Tom Atkins
Research Assistant
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I am interested in the response of communities (particularly invertebrates) to human-driven perturbations and the identification of effective mitigation and recovery strategies to minimise adverse impacts. I am currently working on research entitled ‘Operationalising Treasury Green Book guidance on Biodiversity’, aiming to improve how biodiversity is represented and accounted for in governmental and business developments, e.g., assessing the accuracy of metrics used in biodiversity net gain. I previously worked as a research assistant at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), contributing to research examining ‘The Multi-trophic Impact of Ash Dieback’. I was particularly involved with investigating the consequences to decomposition processes, as part of which I collected and identified thousands of invertebrate specimens in Wytham Woods. I graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Biological Sciences, my research project focusing on the impact of the invasive spider Steatoda nobilis on native spider species.