Biodiversity and ecosystem service impacts of grey squirrels in current and future treescapes

The UK Government has committed to significant woodland expansion, to contribute to targets for carbon reduction and nature recovery, as well as enhancing people's health and wellbeing. Non-native grey squirrels pose a threat to these ambitions through their detrimental impacts on trees and red squirrels. Grey squirrels are also likely to have adverse impacts on wider aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem services, but these are less well understood and recognised as an important knowledge gap.
The PhD student will determine the impacts of grey squirrels on biodiversity and ecosystem services using a range of desk- and field-based approaches. The student will quantify factors affecting associations between grey squirrel populations and biodiversity and ecosystem services at local and UK scales, and estimate the benefits to biodiversity and ecosystem services which could be achieved by traditional and novel forms of grey squirrel management including fertility control.