Dr Moya Burns
Lecturer in Ecology and Environmental Science
Profile
Research
I am co-lead for the ‘Environmental Change and Loss’ Research Challenge Group in the Institute for Environmental Futures.
My current research projects fall under three broad categories:
Forest Ecology and Restoration
• The role of invertebrates in wood decomposition and carbon cycling. Current experiments in this field in the Amazon with Operation Wallacea and in the UK at BIFoR FACE (Birmingham Institute of Forest Research Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment).
• Creating urban forests with Earthwatch Europe (https://tinyforest.earthwatch.org.uk/)
• Working with the National Forest exploring the impacts of deadwood addition and tree veteranisation on young forest plantations.
Urban Ecology
• I work with Leicester City Council investigating how biodiversity in the city can be increased by creating wildflowers meadows on roadside verges (The Leicester Bee Road project).
• I work with the “Saving the Saffron Brook” project to explore the impacts of river restoration on water quality.
Citizen Science and Nature-Connectedness
• I work with colleagues in Psychology and Computing integrating citizen science approaches and “green prescribing” to explore how this may improve wellbeing.
Publications
Publications
(0)
Williams, M., Adeney Thomas, J., Brown, G., Pathak, M., Burns, M., Steffen, W., Clarkson, J., Zalasiewicz, J. 2022. 'Mutualistic Cities of the Near Future', in Adeney Thomas, J. (ed,), Altered Earth: Getting the Anthropocene Right. Polity Books.
Cooke, J., Araya, Y., Bacon, K.L., Bagniewska, J.M., Batty, L.C., Bishop, T.R., Burns, M., Charalambous, M., Daversa, D.R., Dougherty, L.R. and Dyson, M., 2021. Teaching and learning in ecology: a horizon scan of emerging challenges and solutions. Oikos, 130(1), pp.15-28.
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Supervision
Forest ecology: In particular the role of deadwood in biodiversity enrichment and carbon cycling.
Integrating citizen science, pedagogy and wellbeing.
Urban ecology: In particular the impacts of artificial lighting at night on bats and invertebrates.
Teaching
Press and media
Qualifications
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (SFHEA) 2021
DPhil Zoology. University of Oxford. 2015.
BSc (Hons) Ecological Sciences (Ecology). University of Edinburgh. 2006.