Professor Carly Stevens

Project leader

Carly is a professor of plant ecology and soil biogeochemistry. She is currently funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Knowledge Exchange Fellowship to establish the limestone pavement partnership. Carly has been studying upland habitats for over 20 years but has particularly focussed on limestone pavements since 2017. Carly has won numerous research grants from research councils, government and industry. She has published over 170 papers and has had various collaborations in the UK and internationally.

Hannah Risser

Hannah is a first-year PhD student researching mechanisms for decline and pathways to recovery in Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) populations in limestone pavement habitats. During her Master’s by Research, she investigated the effects of atmospheric nitrogen pollution on butterflies. She will be continuing this work under her PhD. Her project is funded by Envision DTP and Butterfly Conservation and is supervised by supervised by Carly Stevens, Andy Wilby, Chris Shortall and Simon Willcock (Rothamsted Research), and Richard Fox (Butterfly Conservation). Hannah also works part-time as an Ecological Data Scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, where I contribute to various projects focused on identifying drivers of change in plant and Lepidoptera communities.

Ezra Tattersall

Ezra is a PhD student, supervised by Professor Carly Stevens and Dr Andy Wilby. He completed his undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Ecology and Conservation Biology at the University of Leeds. He previously worked for the Field Studies Council and as Biodiversity Officer for Powys County Council where he coordinated the Powys Local Nature Partnership. He started his PhD at in October 2024 researching the impacts of under-grazing on limestone pavements which can lead to the encroachment of scrub. He will also work on possible management strategies for the restoration of scrub-encroached pavements.