Investing in nature: the implications and opportunities for innovation.

FRANK VAN VEEN

My background is in Biology and in Ecology in particular, but my interest in biodiversity conservation means that I have a very much interdisciplinary perspective

Currently, most of my research is focussed on forest and biodiversity conservation in the context of sustainable development in Indonesian Borneo, including the restoration of tropical peatland forests to prevent regular devastating wild fires (see https://darwinborneo.org/ and https://kali-project.com/). As part of this, we (with PGR students and collaborators) are developing AI applications for bioacoustic data for rapid large-scale assessments of biodiversity.

I am also interested in the fundamental processes that determine the structure and dynamics of networks of interacting species (food webs). By gaining a mechanistic understanding of these complex ecological systems I hope to be able to make predictions on how they, and the services they provide, will respond to environmental change. This aspect of my research mostly uses insect model systems and theory.