British Ornithologists' Union Godman-Salvin Medal

Abstract

Robert J. Fuller Rob Fuller obtained his first degree from Imperial College in 1973 and immediately landed a job with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), where he has worked throughout his long and influential career. His first post was as the National Organiser of the Register of Ornithological Sites (1973–1980) which culminated in the publication of Bird Habitats in Britain (Poyser, 1982) and led to his PhD (Composition and structure of bird communities in Britain 1987). This work clearly kindled an interest in the relationships between birds and their habitats which has remained a theme of his research to this day. Rob's deep understanding of the dynamics of a wide range of habitats led him to edit Birds and Habitat: Relationships in Changing Landscapes (Cambridge University Press 2012) which is set to become a key reference work in this important area. Rob has held many posts within the BTO and is currently Science Director (Ecological Change). He has been a key member of the small senior management team that has seen the establishment of the BTO as the respected and thriving organization that it is today. The influence of the organization has grown nationally and internationally over this period. The BTO was doing citizen science long before the expression entered popular usage. Throughout his career Rob has always made great efforts to combine the data collected by volunteers with professional analyses and interpretation. He has supervised the latest British and Irish atlas project Bird Atlas 2007–11, which will come to fruition in a major publication in 2013. Through his participation on committees and as organizer of conferences, Rob has contributed enormously to the wider ornithological world. He was on the BOU meetings committee (1984–89), Council (1995–99) and then served as Vice President (2007–2011). He was Secretary to the International Bird Census Committee (1983–1989) and is currently chairman of the Local Organising Committee for the 2013 European Ornithologists' Union conference due to take place in the UK in August 2013. He was Honorary Reader, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (2005–2008) and, since 2008, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham and Honorary Professor, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia. Rob's research interests have focused on the responses of biodiversity, especially birds, to land-use change and habitat management, mainly in agricultural and forest systems. The role of semi-natural habitats in maintaining biodiversity within heavily managed cultural landscapes has been a constant interest. Work on agricultural landscapes has examined the effects of organic farming, fallows, machair systems, crop diversity, structural heterogeneity and grazing regimes on birds and other wildlife. Much of this work has led not only to highly cited scientific papers but has been influential at national policy level and in the practical management in some of the UK's most important and distinctive habitats for wildlife. Through his leadership of teams and work programmes at the BTO, Rob has encouraged and mentored many young scientists, several of whom have gone on to influential positions in ornithology and conservation as a result of his influence, inspiration and support. His role as senior manager does not mean he has resigned himself to doing all his research ‘by proxy’ – far from it! By maintaining a strong personal interest in many of these topics, Rob has been able to sustain valuable long-term studies in spite of the vagaries of funding. There is no better example than his work on the ecology of breeding waders in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Having conducted censuses in the 1970s which highlighted the extremely large and unique assemblages of breeding waders that occur in parts of the islands, Rob was one of a small group who maintained extensive surveys of these important wader populations in response to proposals for major agricultural development in the 1980s. He has continued these studies to this day and is uniquely placed to provide a long-term view of changing conditions on the islands and their impacts on the conservation of their important breeding wader populations. The same dedication is apparent in another area close to Rob's heart, the bird communities of woodland and scrub. He has long-term and ongoing research interests in factors influencing spatial and temporal variation in these communities with particular emphasis on the effects of vegetation structure, successional dynamics, habitat mosaics and impacts of large herbivores. In 1995 he published Bird Life of Woodland and Forest (Cambridge University Press 1995). Over the last 15 years he has been closely involved in research aimed at understanding the effects of increasing deer numbers on the quality of habitats for woodland birds. He was instrumental in the establishment of an experimental study in Bradfield Woods, Suffolk, which has proved to be vital in demonstrating the sometimes subtle, and often not so subtle, impacts of deer browsing on vegetation, bird communities and other biodiversity. As in the case of the work in the Hebrides, Rob himself continues to conduct much field work in Bradfield woods and elsewhere, an occupation he enjoys more than anything else except, perhaps, fishing. Rob Fuller has made an important and lasting contribution to the science of applied ornithology over several decades both as a senior manager in a key organization and in his capacity as a highly productive researcher working on some of the major conservation challenges of the times. It is right that this contribution should be recognized in the award of the Godman–Salvin Medal.