Piran White

• University of York

There is a strong body of evidence that points to the mental health and well-being benefits of nature alongside a growing evidence based on the health and well-being benefits of green social prescribing. Central to the UK government’s commitment to transform mental health services, seven successful ‘test and learn’ green social prescribing sites we...

Background There has been increasing interest in creativity, heritage and nature to improve health-related outcomes. However, limited research has examined the intersection of heritage crafting in the context of natural spaces. This study aims to explore the feasibility and acceptability of an archaeologically informed outdoor heritage crafting int...

In the move to decarbonise energy supplies to meet Net Zero targets, ground-mounted solar farms have proliferated around the world, with uncertain implications for hosting ecosystems. We provide some of the first evidence on the effects of ground-mounted solar panels on plant and soil properties in temperate agricultural systems. We sampled 32 sola...

Multi‐purpose land use is of great importance for sustainable development, particularly in the context of increasing pressures on land to provide ecosystem services (e.g. food, energy) and support biodiversity. The recent global increase in land‐take for utility‐scale ground‐mounted solar farms (hereafter referred to as solar farms) to meet Net Zer...

Transdisciplinary co-produced health research and co-designed interventions have the capacity to improve research quality and the relevance, acceptability, and accessibility of healthcare. This approach also helps researchers to address power imbalances to share decision-making with service-users and the public. However, this growing methodology is...

Woodland cover in Britain has increased over the past century and is set to increase further through woodland creation schemes aiming to tackle climate change. Nonetheless, the wider repercussions of increasing woodland cover for species, especially invertebrates, have not been comprehensively assessed. Here, we quantified the woodland associations...

Tropical montane ecosystems are highly vulnerable to global climate change, but their species-level conservation vulnerability assessments generally do not incorporate climate threats. The Colombian páramo is a highly diverse montane ecosystem but it contains relatively few species currently identified as threatened on the IUCN Red List. We explore...

The Paris Agreement recognizes the important role that local level actors play in ensuring climate change adaptation that contributes to meeting the global temperature goal. As a financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the largest dedicated climate fund, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is critical...

Background The evidence is sparse regarding the associations between serious mental illnesses (SMIs) prevalence and environmental factors in adulthood as well as the geographic distribution and variability of these associations. In this study, we evaluated the association between availability and proximity of green and blue space with SMI prevalenc...

This guide is intended primarily as a resource to help researchers in the global North consider how to organise and conduct research with global South partners, from the conception of ideas to the delivery of impact and outputs, in order to uphold as well as promote and champion the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion. The guide reflect...

Trade is a complex, multi-faceted process that can contribute to the spread and persistence of disease. We here develop novel mechanistic models of supply. Our model is framed within a livestock trading system, where farms form and end trade partnerships with rates dependent on current demand, with these trade partnerships facilitating trade betwee...

Climate-change-driven storminess and extreme events are increasingly challenging fishers in tropical island countries. Weather-based index insurance is an emerging tool that can assist fishing communities in their recovery and adaptation to such events. In these regions, coral reefs support valuable fisheries and also provide coastal protection dur...

Conventional ecological risk assessment (ERA) predominately evaluates the impact of individual chemical stressors on a limited range of taxa, which are assumed to act as proxies to predict impacts on freshwater ecosystem function. However, it is recognized that this approach has limited ecological relevance. We reviewed the published literature to...

Understanding how emergent pathogens successfully establish themselves and persist in previously unaffected populations is a crucial problem in disease ecology, with important implications for disease management. In multi‐host pathogen systems this problem is particularly difficult, as the importance of each host species to transmission is often po...

Cumulative and synergistic impacts from environmental pressures, particularly in low-lying tropical coastal regions, present challenges for the governance of ecosystems which provide natural resource-based livelihoods for communities. Here, we seek to understand the relationship between responses to the impacts of El Niño and La Niña events and the...

Mental health problems are associated with lower quality of life, increased unscheduled care, high economic and social cost, and increased mortality. Nature-based interventions (NBIs) that support people to engage with nature in a structured way are asset-based solutions to improve mental health for community based adults. However, it is unclear wh...

This article proposes a historical, multispecies, and ontological approach to human–wildlife conflict (HWC) in the Colombian páramos. Focusing on the páramos surrounding the capital city of Bogotá, we reconstruct the historically changing relationship between cattle-farming campesino communities and the Andean bear, Tremarctos ornatus. Using ethnog...

There has been a significant increase in the frequency and intensity of natural hazard events, with consequent adverse impacts on vulnerable groups. The breadth and severity of health impacts extend beyond the event itself and its immediate aftermath. The aim of this study was to explore the association of morbidity and physical incapacity of vulne...

The concept of health has evolved markedly from a bio‐medical, mechanistic model to include an interdisciplinary perspective where human, animal and ecosystem health are integrated. One Health, EcoHealth and Planetary Health are examples of approaches to health advocating collaboration and interdisciplinarity at multiple levels. In practice, succes...

There is strong evidence that low birth weight (LBW) has a negative impact on infants' health. Children with LBW are more vulnerable to having disabilities. There has been a considerable amount of research on LBW, but only a small proportion of this research has examined local geographical patterns in LBW and its determinants. LBW is a particular h...

We develop and apply analytically tractable generative models of livestock movements at national scale. These go beyond current models through mechanistic modelling of heterogeneous trade partnership network dynamics and the trade events that occur on them. Linking resulting animal movements to disease transmission between farms yields analytical e...

For hazard prone regions such as the Caribbean, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that engage in Disaster Risk Management (DRM) generate data can be used to inform DRM research which generates a deeper understanding of the nature of risk and appropriate responses. Increasingly, researchers are encouraged to develop research partnerships with ot...

Poaching on private land may potentially significantly deplete the rhino population yet is poorly studied. We focus on temporal patterns in poaching events, whether there is any evidence of targeting of specific categories of rhino (in relation to species, sex and age) and whether these patterns in poaching show any trends over time. Using rhino ow...

Preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity brings multiple health, societal and economic benefits, including life-supporting services. Biodiversity indicators are important in framing the benefits of conservation and management programs and monitoring progress toward their outcomes. Biodiversity indicators therefore provide useful tools for p...

Understanding how an emergent pathogen successfully establishes itself and persists in a previously unaffected population is a crucial problem in disease ecology. In multi-host pathogen systems this problem is particularly difficult, as the importance of each host species to transmission is often poorly characterised, and the epidemiology of the di...

Background Climate change is increasing population exposure to weather-related hazards, such as extreme precipitation, storms, and flooding. There’s growing concern that such exposure affects people’s mental health. However, little evidence exists based on probability samples or using robust assessment of mental disorders. Methods We analysed the...

Sustained poaching over the past decade has led to significant loss of black (Diceros bicornis) and southern white (Ceratotherium simum simum) rhinoceroses across South Africa. Whereas much research has focussed on the heavily targeted state-owned populations, there is little understanding of the trends and challenges faced by rhino populations hel...

Control of bovine tuberculosis (bTB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis , in the Republic of Ireland costs €84 million each year. Badgers are recognized as being a wildlife source for M. bovis infection of cattle. Deer are thought to act as spillover hosts for infection; however, population density is recognized as an important driver in shifting their...

Background: Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) collect and generate vast amounts of potentially rich data, most of which are not used for research purposes. Secondary analysis of NGO data (their use and analysis in a study for which they were not originally collected) presents an important but largely unrealised opportunity to provide new resea...

The majority of studies on environmental justice show that groups with lower socio-economic status are more likely to face higher levels of air pollution. Most of these studies have assumed simple, linear associations between pollution and deprived groups. However, empirical evidence suggests that health impacts are greater at high pollution concen...

An animal's choice of foraging habitat reflects its response to environmental cues and is likely to vary among individuals in a population. Analyzing the magnitude of individual habitat selection can indicate how resilient populations may be to anthropogenic habitat change, where individually varying, broadly generalist populations have the potenti...

There is growing evidence of the inter‐relationships between ecosystems and public health. This creates opportunities for the development of cross‐sectoral policies and interventions that provide dual benefits to public health and to the natural environment. These benefits are increasingly articulated in strategy documents at national and regional...

The number of ground-mounted solar parks is increasing across the world in response to energy decarbonisation. Solar parks offer an opportunity to deliver ecosystem co-benefits but there is also a risk that their development and operation may be detrimental to ecosystems. Consequently, we created the Solar Park Impacts on Ecosystem Services (SPIES)...

The degradation of urban natural spaces reduces their ability to benefit human populations. Restoration can support urban sustainability by improving both the ecological health of these spaces and the public benefits they provide, but studies rarely combine both perspectives. We assessed the ecological and social benefits of an urban river restorat...

The value of private sector rhinoceros conservation in South Africa is a topic of much debate, often fueled by controversies surrounding trade in rhinoceros horn. We used semi-structured interviews (n = 16) to assess perceptions of private rhinoceros owners and other stakeholders regarding the value of the industry and its challenges. All stakehold...

We describe the first use of fertility control to manage a free-living mammal population in Europe. An immunocontraceptive vaccine (GonaCon) was used to reduce female fertility in an invasive feral goat Capra hircus population. Adaptive management was implemented to assess the feasibility of fertility control and to allow prediction of the required...

There is increasing evidence that exposure to weather-related hazards like storms and floods adversely affects mental health. However, evidence of treated and untreated mental disorders based on diagnostic criteria for the general population is limited. We analysed the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a large probability sample survey of adults...

Biodiversity indicators are commonly monitored to ensure the sustainable management of ecosystems and the conservation of multiple ecosystem goods and services. Indicators are important for tracking the ecological outcomes of conservation programmes, but they are also important in a wider context such as monitoring progress towards broader sustaina...

Objectives To examine whether there are associations between active travel and markers of a healthy, low-carbon (HLC) diet (increased consumption of fruit and vegetables (FV), reduced consumption of red and processed meat (RPM)). Design Cross-sectional analysis of a cohort study. Settings Population cohort of over 500 000 people recruited from 22...

Despite advances in technology, there are still constraints on the use of some tracking devices for small species when gathering high temporal and spatial resolution data on movement and resource use. For small species, weight limits imposed on GPS loggers and the consequent impacts on battery life, restrict the volume of data that can be collected...

Objectives: Without urgent action, climate change will put the health of future populations at risk. Policies to reduce these risks require support from today's populations; however, there are few studies assessing public support for such policies. Willingness to pay (WtP), a measure of the maximum a person is prepared to pay for a defined benefit...

Culling wildlife to control disease can lead to both decreases and increases in disease levels, with apparently conflicting responses observed, even for the same wildlife-disease system. There is therefore a pressing need to understand how culling design and implementation influence culling's potential to achieve disease control. We address this ga...

The findings of a national workshop that explored the social and environmental impacts, challenges, and research opportunities associated with the role of urban freshwaters for improved public health are discussed. Bringing together the collective expertise of academics, practitioners, policy, and user‐groups from urban aquatic ecology and human he...

In a context of both long-term climatic changes and short-term climatic shocks, temporal dynamics profoundly influence ecosystems and societies. In low income contexts in the Tropics, where both exposure and vulnerability to climatic fluctuations is high, the frequency, duration, and trends in these fluctuations are important determinants of socio-...

Compared to younger age groups, older people spend more time in their locality and rely more heavily on its pedestrian and public transport infrastructure. Qualitative studies provide unique insight into people's experiences. We conducted a qualitative evidence synthesis of United Kingdom-based studies of older people's experiences of travelling in...

Older people make up a larger proportion of the rural than urban population and rely more heavily on its transport system than younger age groups. We undertook a systematic review of qualitative studies to understand more about their experiences of everyday travel. As transport patterns, including car ownership and public transport, vary between co...

Increasing evidence of the health and wellbeing benefits of urban natural spaces has resulted in policy goals to increase their use. Making these spaces accessible and attractive to potential users is fundamental to achieving these goals since a mismatch between design and use can mean that the potential benefits of these spaces are not fully reali...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the ability of a micro-organism to stop an antimicrobial from working against it, is one the greatest global health challenges. It is projected to be the leading cause of death worldwide, claiming an estimated 10 million lives a year, by 2050, primarily in low- and middle-income countries. In 2015, the World Health A...

In this issue, Stigsdotter et al show that nature gardens offer similar benefits to cognitive–behavioural therapy for managing stress-related illnesses among people on sick leave. There is scope for pragmatic trials to establish the processes involved and highlight the co-benefits that nature gardens offer for health and the environment. Declarati...

The maintenance of livestock health depends on the combined actions of many different actors, both within and across different regulatory frameworks. Prior work recognised that private risk management choices have the ability to reduce the spread of infection to trading partners. We evaluate the efficiency of farmers’ alternative biosecurity choice...

Many Protected Natural Areas provide benefits for both conservation and recreation. The frequent trade-offs between these activities pose challenges for management and require decisions to be made about how to prioritise and direct management actions. Here we propose a new prioritization framework that can provide National Park managers with an enh...

There is increasing appreciation of the benefits associated with exposure to natural environments. However, most of the evidence relates to green space with much less on blue space. Drawing on data from a British survey of adults, we describe the characteristics of visits to blue space and investigate whether the benefits reported in studies of gre...

Background The urgency of climate change has increased the need to promote lifestyles with health and environmental co-benefits; however, most research has focused on single behaviours in isolation, at the expense of understanding healthy, low-carbon lifestyles more broadly. This study aimed to provide some initial evidence on the prevalence and pa...

Exposure to green space and nature has a potential role to play in the care of people with dementia, with possible benefits including improved mood and slower disease progression. In this observational study at a dementia care facility in the UK, we used carer-assessed measures to evaluate change in mood of residents with mid- to late-stage dementi...

Understandably, given the fast pace of biodiversity loss, there is much interest in using Earth observation technology to track biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services. However, because most biodiversity is invisible to Earth observation, indicators based on Earth observation could be misleading and reduce the effectiveness of natu...

Long-range temporal choices are built into contemporary policy-making, with policy decisions having consequences that play out across generations. Decisions are made on behalf of the public who are assumed to give much greater weight to their welfare than to the welfare of future generations. The paper investigates this assumption. It briefly discu...

The frequency and severity of extreme events is expected to increase under climate change. There is a need to understand the economic consequences of human exposure to these extreme events, to underpin decisions on risk reduction. We undertook a scoping review of economic evaluations of the adverse health effects from exposure to weather-related ex...

Objective: Industrialization and urbanization have been associated with an epidemiological transition, from communicable to non-communicable disease, and a geological transition that is moving the planet beyond the stable Holocene epoch in which human societies have prospered. The lifestyles of high-income countries are major drivers of these twin...

Background Evidence linking exposure to green and blue spaces to mental health and wellbeing is increasing policy interest in interventions to improve these spaces. However, studies rarely consider their biological quality pre- and post-intervention. This is an interdisciplinary study using a river restoration project to assess the impact of the re...

While multiple ecosystem service benefits are increasingly emphasised in policy as an outcome for land management, most conservation management and legislation is currently focused on conserving specific species and habitats. These management interventions may provide multiple co-benefits for other ecosystem services but more information is needed...

The ornamental plant trade has been identified as a key introduction pathway for plant pathogens. Establishing effective biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of plant pathogen outbreaks in the live plant trade is therefore important. Management of invasive pathogens has been identified as a weakest link public good, and thus is reliant on the ac...

Infectious disease surveillance is key to limiting the consequences from infectious pathogens and maintaining animal and public health. Following the detection of a disease outbreak, a response in proportion to the severity of the outbreak is required. It is thus critical to obtain accurate information concerning the origin of the outbreak and its...

Extended simulation results, details on data generation and implementation and convergence evaluation of the MCMC sampler. (DOCX)

Most stakeholder-based research concerning agri-environmental schemes (AES) derives from work engaging with farmers and land managers. Consequently, the voices and opinions of other actors involved in AES tends to be unrepresented in the wider literature. One group of actors that seem particularly overlooked in this respect are private (independent...

Wildlife disease surveillance is the first line of defence against infectious disease. Fluctuations in host populations and disease prevalence are a known feature of wildlife disease systems. However, the impact of such heterogeneities on the performance of surveillance is currently poorly understood. We present the first systematic exploration of...

This Information Note introduces connectivity and ecological networks within the context of landscape planning, design and management and should assist discussions members typically hold with professional ecologists.

Livestock diseases such as bovine tuberculosis can have considerable negative effects on human health and economic activity. Wildlife reservoirs often hinder disease eradication in sympatric livestock populations. Therefore, quantifying interactions between wildlife and livestock is an important aspect of understanding disease persistence. This stu...

The ecosystem services (EcoS) concept is being used increasingly to attach values to natural systems and the multiple benefits they provide to human societies. Ecosystem processes or functions only become EcoS if they are shown to have social and/or economic value. This should assure an explicit connection between the natural and social sciences, b...

Ecological systems comprise of individuals and species interacting with each other and their environment, and these interactions combine to form complex networks. The maintenance of biodiversity and many ecosystem functions depend upon these eco- logical interactions. Humans, their crops and livestock can also be considered as part of these network...

The ecosystem services (EcoS) concept is being used increasingly to attach values to natural systems and the multiple benefits they provide to human societies. Ecosystem processes or functions only become EcoS if they are shown to have social and/or economic value. This should assure an explicit connection between the natural and social sciences, b...

Invasive pests in agricultural settings may have severe consequences for agricultural production, reducing yields and the value of crops. Once an invader population has established, controlling it tends to be very expensive. Therefore, when the potential impacts on production may be great, protection against initial establishment is often perceived...

Context As urbanisation continues to increase on a global scale, people are becoming increasingly distanced from nature. Fewer opportunities to encounter nature mean that the benefits of engaging with nature are often not realised by urban residents. In response to this, there is a growing number of initiatives that aim to connect people with natur...

The transformation of native habitats into forest plantations for industrial purposes frequently has negative consequences for biodiversity. We evaluated the impact of eucalypt plantations on native bats in a Mediterranean area, taking Portugal as a case study. We compared the overall bat activity, species richness and Kuhl's bat Pipistrellus kuhli...

In parts of the northern hemisphere, many pollinator species are in decline, with potential adverse implications for pollination and the ecosystem service of food production. It is therefore important to understand how habitats primarily orientated towards food production can be managed in an efficient way to enhance pollinator populations for curr...

The pace and scale of environmental change is undermining the conditions for human health. Yet the environment and human health remain poorly integrated within research, policy and practice. The ecosystem services (ES) approach provides a way of promoting integration via the frameworks used to represent relationships between environment and society...

Dominant physical and biological processes in ecosystems occur at specific scales of space and time. The life-spans and the life-spaces (areas used by species over their lifetime) become entrained to operate at similar scales. Because life-spans and life-spaces are related to body size, ecosystems display polymodality in body size distributions: Ho...

The Mediterranean basin is a biodiversity hotspot which is being threatened by land abandonment and afforestation, most notably with eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.) plantations. We assessed the impact of eucalyptus plantations on niche partitioning in a carnivore community consisting of red fox (Vulpes vulpes), badger (Meles meles), and stone marten (...

Wildlife has existed in urban areas since records began. However, the discipline of urban ecology is relatively new and one that is undergoing rapid growth. All wildlife in urban areas will interact with humans to some degree. With rates of urbanisation increasing globally, there is a pressing need to understand the type and nature of human–wildlif...

Globally, amphibian populations are threatened by a diverse range of factors including habitat destruction and alteration. Forestry practices have been linked with low diversity and abundance of amphibians. The effect of exotic Eucalyptus spp. plantations on amphibian communities has been studied in a number of biodiversity hotspots, but little is...

Ecosystem services research needs to become more transdisciplinary.•ecoSERVICES will advance co-designed, transdisciplinary ecosystem service research. Ecosystem services have become a mainstream concept for the expression of values assigned by people to various functions of ecosystems. Even though the introduction of the concept has initiated a va...