Using spatial data onContinue reading “Protecting biodiversity and economic returns in resource‐rich tropical forests”
Dynamics of a human‐modified tropical peat swamp forest revealed by repeat lidar surveys
Tropical peat swamp forests (PSFs) are globally important carbon stores under threat. In Southeast Asia, 35% of peatlands had been drained and converted to plantations by 2010, and much of the remaining forest had been logged, contributing significantly to global carbon emissions. Yet, tropical forests have the capacity to regain biomass quickly and forests onContinue reading “Dynamics of a human‐modified tropical peat swamp forest revealed by repeat lidar surveys”
Partial river flow recovery with forest age is rare in the decades following establishment
River flow responses to forestation at annual time scales The landscapes of the future might look very different to those today, and many have argued that increasing tree cover is essential to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. But forests affect many naturalprocesses, including water availability. We systematically reviewed the literature to determine howContinue reading “Partial river flow recovery with forest age is rare in the decades following establishment”
A Research Agenda for Microclimate Ecology in Human-Modified Tropical Forests
Logging and habitat fragmentation impact tropical forest ecosystems in numerous ways, perhaps the most striking of which is by altering the temperature, humidity, and light environment of the forest—its microclimate. Because local-scale microclimatic conditions directly influence the physiology, demography and behavior of most species, many of the impacts of land-use intensification on the biodiversity andContinue reading “A Research Agenda for Microclimate Ecology in Human-Modified Tropical Forests”
Imaging spectroscopy reveals the effects of topography and logging on the leaf chemistry of tropical forest canopy trees
In this study we show that logged tropical forests have reduced leaf nutrient concentrations compared with old-growth forests and this becomes more pronounced as forests recover in stature. Our findings suggest rock-derived nutrients, such as phosphorus, in short supply in tropical forests on old soils, are depleted by as much as 30% by logging. ThisContinue reading “Imaging spectroscopy reveals the effects of topography and logging on the leaf chemistry of tropical forest canopy trees”
Capturing juvenile tree dynamics from count data using Approximate Bayesian Computation
The juvenile life stage is a crucial determinant of forest dynamics and a first indicator of changes to species’ ranges under climate change. However, paucity of detailed re‐measurement data of seedlings, saplings and small trees means that their demography is not well understood at large scales, and rarely represented in forest models in detail. InContinue reading “Capturing juvenile tree dynamics from count data using Approximate Bayesian Computation”
3D Segmentation of Trees Through a Flexible Multiclass Graph Cut Algorithm
Developing a robust algorithm for automatic individual tree crown (ITC) detection from airborne laser scanning (ALS) data sets is important for tracking the responses of trees to anthropogenic change. Such approaches allow the size, growth, and mortality of individual trees to be measured, enabling forest carbon stocks and dynamics to be tracked and understood. ManyContinue reading “3D Segmentation of Trees Through a Flexible Multiclass Graph Cut Algorithm”
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