Environmental Research
Overview
The Environmental Research Group focuses on applied research that addresses 21st century environmental challenges. The food we eat, the water we drink and the fuel that powers our industries are all dwindling resources that we harvest from the world around us. As our populations expand and natural areas are converted to farmland and cities we lose the services that nature provided for free. Our expanding cities have become ecosystems in their own right with their own unique urban ecology. Global changes in climate alter species ranges causing the loss of some species and allowing pathogens and parasites to colonize new areas and new host populations. From laboratories to rain forests, researchers in the Environmental Research Group are working to meet these challenges and improve our quality of life while sustaining the natural world around us. We have active research programmes in biofuels, urban ecology, emerging and re-emerging diseases, biodiversity, water security, conservation biology and food security.
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Research group leader: Dr Richard Preziosi
Food and Water Security
Over-use of natural resources and global patterns of climate change are likely to cause reductions in the availability of clean water and wild food sources such as fish stocks. Climate change will also affect livestock and crop production both directly as changes in temperature and humidity and indirectly through changes in surrounding natural communities (e.g. soil microbial communities and pathogens).
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Current research areas include studies of microbial communities important in crop production and disease resistance, selection for stress tolerance in crop plants, evolutionary response of crop species to environmental change, effects of soil improvement on microbial communities, effects of climate change on fish stock production and population structure, water pollution and the impact of emerging and neglected diseases.
PIs
Urban Ecology
Cities are constantly growing and, for the first time in human history, more of us live in cities than in rural areas. The expansion of cities presents new environmental challenges and opportunities, and cities can now be considered as ecosystems with their own urban ecology.
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Our current research in this area includes studies on the environmental benefits of urban vegetation (especially trees), biodiversity and ecosystem services associated with urban aquatic habitats and the quantification and enhancement of urban biodiversity.
PIs
Environmental Biotechnology
Many of the environmental and sustainability challenges we currently face may be most efficiently solved using biotechnology.
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Mitigation of waste and toxin accumulation, improvement of ecosystem services, and fuel production can all be improved by harnessing and enhancing natural biological processes. We currently have research programmes developing technologies for bioremediation and biodegradation of environmental toxins and waste plastics, improved soil communities for crop production and the production of biofuels from yeast and algae.
PIs
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Mark Ashe
- Energy security (yeasts for biofuels).
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Casey Bergman
- Comparative genomics: genome structure, function, evolution and in silico biology
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Chris Grant
- Yeasts for biofuels.
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Jon Pittman
- Biofuels.
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Richard Preziosi
- Impacts of soil improvement on microbial communities.
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Geoff Robson
- Bioremediation, biodegredation (fungal degradation of plastics).
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Simon Turner
- Plant cell wall synthesis and vascular tissue development
Biodiversity, Conservation and Disease in Changing Environments
Environmental changes are occurring both on a global scale and locally through activities like resource harvesting and land conversion. These changing environments impact the abundance and distribution of species and have consequences for biodiversity and conservation.
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The interactions between humans and the natural world are especially important in this context both as our effects on the environment through activities such as deforestation but also the environments effects on us through changing ranges of pathogens and parasites. We currently have active research programmes in emerging and neglected diseases, the quantification and preservation of biodiversity (including genetic diversity), the consequences of genetic diversity for communities, and the interactions between humans and conservation areas.
PIs
Sampling for aquatic biodiversity in Manchester.
Conducting wild fish surveys from the NOAA research vessel the Oscar Ellton Sette.
Juvenile yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) caught by hook and line off the coast of Kona Hawaii.
Aphids on barley - interactions between insects and crops is an important aspect of food security.
An Urban Ecology study plot in Manchester where affects of trees and ground cover on heat accumulation are being measured.
Red-eye tree frog - an important model species in studying global amphibian decline.
Svalbard reindeer – the most northerly land mammal in the world.
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Fellowships
We welcome post-doctoral research fellows in fields complementary to our research profiles and we would be pleased to consider a request to host your fellowship. We are happy to provide advice, guidance and help with any application.
If you wish to apply for a postdoctoral fellowship in any of the research areas covered by Environmental Research, please do not hesitate to contact us. If appropriate, we are happy to organise a visit for you to see our facilities and talk to specific group members.