Professor Yvonne Buckley MAE examines how climate action and land use shape biodiversity.
#BuildingBridges2024Spotlight Series
About Yvonne Buckley
Professor Yvonne Buckley MAE is an ecologist and Professor of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin. As the Co-Director of the new international Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water, she plays a pivotal role in advancing research on the interlinkages between the climate and biodiversity crises.
Professor Buckley’s career includes leadership roles such as Senior Editor of the Journal of Ecology and membership in the national Climate Change Advisory Council. She has been honoured with numerous awards, including the Irish Research Council Researcher of the Year Award and the British Ecological Society President’s Medal, and as a strong advocate for ecology, she also served as the founding President of the Irish Ecological Association. In addition to this, she is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and was elected to Academia Europaea in 2022.
As part of Academia Europaea’s annual conference, Building Bridges 2024, Professor Buckley will give a talk titled Biodiversity in a warming world: how climate, climate action and land use shape biodiversity patterns.
Read the interview
In your view and based on your research, what are the most significant human actions driving biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation?
“Land use change, and the habitat destruction that comes with it, is widely recognised as the leading driver of biodiversity change and loss. Examples include deforestation for timber and agriculture, or agriculture intensification leading to pollution. We recently assessed how biodiversity is affected by both land use and climate, finding that a shift from one land use to another can have impacts equivalent to a biome-level change in temperature or precipitation. While climate change is already affecting biodiversity and will increase in importance as a driver of biodiversity change and loss, we cannot ignore the effects that land use and land use change have on biodiversity. This is particularly important when land use change is proposed as part of climate mitigation or adaptation strategies. We need to make sure that climate actions are integrated with biodiversity actions, or we risk or we risk further harming ecosystems and the essential services they provide.”
What innovative approaches or technologies do you see as most promising for addressing the challenges posed by climate change to biodiversity?
“Ecosystem accounting is emerging as a useful tool for quantifying the extent, quality and location of biodiversity, ecosystems and the services that they provide. New methods for collecting biodiversity data at the required scales are emerging. Technologies such as sound, image, video and radar sensors, along with earth observation, play a crucial role in gathering the data needed to make decisions on deploying climate and biodiversity actions to achieve the best outcomes for both nature and people.”
What advice would you give to young scientists and researchers who are interested in studying the impacts of climate change on biodiversity?
“We face multi-dimensional challenges that require solutions cutting across traditional disciplines; however, deep disciplinary knowledge is critical to the inter- and trans-disciplinary work that we need to undertake. I think research will increasingly become team-based and collaborative. My advice is to develop a strong disciplinary understanding in a particular area, such as ecology or computer science, while learning to work in research teams, reading widely and seeking advice from experts in other fields. In the Co-Centre, we are putting structures in place to support interesting and impactful research across disciplines, creating a stimulating and productive environment where early-career researchers can contribute to the solutions needed over the coming decades.”
Where do you see your research taking you next, and what new areas or questions are you excited to explore in the future?
“I am excited to explore the nexus between biodiversity action (conservation and restoration) together with climate action, developing solutions to mitigate the risks of land use changes for biodiversity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For example, Ireland’s forestry sector, dominated by the non-native Sitka Spruce, is on track to become a net GHG emitter, and legacy forests on peat soils present challenges for restoration and future afforestation strategies. These strategies must provide long-term carbon storage, align with national carbon goals, and support biodiversity.
Another key area is how changes in agricultural practices to reduce GHG emissions will impact our diverse semi-natural grasslands and their species.
Finally, we will be developing “storylines” to access the impact of low-probability, high-impact climate events on biodiversity, helping us to better understand risks under different climate scenarios.”
Posted 27th November 2024. For more information contact AECardiffHub@cardiff.ac.uk
