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Tipping Points

Members

Professor B. Huntley, BA, MA, PhD

Leader of Work Package 1 in Tipping Points Research Project
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 41282
Fax: +44 (0) 191 33 41201

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.

Selected Publications

Journal papers: academic

Books: authored

Books: sections

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

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