Dr Sven Batke

Profile

Biography

I joined Edge Hill University in 2017 as Lecturer in Biology. In 2015 I received my PhD in Tropical Plant Ecology from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. My work focused on how high-intensity weather events such as hurricanes can alter tropical epiphytic forest communities. Following on from this, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the mentorship of Prof. Jennifer McElwain at the University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland, where I supported her team as an ecophysiologist and data analyst on a €1.6M Science Foundation Ireland funded research project. My work focused on how future predicted changes in climate will affect plant-atmospheric water feedbacks. Some of my work included running multiple physiological plant growth chamber experiments at the UCD Programme for Experimental Atmospheres and Climate (Péac) facility and the analysis of physiological data from Community Land Model simulations. In 2016 I secured an Irish Research Council Fellowship to investigate how increases in atmospheric CO₂ will alter water-relations in tropical epiphytes in the future. 

Research Interests

My general research interests include plant ecology, taxonomy and physiology, climate modelling and global change. I have a particular interest in tropical epiphyte and fern ecology. 

Teaching

I am currently teaching on the following modules:

• Biodiversity 
• Biology in Practice
• Research Methods
• Plant Physiology 
• Canopy Biology 
• Plant Diversity 
• Plants and People
• Research Dissertation 
• Restoration & Conservation Planning