Biodiversity and ecosystem service impacts of grey squirrels in current and future treescapes

英国政府承诺大力扩大林地，为实现碳减排和自然恢复的目标做出贡献，并增进人民的健康和福祉。非本地灰松鼠通过对树木和红松鼠的有害影响，对这些野心构成了威胁。灰松鼠也可能对生物多样性和生态系统服务的更广泛方面产生不利影响，但人们对此认识较少，认为这是一个重要的知识鸿沟。博士生将使用一系列基于桌面和现场的方法来确定灰松鼠对生物多样性和生态系统服务的影响。学生将在当地和英国的尺度上量化影响灰松鼠种群与生物多样性和生态系统服务之间关联的因素，并估计传统和新形式的灰松鼠管理(包括生育控制)可能对生物多样性和生态系统服务的好处。

The UK Government has committed to significant woodland expansion, to contribute to targets for carbon reduction and nature recovery, as well as enhancing people's health and wellbeing. Non-native grey squirrels pose a threat to these ambitions through their detrimental impacts on trees and red squirrels. Grey squirrels are also likely to have adverse impacts on wider aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem services, but these are less well understood and recognised as an important knowledge gap.The PhD student will determine the impacts of grey squirrels on biodiversity and ecosystem services using a range of desk- and field-based approaches. The student will quantify factors affecting associations between grey squirrel populations and biodiversity and ecosystem services at local and UK scales, and estimate the benefits to biodiversity and ecosystem services which could be achieved by traditional and novel forms of grey squirrel management including fertility control.