Richard is a soil surveyor, vegetation ecologist, landscape historian and forensic botanist. He has worked across a wide variety of landscapes and habitat types including mountains, moorlands/heathlands, woodlands, wetlands/peatlands, grasslands, coastal, urban, and arable plant systems throughout Scotland and has an excellent knowledge of the National Vegetation Classification (NVC) as well as Phase 1 vegetation mapping.
He is the current project lead for the with Forestry and Land Scotland Framework Agreement for the Provision of Soil Surveys (2022-26). He has experience in soil survey, soil sampling and description, land evaluation and soil classification with a particular interest in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). He has worked on many vegetation monitoring projects including The Scottish Environmentally Sensitive Areas Monitoring Scheme (1995-2004), The re-visitation of vegetation records from the 1960’s and 1970’s to elucidate long-term changes across Scotland (2003-2015), herbivore impact assessments in the Scottish uplands (1997-2002), Vegetation change on Scottish dune systems (2005-2010), and more recently on woodland dynamics in relation to ash dieback and potential effects of threats to oak in the UK. He has a particular interest in lower plants most notably in relation to bryophyte and lichen ecology. He has also been involved in forensic botany casework for Police Scotland and other police services in England and Wales.
Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5837-2320