Richard Bardgett CBE is soil ecologist whose research explores how and why interactions between plants, their roots, and soil microbial communities regulate biogeochemical cycles and their response to climate change. He has bridged plant and soil ecology to gain a predictive understanding of how plant functional traits shape soil microbial communities and biogeochemical cycles from local to global scales, and how vegetation shifts in response to climate change impact biogeochemical cycles.

A major focus of his recent research is ecological resilience, and understanding how below-ground communities and the biogeochemical cycles they regulate respond to and recover from climate extremes. This work, funded by ERC and NERC, is also exploring how vegetation change and land management moderate below-ground community responses to climate extremes and consequences for biogeochemical cycles.  Richard's work in this area has led to foundational insights and practical implementation of below-ground ecological concepts for climate mitigation and the restoration of degraded ecosystems.

Richard graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1987 with a degree in Soil and Land Resource Science, and  completed his PhD in 1991 at Lancaster University. He moved to Manchester in 2013, having previously worked at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research and the Universities of Manchester and Lancaster.

He was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2006 and a Member Academia Europaea in 2015 for his pioneering contributions to soil ecology. He is routinely recognised by Clarivate as one of the most highly cited ecologists in the world and served as President of the British Ecological Society (2017-2019). He is currently Exective Editor of Journal fo Ecology and in 2023 was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by King Charles III for services to soil ecology and climate change science. 

Richard has a strong commitment to increasing awareness of the need to protect soils and their biodiversity. He currently serves on Defra’s Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) and in 2019 was appointed  “Thinker in Residence” for the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium to advise policy decisions on “Soils as Natural Capital”, including recommendations on soil protection to comply with policy on climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation. He was a co-founder, and current co-Director, of the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI), established in 2011 to promote translation of soil biodiversity knowledge into policy. 

Awards

2023    Appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 

2020    ERC Advanced Grant 

2020    Guest Professor University Innsbruck 

2023    Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher

2022    Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher

2021     Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher

2020    Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 

2019    Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher

2017    Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 

2015    Elected Member Academia Europaea

2015    Doctor Honoris Causa, Hasselt University, Belgium

2015    Thomas Rueters Highly Cited Research  

2011    Visiting Professor Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

2011    Elected Fellow Royal Society Biology (FRSB)

2009    ISI Highly Cited Researcher

2009    Visiting Researcher, NERC Centre for Population Biology, Silwood

2006    Elected Fellow Royal Society New Zealand

2006    March Ecology Book of the Year Award, BES

2003    Erskine Fellow, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

1998    OECD Fellowship, Landcare Research, New Zealand

1995    Recipient BBSRC Science Communication Award 

1992    George Stapleton Memorial Fellow, DSIRO, Upper Hutt, New Zeland

1986    Syndney Houre Collons Prize, University of Newcastle 

External roles      

2023-            Chair BBSRC Biological Diversity Expert Working Group 

2023              Chair UKRI/Defra Innovation Environmental Monitoring Panel

2023-2024   Chair ERC Advanced Grant Panel (LS8)

2021 -            Defra's Science Advisory Council, Member 

2017-2019     President British Ecological Society 

2019-2021     Royal Flemish Adademy of Belgium, Thinker in Residence 

2019 -            Royal Society Newton International Fellowships  Committee

2017 -            Royal Society International Exchanges Committee 

2014-2024    Royal Society Biological Sciences Grants Panel

2014               Leverhulme Trust's Research Leadership Awards Panel

2014 -            Member CEH Science Development Group 

2013 -            Reader L'Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Fellowships

2011-2014     Vice President British Ecological Society 

2013-2018     Chair BBSRC Research Committee E

2013-2018     Member BBSRC Research Advisory Panel 

2012-2013     NERC Soil Security Programme Lead 

2010-2016     BBSRC Strategic Lola Committee and Appointments Board 

2009-2019     Director, Rothamsted Board of Directors

2007-2019     Scientific Advisory Committee Netherlands Insititute for Ecology 

2006-present  Executive Editor Journal of Ecology

2006-present  Editorial Board Ecology Letters and Ecosystems 

Current and recently completed grants 

ERC Advanced Grant (2021-2026) Diversity, stability and functioning of the soil microbiome (SoilResist). Total Euro 2.49 million

NERC Pushing the Frontiers (2025-2028) Shrub-driven transformation of the alpine soil carbon cycle. Total £999,900 (Lead PI)

NERC (2020-2024) Cross-season legacy effects of climaet extremes on apline soil microbial communities. Total £667,743 (Pi with Co-I's Rob Griffiths, CEH, Michael Bahn, Innsbruck, and Michael Schloter, Munich) 

NERC (2020-2023) Detecting degradation and restoration through a novel coupled sensor and machine learning framework. Total £998,911 ($487,108 to UoM; Co-I with PI's John Quinton, Lanacster and Jason Neff, Colorado). 

NERC (2017-2020) SoIl microbial communities and biogeochemical CYcles in alpine ecosystems. Total £799,965 (PI with Co-I's Rob Griffiths, CEH, Michael Bahn, Innsbruck, and Michael Schloter, Munich) 

BBSRC GCRF (2019-2021) Restoring African degraded landscapes with plant biodiversiuty and livestock management. Total £1,392,314 (£310,298 to UoM; Co-I with PI Mariana Rufino, Lancaster University)  

BBSRC GCRF (2017-2019) Restoring soil function and resilience to degraded grasslands. Total £644,647 (PI with co-I's Nick Ostle and John Quinton, Lancaster)

NERC (2015-2018) Controls on the stability of soil and their functioning under land use and climate change. Total £1.6 million (PI with co-I's D Johnson, E Baggs, T Caruso, M Emmerson)

NERC (2016-2017) Controls on the stability of soil and their functioning capital equipment. Total £300k

NERC (2011-2016) Biodiversity and the provision of multiple ecosystem services in current and future lowland multifunctional landscapes. Total £554,000 (Soil component of NERC Wessex-BESS with James Bullock) 

NERC (2017-2019) Resilience and regime shifts in peatland microbial communities. Total £340,000. 

BBSRC (2011-2017) Linkages between plant functional diversity, soil biological communities and ecosystem services in agricultural grasslands. Total £1.45 million (PI with co-I's E Baggs, D. Johnson, N Ostle). 

BBSRC (2014-2018) A plant-microbial framework for interrogating soil functioning. Total £41,868. 

BBSRC Optimizing grazing management for climate mitigation. Total £94,126. 

My research is broadly concerned with understanding the role of interactions between plant and soil communities in regulating the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems, and their response to global change. A particular focus of my research is ecosystem nitrogen and carbon cycling and I work in a range of ecosystems, from tropical forests, to grasslands, and alpine and arctic tundra. Specific themes and examples of current research include:

Plant traits and ecosystem processes: A key goal of my research is to better understand of how plant traits impact on soil biological communities and the processes of carbon and nitrogen cycling that they drive. Much of this work is being done in grasslands, and includes studies done at the individual plant, field, and landscape scale. The ultimate aim of this research is to develop a trait-based framework for understanding how changes in plant functional diversity, for example resulting from land use change, influence soil microbial communities and the processes that underpin the ecosystem services of soil carbon storage and efficient nitrogen cycling. We are also using this knowledge to better manage grassland diversity for carbon storage.

Soil biodiversity and ecosystem function: Soil biological communities are extremely species rich and a key goal of my research, for several years, has been to better understand how changes in the diversity and composition of soil communities influence ecosystem processes. A key theme of this research is to advance understanding of how trophic interactions in soil control nutrient supply to plants, and how changes in food web composition impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. This research also extends to understanding factors that regulate soil biodiversity at different spatial and temporal scales, and to optimising land management to reap benefits from the living soil.

Plant-soil interactions and climate change: Climate change impacts on biogeochemical cycles via a variety of mechanisms involving interactions between plant and belowground communities. My research is aimed at understanding the mechanisms by which climate change impacts on plant-soil interactions and the carbon cycle at different spatial and temporal scales, ranging from short term impacts on the physiology and activity of aboveground and belowground biota, to longer term impacts caused by changes in community composition. An ultimate goal is to use this research to inform on land management options for climate mitigation through the sequestration of carbon in soil.

Herbivore impacts on terrestrial ecosystems: An ongoing interest of mine, since my PhD, is the study of how large grazing animals influence the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems, with a focus on soil biological properties and nutrient cycling, and, more recently, carbon dynamics. Much of this work has been done in mountain grasslands that are grazed by sheep, but more recently we have been studying effects deer browsing in native forest ecosystems in the Scottish Highlands and reindeer in the high arctic.

Further reading: 

Bardgett, R.D. & Wardle, D.A. (2010) Aboveground-Belowground Linkages: Biotic Interactions, Ecosystem Processes, and Global Change. Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, Oxford University Press.