ABOUT ME
FOREST
Dr Tom Ovenden MICFor
Research Scientist
Tom is a Global Change Ecologist and Research Scientist in the Silviculture team at Forest Research, based in Scotland, UK. The focus of his research is mostly centred on the resilience of forest ecosystems to climate change.
Tom is a professional member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters, a member of the Association for Tree-Ring Research and the British Ecological Society. Tom also runs and maintains the website forest-ecology.com.
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
I’m a forest scientist with a background in conservation, having worked across a range of projects both in the UK and abroad. My interests are wide-ranging and encompass anything relating to the ecology of forest ecosystems, both temperate and tropical, with a particular focus on managing forests as complex adaptive systems, forest dynamics and resilience to extreme climatic events with a healthy fascination with mycology (fungi).
I’ve worked as an intelligence analyst in the UK and as a bio-security ranger for the Department of Conservation (DOC) in New Zealand, and as a ranger on an island nature reserve off the north coast of Scotland (Handa Island), which I ran for two years with my wife. I’ve also spent a brief period working in the forest industry having completed my MSc in Environmental Forestry at Bangor University, Wales and went on to complete my PhD in Forest Resilience to Drought at the University of Stirling.
I currently work as a Reserach Scientist in teh Silviculture group at Forest Research. My research is primarily focused on assessing the resilience of forests to extreme climatic events with a particular focus on drought, how different species and communities respond to stressful events and how these events can drive the novel development of forest structure, composition and function. This work often involves investigating the legacy and impact of historic drought events using tree-rings (dendroecology). My passion for applied research also means I enjoy the challenge of trying to operationalise this knowledge to ultimately build adaptive capacity into our forests to deal with the challenges of a future climate.