Dr Andrew Hacket-Pain, University of Liverpool

Project Summary:

Photo by Joshua Lanzarini on Unsplash

Tree cover in the UK is amongst the lowest in Europe and expanding the UK’s treescapes will require millions of seeds from native, climate-resilient trees. But supplying these seeds is a major challenge, with risks associated with inadequate or unreliable seed quality and the introduction of pests and pathogens.

In this fellowship, Dr Andrew Hacket-Pain will facilitate knowledge exchange with Austria’s Future Forest Seeds (FORSEE), a major interdisciplinary project focused on securing seed supply for forest expansion. Initially focussing on two UK oak species (Quercus petraea and Quercus robur), Dr Hacket-Pain will work alongside the Future Trees Trust, Action Oak and the Woodland Trust, to identify and translate knowledge that will help the UK overcome barriers to treescape expansion.

Dr Hacket-Pain will also extend the FORSEE seed production forecasting framework to the UK and will work with UK partners to ensure this prototype tool will meet the needs of potential users. Finally, he will work with the Woodland Trust to review the engagement of private forest owners in the UK’s seed supply chain.

Biography

Dr Andrew Hacket-Pain is an ecologist focused on understanding and predicting the impact of global environmental change on forests. He works on forest and tree growth, using tree rings to monitor forest responses to climate change, and to predict the resilience of forests to drought and other stresses. Dr Hacket-Pain also works on tree reproduction and forest regeneration, particularly the ecology of seed masting. He is interested in understanding how plants regulate variability in reproductive effort, and how they synchronise this variability over space and time. His current work is focused on understanding how masting will respond to environmental change and predicting what this will mean for the dynamics of forest ecosystems.

Twitter: @LivUni

Website: liverpool.ac.uk