Professor Ilya Maclean

About me:

I am an applied ecologist broadly interested in understanding how humans have changed the biological world, and how we might protect and enhance the world’s remaining biodiversity. I have a particular interest in using ecological theory to make smart decisions about how to do this. I am committed to finding practical solutions to environmental problems and work closely with researchers in other disciplines and local, national and international policy-makers and practitioners to achieve this.

You can view my Google Scholar account here.

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Climate change and microclimate

Most studies of climate biology rely on data derived from standard weather stations, but conditions measured by weather stations differ vastly from those that eroganisms experience in nature. This discrepancy is a major source of uncertainty in studies of climate impacts. My research group has pioneered the development of microclimate models for application in biological research. This has included the development of software and tools for modelling microclimate and fine-scale hydrology and work demonstrating that microclimate significantly moderates perceived responses to climate change, alters crop-pest disease risk and dictates where high-value crops can be grown. We are studying how knowledge of microclimate can be used to adapt conservation and agriculture to climate change.

Adapting landscape-scale conservation to the twenty-first century

Landscape-scale conservationists typically advocate creating bigger and better areas for wildlife, improved connectivity among sites, and a greater number of sites in total. In reality conservation resources are finite, and one can rarely do all. We conduct both extensive and intensive studies of the trade-offs between these strategies and what they mean for conservation responses to accelerating environmental change. We use a combination of theoretical modelling and rigorous field assessment to come up with practical conservation solutions and work closely with policymakers and practitioners to implement these. Our work spans a plethora of ecological systems, including butterflies in temperate heathlands, birds in tropical wetland and plants in temperate grassland and savanna.

The problem of scale in Ecology

Scale is often considered a central problem in ecology, marrying basic and applied ecology. It is surprising, therefore, that the implications of scale are often ignored when assessing how biodiversity is responding to environmental change. Our work has shown that predicted range shifts in response to climate, for example, are drastically altered if fine-scale climate data are used to make predictions. Almost always species can find suitable climate without having to traverse large distances over hostile habitat. Estimates of observed distribution changes are equally susceptible to problems of scale. If distributions are mapped on a coarse-resolution grid, the extinction of many local populations must occur before a grid cell is deemed empty; thus, declines are likely to be underestimated. We are studying the implications of this problem and devising ways in which fine-scale data can be incorporated into large-scale studies.

I am particularly interested in applied research and am the Director of Impact (Biology, Penryn Campus) and Impact Lead (Environment and Sustainability Institute).

2005 PhD Ecology and Socio-Economics (UEA)
1998 BSc in Environmental Sciences (UEA)

2023 to present. Professor of Global Change Biology at University of Exeter

2019 to 2023 Associate Professor of Global Change Biology at University of Exeter

2016 to 2019 Senior Lecturer in Natural Environment, University of Exeter

2012 to 2016 Lecturer in Natural Environment, University of Exeter

2009 to 2012 Post-doctoral Research Associate, University of Exeter

2008 to 2009 Senior Research Ecologist, British Trust for Ornithology

2004 to 2008 Research Ecologist, British Trust for Ornithology