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School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Staff Profile

Professor B. Huntley, BA, MA, PhD

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 41282
Fax: +44-(0)191 334 1201

Contact Professor B. Huntley (email at brian.huntley@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

My research investigates the relationships between environmental change and changes in the distributions of organisms, as well as in the composition, structure and dynamics of ecosystems. Interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere, especially biospheric feedbacks to the climate system, are also the subject of my research. A combination of palaeoecological, ecological and biogeographical methods is used in carrying out these investigations; important techniques used include pollen analysis, palaeoclimate reconstruction, modelling of ecological processes and of species distributions, geographical information systems and earth observation.

This research has been supported by grants from various bodies including NERC, NATO and the Leverhulme Trust, as well as by research contracts from the European Commission, WWF and RSPB, inter alia. Current research projects include investigations of: responses of African and European birds to climatic change; development of dynamic models of species' distribution and abundance changes in response to environmental change; the potential effectiveness of protected area networks as a tool for biodiversity conservation in the face of climatic change; heterogeneity of snow cover and land surface - atmosphere interactions in tundra areas; Holocene climatic variability in Finnmark; the neoglacial climatic transition as a potential 'tipping point' in the climate system; late-Pleistocene vegetation and environmental history in Eurasia and the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna; and the impacts of tephra deposition on vegetation.

In 2007 I was invited to act as a consultant to the Council of Europe Bern Convention Group of Experts on Biodiversity and Climate Change and subsequently to become an observer on this group.

In 2008 I was invited to join the Steering Group for the North-East Regional Climate Change and Biodiversity Study.

In March 2009 I was invited by the German government to pariticipate in a High Level Working Group on the 2010 Biodiversity Targets and post-2010 Targets in preparation for the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

Related Links

Research Groups

Supervises

Research Interests

  • Biogeography
  • Ecology
  • Impacts of environmental change upon organisms and ecosystems
  • Quaternary palaeoecology and palaeoenvironmentals

Selected Publications

Books: authored

Books: sections

  • B. Huntley & R. Baxter (2013). Vegetation ecology and global change. In Vegetation ecology. Eddy van der Maarel & Janet Franklin Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 509-530.
  • B. Huntley, Y. Collingham, S. Willis & D. Hole (2012). Protected Areas and Climatic Change in Europe: Introduction. In Natura 2000 and Climate Change – a Challenge. Götz Ellwanger, Axel Ssymank & Cornelia Paulsch Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. Heft 118: 7-27.
  • B. Huntley, D.G. Hole & S.G. Willis (2011). Assessing the effectiveness of a protected area network in the face of climatic change. In Climate change and systematics. Trevor Hodkinson Cambridge University Press. 345-362.
  • B. Huntley & R.E. Green (2011). Bioclimatic models of the distributions of Gyrfalcons and ptarmigan. In Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World. R.T. Watson, T.J. Cade, M. Fuller, G. Hunt & E. Potapov The Peregrine Fund. 10.
  • B. Huntley & R.E. Green (2011). The utility of bioclimatic models for projecting future changes in the distribution of birds in response to climate change. In Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World. R.T. Watson, T.J. Cade, M. Fuller, G. Hunt & E. Potapov The Peregrine Fund. 7.
  • S.G. Willis, D.G. Hole & B. Huntley (2010). Climate change and conservation. In Trade-offs in conservation. Nigel Leader-Williams, William M. Adams & Robert J. Smith Wiley-Blackwell. 331-348.
  • T.V. Callaghan, L.O. Björn, F.S. Chapin III., Y. Chernov, T.R. Christensen, B. Huntley, R. Imms, M. Johansson, D.J. Riedlinger, S. Jonasson, N. Matveyeva, W. Oechel, N. Panikov & G. Shaver (2005). Arctic tundra and polar desert ecosystems. In Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Carolyn Symon, Lelani Arris & Bill Heal Cambridge University Press. 243-352.
  • A.T. Peterson, H. Tian, E. Martinez-Meyer, J. Soberón, V. Sánchez-Cordero & B. Huntley (2005). Modeling Distributional Shifts of Individual Species and Biomes. In Climate change and Biodiversity. T.E. Lovejoy & L. Hannah Yale University Press. 211-228.
  • B. Huntley (2005). North temperate responses. In Climate change and biodiversity. T.E. Lovejoy & L. Hannah Yale University Press. 109-124.
  • B. Huntley & R. Baxter (2005). Vegetation ecology and global change. In Vegetation Ecology. Eddy van der Maarel Blackwell Science Ltd. 356-372.

Journal papers: academic

  • R. Altwegg, Y.C. Collingham, B. Erni & B. Huntley (2013). Density-dependent dispersal and the speed of range expansions. Diversity and Distributions 19(1): 60-68.
  • S. Hancock, R. Baxter, J. Evans & B. Huntley (2013). Evaluating global snow water equivalent products for testing land surface models. Remote Sensing of Environment 128: 107-117.
  • Huntley, Brian, Allen, Judy R.M., Collingham, Yvonne C., Hickler, Thomas Lister, Adrian M., Singarayer, Joy, Stuart, Antony J., Sykes, Martin & Valdes, Paul J. (2013). Millennial climatic fluctuations are key to the structure of last glacial ecosystems. PLoS ONE 8(4): e61963.
  • B. Huntley, J.R.M. Allen, P. Barnard, Y.C. Collingham & P.R. Holliday (2013). Species’ distribution models indicate contrasting late-Quaternary histories for southern and northern hemisphere bird species. Global Ecology and Biogeography 22: 277-288.
  • B. Huntley, R. Altwegg, P. Barnard, Y.C. Collingham & D.G. Hole (2012). Modelling relationships between species’ spatial abundance patterns and climate. Global Ecology and Biogeography 21: 668-681.
  • B.J. Fletcher, J.L. Gornall, R. Poyatos, M.C. Press, P.C. Stoy, B. Huntley, R. Baxter & G.K. Phoenix (2012). Photosynthesis and productivity in heterogeneous arctic tundra: consequences for ecosystem function of mixing vegetation types at stand edges. Journal of Ecology 100: 441-451.
  • Huntley, Brian & Barnard, Phoebe (2012). Potential impacts of climatic change on southern African birds of fynbos and grassland biodiversity hotspots. Diversity and Distributions 18(8): 769-781.
  • R. Ohlemüller, B. Huntley, S. Normand & J.-C. Svenning (2012). Potential source and sink locations for climate-driven species range shifts in Europe since the Last Glacial Maximum. Global Ecology and Biogeography 21(2): 152-163.
  • B. Huntley (2012). Reconstructing palaeoclimates from biological proxies: Some often overlooked sources of uncertainty. Quaternary Science Reviews 31: 1-16.
  • R. Poyatos, J. Gornall, M. Mencuccini, B. Huntley & R. Baxter (2012). Seasonal controls on net branch CO2 assimilation in sub-Arctic Mountain Birch (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii (Orlova) Hamet-Ahti). Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 158-159: 90-100.
  • E. Cieraad, M. McGlone, M.M. Barbour & B. Huntley (2012). Seasonal frost tolerance of trees in the New Zealand treeline ecotone. Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research 44(3): 332-342.
  • B. Huntley, J.R.M. Allen, P. Barnard, Y.C. Collingham & P.R. Holliday (2012). Species’ distribution models indicate contrasting late-Quaternary histories for southern and northern hemisphere bird species. Global Ecology and Biogeography in press.
  • P.K. Gillingham, B. Huntley, W.E. Kunin & C.D. Thomas (2012). The effect of spatial resolution on projected responses to climate warming. Diversity and Distributions 18(10): 990-1000.
  • P.K. Gillingham, S.C.F. Palmer, B. Huntley, W.E. Kunin, J.D. Chipperfield & C.D. Thomas (2012). The relative importance of climate and habitat in determining the distributions of species at different spatial scales: A case study with ground beetles in Great Britain. Ecography 35: 1-8.
  • A.J. Suggitt, P.K. Gillingham, J.K. Hill, B. Huntley, W.E. Kunin, D.B. Roy & C.D. Thomas (2011). Habitat microclimates drive fine-scale variation in extreme temperatures. Oikos 120(1): 1-8.
  • A. Heinemeyer, C. di Bene, A.R. Lloyd, D. Tortorella, R. Baxter, B. Huntley, A. Gelsomino & P. Ineson (2011). Soil respiration: Implications of the plant-soil continuum and respiration chamber collar-insertion depth on measurement and modelling of soil CO2 efflux rates in three ecosystems. European Journal of Soil Science 62(1): 82-94.
  • D.G. Hole, B. Huntley, J. Arinaitwe, S.H.M. Butchart, Y.C. Collingham, L.D.C. Fishpool, D.J. Pain & S.G. Willis (2011). Towards a management framework for key biodiversity networks in the face of climatic change. Conservation Biology 25(2): 305-315.
  • B. Huntley, P. Barnard, R. Altwegg, L. Chambers, B.W.T. Coetzee, L. Gibson, P.A.R. Hockey, D.G. Hole, G.F. Midgley, L.G. Underhill & S.G. Willis (2010). Beyond bioclimatic envelopes: Dynamic species’ range and abundance modelling in the context of climatic change. Ecography 33(3): 621-626.
  • J.J. Bennie, A.J. Wiltshire, A.N. Joyce, D. Clark, A.R. Lloyd, J. Adamson, T. Parr, R. Baxter & B. Huntley (2010). Characterising inter-annual variation in spatial pattern of thermal microclimate in a UK upland using a combined empirical–physical model. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 150: 12-19.
  • A.J. Suggitt, P.K. Gillingham, J.K. Hill, B. Huntley, W.E. Kunin, D.B. Roy & C.D. Thomas (2010). Habitat microclimates drive fine-scale variation in extreme temperatures. Oikos
  • E.K. Magyari, J.C. Chapman, D.G. Passmore, J.R.M. Allen, J.P. Huntley & B. Huntley (2010). Holocene persistence of wooded steppe in the Great Hungarian Plain. Journal of Biogeography 37(5): 915-935.
  • J.R.M. Allen, T. Hickler, J.S. Singarayer, M.T. Sykes, P.J. Valdes & B. Huntley (2010). Last glacial vegetation of northern Eurasia. Quaternary Science Reviews 29(19-20): 2604-2618.
  • W.J. Fletcher, M.F. Sánchez Goñ&i, J.R.M. Allen, R. Cheddadi, N. Combourieu-Nebout, B. Huntley, I. Lawson, L. Londeix, D. Magri, V. Margari, U.C. Müller, F. Naughton, E. Novenko, K. Roucoux & P.C. Tzedakis (2010). Millennial-scale variability during the last glacial in vegetation records from Europe. Quaternary Science Reviews 29: 2839-2864.
  • S.A. Oswald, B. Huntley, Y.C. Collingham, D.J. Russell, B.J. Anderson, J.M. Arnold, R.W. Furness & K.C. Hamer (2010). Physiological effects of climate on distributions of endothermic species. Journal of Biogeography 38: 430-438.
  • J. Bennie, E. Kubin, A. Wiltshire, B. Huntley & R. Baxter (2010). Predicting spatial and temporal patterns of bud-burst and spring frost risk in north-west Europe: the implications of local adaptation to climate. Global Change Biology 16: 1503-1514.
  • Gregory, R.D. Willis, S.G., Jiguet, F. Voříšek, P. Klvaňová, A. van Strien, A. Huntley, B. Collingham, Y.C. Couvet, D. & Green, R.E. (2009). An indicator of the impact of climatic change on European bird populations. PLoS One 4(3): e4678.
  • S.G. Willis, J.K. Hill, C.D. Thomas, D.B. Roy, R. Fox, D.S. Blakeley & B. Huntley (2009). Assisted colonization in a changing climate: A test-study using two UK butterflies. Conservation Letters 2(1): 46-52.
  • S.G. Willis, C.D. Thomas, J.K. Hill, Y.C. Collingham, M.G. Telfer, R. Fox & B. Huntley (2009). Dynamic distribution modelling: Predicting the present from the past. Ecography 32: 5-12.
  • J.R.M. Allen & B. Huntley (2009). Last interglacial palaeovegetation, palaeoenvironments and chronology: A new record from Lago Grande di Monticchio, southern Italy. Quaternary Science Reviews 28(15-16): 1521-1538.
  • N. Doswald, S.G. Willis, Y.C. Collingham, D.J. Pain, R.E. Green & B. Huntley (2009). Potential impacts of climatic change on the breeding and non-breeding ranges and migration distance of European Sylvia warblers. Journal of Biogeography 36(6): 1194-1208.
  • D.G. Hole, S.G. Willis, D.J. Pain, L.D. Fishpool, S.H.M. Butchart, Y.C. Collingham, C. Rahbek & B. Huntley (2009). Projected impacts of climate change on a continent-wide protected area network. Ecology Letters 12: 420-431.
  • R.M. Fyfe, J.L. de Beaulieu, H. Binney, R.H.W. Bradshaw, S. Brewer, A. Le Flao, W. Finsinger, M.J. Gaillard, T. Giesecke, G. Gil-Romera, E.C. Grimm, B. Huntley, P. Kunes, N. Kuhl, M. Leydet, A.F. Lotter, P.E. Tarasov & S. Tonkov (2009). The European Pollen Database: past efforts and current activities. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 18(5): 417-424.
  • P.C. Stoy, M. Williams, M. Disney, A. Prieto-Blanco, B. Huntley, R. Baxter & P. Lewis (2009). Upscaling as ecological information transfer: A simple framework with application to Arctic ecosystem carbon exchange. Landscape Ecology 24(7): 971-986.
  • A.C. Parnell, J. Haslett, J.R.M. Allen, C.E. Buck & B. Huntley (2008). A flexible approach to assessing synchroneity of past events using Bayesian reconstructions of sedimentation history. Quaternary Science Reviews 27: 1872-1885.
  • S.G. Willis, D.G. Hole, Y.C. Collingham, G. Hilton, C. Rahbek & B. Huntley (2008). Assessing the impacts of future climate change on protected area networks: A method to simulate individual species' responses. Environmental Management
  • S. Oswald, S. Bearhop, R.W. Furness, B. Huntley & K.C. Hamer (2008). Heat-stress in a high-latitude seabird: Effects of temperature and food supply on bathing and nest attendance of great skuas Catharacta skua. Journal of Avian Biology 39: 163-169.
  • A.M. Fox, B. Huntley, C.R. Lloyd, M. Williams & R. Baxter (2008). Net ecosystem exchange over heterogeneous Arctic tundra: Scaling between chamber and eddy covariance measurements. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 22(2).
  • R.E. Green, Y.C. Collingham, S.G. Willis, R.D. Gregory, K.W. Smith & B. Huntley (2008). Performance of climate envelope models in retrodicting recent changes in bird population size from observed climatic change. Biology Letters 4: 599-602.
  • B. Huntley, Y.C. Collingham, S.G. Willis & R.E. Green (2008). Potential impacts of climatic change on European breeding birds. PLoS ONE 3(1): e1439.
  • J. Bennie, B. Huntley, A. Wiltshire, M.O. Hill & R. Baxter (2008). Slope, aspect and climate: Spatially explicit and implicit models of topographic microclimate in chalk grassland. Ecological Modelling 216(1): 47-59.
  • E.K. Magyari, J.C. Chapman, B. Gaydarska, E. Marinova, T. Deli, J.P. Huntley, J.R.M. Allen & B. Huntley (2008). The 'oriental' component of the Balkan flora: Evidence of presence on the Thracian Plain during the Weichselian late-glacial. Journal of Biogeography 35: 865-883.
  • L. Spadavecchia, M. Williams, R. Bell, P.C. Stoy, B. Huntley & M.T. van Wijk (2008). Topographic controls on the leaf area index and plant functional type of a tundra ecosystem. Journal of Ecology 96(6): 1238-1251.
  • R.A. Robinson, H.Q.P. Crick, J.A. Learmonth, I.M.D. Maclean, C.D. Thomas, F. Bairlein, M.C. Forchhammer, C.M. Francis, J.A. Gill, B.J. Godley, J. Harwood, G.C. Hays, B. Huntley, A.M. Hutson, G.J. Pierce, M.M. Rehfisch, D.W. Sims, M.B. Santos, T.H. Sparks, D.A. Stroud & M.E. Visser (2008). Travelling through a warming world: Climate change and migratory species. Endangered Species Research
  • A. Brauer, J.R.M. Allen, J. Mingram, P. Dulski, S. Wulf & B. Huntley (2007). Evidence for last interglacial chronology and environmental change from Southern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104(2): 450-455.
  • B. Huntley (2007). Evolutionary response to climatic change? Heredity 98: 247-8.
  • J.R.M. Allen, A.J. Long, C.J. Ottley, D.G. Pearson & B. Huntley (2007). Holocene climate variability in northernmost Europe. Quaternary Science Reviews 26: 1432-1453.
  • J. Haslett, M. Whiley, S. Bhattacharya, M. Salter-Townshend, S. Wilson, J. R. M. Allen, B. Huntley & F. J. G. Mitchell (2006). Bayesian palaeoclimate reconstruction. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A 169(3): 395-438.
  • A. M. A. Franco, J. K. Hill, C. Kitschke, Y. C. Collingham, D. B. Roy, R. Fox, B. Huntley & C. D. Thomas (2006). Impacts of climate warming and habitat loss on extinctions at species' low-latitude range boundaries. Global Change Biology 12: 1545-1553.
  • Bennie, Jonathan, Hill, Mark O., Baxter, Robert & Huntley, Brian (2006). Influence of slope and aspect on long-term vegetation change in British chalk grasslands. Journal of Ecology 94(2): 355-368.
  • A.M. Dean, I.A. Brown, B. Huntley & C.J. Thomas (2006). Monitoring snowmelt across the Arctic forest-tundra ecotone using Synthetic Aperture Radar. International Journal of Remote Sensing 27(19): 4347-4370.
  • B. Huntley, Y.C. Collingham, R.E. Green, G.M. Hilton, C. Rahbek & S.G. Willis (2006). Potential impacts of climatic change upon geographical distributions of birds. Ibis 148: 8-28.
  • T.H. Ranner, J.R.M. Allen & B. Huntley (2005). A new early Holocene cryptotephra from northwest Scotland. Journal of Quaternary Science 20(3): 201-208.

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