Rob is a PhD student working on understanding how access roads affect peatland ecosystem functioning through their effect on peatland hydrology, vegetation, and animal movement. These effects are observed, respectively, by using in-situ and remote sensing techniques, through vegetation surveys, camera trapping and scat collections supplemented with DNA metabarcoding to confirm host identity and prey taxa.  

Rob then looks at how these variables change as roads are restored back towards peatland conditions and whether there are interactions between these variables.  

Rob is also contributing research to the field of camera trapping methodology. Informing best practice in designing camera trap surveys for ecological experiments.