Dr Alexa Varah

I am an ecologist working on biodiversity conservation and on the environmental impacts of agriculture. I focus on minimising trade-offs between production outcomes (crop yield, farm profit) and biodiversity, pollination and carbon stocks / greenhouse gas emissions.

Biodiversity conservation:

- I am currently using systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the overall impacts of small-scale biodiversity conservation interventions for the UK government's National Education Nature Park project.

Agri-environment:

- I develop and use models to estimate economic and environmental outcomes of different farm management strategies. I currently apply this in UK cereal production in the context of herbicide resistance and its management. The models allow the estimation of multiple outcomes simultaneously, allowing me to provide management recommendations together with an analysis of their agronomic, economic and environmental consequences (biodiversity, nitrate leaching and carbon emissions).

- I have carried out applied research in agroforestry systems, aiming to understand how these systems affect yield and environmental outcomes like biodiversity, pollination and carbon stocks. I have two PhD students currently working on soils and pollination services in temperate alley-cropping systems.

- I have experience running Delphi expert elicitation processes to fill gaps in agri-environment knowledge, aiming to inform modelling of the environmental impact of various management options.

Before moving into research I was a science teacher in UK secondary schools.