This new research group brings together members of the School whose main interests are the study of ecological and evolutionary processes in animals, plants and microbes. Our aim is to understand the ecological and genetic consequences of environmental change on local and global biodiversity at the individual, population and community level.
Environmental change can have profound effects on biodiversity over both the short and long term.
In our rapidly changing world, short term stress caused by human mediated habitat loss, pollution and climate change pose a special challenge to today's biologists. In Cardiff our approach is to focus on processes and pediction, combining ecological and molecular approaches, and we seek to unify these themes from contrasting groups of organisms. Longer term change relates to fundamental evolutionary processes, including ongoing adaptation and species diversification. These result in subtle changes to ecosystem structure and function over time. We examine these processes with a view to understanding, conserving and managing the resulting diversity.