Mr Ben Wilson

My role as PhD researcher at the University of Stirling began in 2023, the broad themes within my project will cover multifunctional forestry, forest management, silvicultural systems, sustainable forest management, and social and cultural impacts of forest management.

The effects of climate change on Britain’s productive forests are partly the result of a stagnant forest management approach with economic and timber production as main objectives, while promotion of biodiversity and social aspects are often overlooked. Forest management in Britain should seek diversification through alternative forest management such as continuous cover forestry to be resilient in a future of climate uncertainty. To better understand the effects of implementing continuous cover forestry I aim to explore the benefits and trade-offs from current forest management practices and continuous cover forestry through the use of a human wellbeing scale which measures responses to biodiversity, a forest scenario analysis tool to model scenarios of forest management types, to explore the response of moths as sensitive woodland specialist bioindicators in forest management types and to utilise eDNA metabarcoding to understand how forest management type can support fungi, nematode and arthropod communities. Throughout the project I will work closely with a proportion of the funding partners: Corrour Estate, Forest Research and Forestry and Land Scotland.

Previous to my current role, I achieved a first class honours degree in Woodland Ecology and Conservation at the National School of Forestry, University of Cumbria. My academic background is coupled with several years of practical experience working in forests, woodlands and trees.

Forest and woodland ecology; Remote sensing; Environmental change