Migratory waterbirds, from the UK to Spain. What benefits do they provide?

Professor Andy J. Green  will talk about the importance of the waterbirds in the UK and Spain and their migratory connections. In particular, he will explain why waterbirds, and their conservation, are so important and how they benefit human society by providing a range of so-called "ecosystem services". For example, they can carry seeds or eggs of a tremendous variety of plants and other organisms which are adjusting their distribution across Europe in response to climate change and other factors.  

Andy  was born in Manchester and did his first degree and PhD in Oxford, but has spent the last 25 years working at the Doñana Biological Station, a centre of the Spanish Council for Science, in Seville. Much of his research focuses on migratory waterbirds in Doñana, arguably Europe's most important wetland. However, many of these same birds breed in the UK, and Andy is now studying wildfowl in the north-west.