School of Geography - Faculty of Environment

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Through my research I aim to increase understanding of how aquatic ecosystem biodiversity and functional processes respond to environmental change.

I am a freshwater ecologist with a particular interest in river ecosystems. My work crosses several research fields (population and community ecology, hydrology and geomorphology). I am particularly interested in river ecosystems in cold regions (alpine, sub-alpine, arctic), the effects of catchment management (e.g. artificial drainage, vegetation burning) on rivers in the UK uplands, and aquatic food webs.

Feel free to contact me for reprints of papers, or if you are interested in studying/working in our research group.

CURRENT PROJECTS

EMBER: Effects of Moorland Burning on the Ecohydrology of River Basins (link) Funded by a 38 month NERC standard grant.

Biodiversity of natural and artificial upland blanket peat bog-pools. Funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

The influence of major FLOOD disturbance on River EcoSystem Evolution Trajectories (FLOODRESET) in recently deglaciated terrain. Funded by a NERC urgency grant (with Milner [Bham] and Robertson [Roehampton].

RESEARCH AFFILIATIONS

• River Basin Processes and Management
• Ecology and Global Change

PUBLICATIONS

• Brown, L.E. & Milner, A.M. (in press) Rapid loss of glacial ice reveals stream community assembly processes. Global Change Biology (link)
• Jacobsen, D., Milner, A.M., Brown, L.E. & Dangles, O. (2012) Biodiversity under threat in glacier-fed rivers. Nature Climate Change 2: 361-364
• Milner, A.M., Robertson, A., Brown, L.E., Sonderland, S., McDermott, M. & Veal, A.J. 2011. Evolution of a stream ecosystem in recently deglaciated terrain. Ecology 92: 1924-1935 (link)
• Ramchunder, S.J., Brown, L.E. & Holden, J. (2012) Catchment scale peatland restoration benefits stream macroinvertebrate biodiversity. Journal of Applied Ecology 49: 182-191

CURRICULUM VITAE

PRESENTATIONS

TEACHING