David Beerling

David John Beerling FRS[6] (born 21 June 1965)[1] is the Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate change mitigation and Sorby Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (APS) at the University of Sheffield, UK.[3][7][8][9][10][11]

David Beerling

FRS
David Beerling at the Royal Society admissions day in 2014
Born
David John Beerling

[1]
Tunbridge Wells[1]
Alma materUniversity of Wales, College of Cardiff (BSc, PhD)
Known forThe Emerald Planet[2]
Spouse(s)
Juliette Dawn Fraser
(
m. 2011)
[1]
ChildrenJoshua
Awards
  • Philip Leverhulme Prize (2001)
  • European Research Council Advanced Grant (2010)
  • Leverhulme Research Centre Award (2015)
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisThe ecology and control of Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica Houtt.) and Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera Royle.) on river banks in South Wales (1990)
Doctoral advisorRon Walter Edwards[4][5]
Influences
Websitewww.sheffield.ac.uk/aps/staff-and-students/acadstaff/beerling

Education

Beerling was educated at University of Wales, College of Cardiff where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Botany in 1987 followed by a PhD in 1990[4] for research into the biogeography, ecology and control of two important and highly invasive alien plant species Japanese knotweeed Reynoutria japonica and Himalayan balsam Impatiens glandulifera. His PhD was supervised by Ron Walter Edwards CBE[4] and he authored two ecological monographs on the species[12][13] and scientific papers reporting simulated projections of their potential future distributions in Europe with global climate change.[14][15]

Research and career

Beerling's research group investigate fundamental questions concerning the conquest of the land by plants and the role of terrestrial ecosystems in shaping Earth's global ecology, climate and atmospheric composition. This is achieved by approaches that integrate evidence from fossils, experiments and theoretical models applied across spatial and temporal scales. Increasingly, his group's research discoveries are informing our understanding of current global climate change issues.

Earth's atmospheric CO₂ history

An important early success of his biophysical approach to palaeobotany was the discovery of evidence for a substantial increase in the atmospheric CO₂ concentration and 'super-greenhouse' conditions across the Triassic-Jurassic (Tr-J) boundary, 200 million years ago, based on analyses of fossil stomata and leaf morphology from Greenland.[16] This causally linked a catastrophic extinction event with the break-up of Pangaea. Before his group's work, the Tr-J extinction represented one of the most poorly understood of the so-called 'big-five' mass extinctions in the Phanerozoic (past 540 million years). His paper resulted in major new international research programmes that subsequently identified evidence confirming the carbon cycle perturbation in marine and terrestrial sediments world-wide. He extended this discovery by evaluating hypothesized causal mechanisms with numerical geochemical carbon cycle modelling in collaboration with the Yale University geochemist Robert Berner.[17]

Beerling was the only UK participant in an international consortium led by James Hansen (former Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies) analysing Cenozoic CO₂ and palaeoclimate evidence to investigate the broader societal question of the target CO₂ level required to avoid 'dangerous' anthropogenic interference of the climate system. Stabilization of human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level avoiding this concern is a core objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The resulting 2008 'Target CO₂' paper[18] made the front page of the UK newspaper The Guardian which commented:

"World's leading climate scientists warn today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem"[19]

Fossils and experimental palaeobiology

Beerling is a leading architect in the field of experimental palaeobiology, adopting advanced experimental research programmes to address fundamental questions raised by the fossil record of plant life. Characterized by the formulation and evaluation of rigorous hypotheses, these programmes demonstrate how experimental evidence serves to deepen our causal understanding of past events. By productively collaborating with Jonathan Leake,[20] his group established essential missing functional evidence supporting the long-standing conjecture, based largely on 400-million-year-old-fossils from the Devonian Rhynie chert,[21] that the establishment of rootless early land plants in skeletal soils was promoted by their mutualistic symbiotic partnership with soil fungi.[22] They went on to reveal how the simulated high CO₂ Palaeozoic atmosphere and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi synergistically enhanced plant fitness to create uniquely strong selection pressures favouring the establishment of mycorrhiza-like partnerships in 'lower' land plants. These findings now place fungi as key players in the earliest symbiotic events during the greening of the Earth's land-masses.

Beerling's investigations into vegetation interactions with past environments extend to those guided by the fossil remains of ancient polar forests. Through a creative combination of experiments simulating high CO₂ ancient polar environments, and modelling of forest biogeochemistry, his group's analyses helped define our modern understanding of the physiological ecology of Mesozoic high-latitude forests [ref]. In doing so, they overturned 'textbook dogma' concerning the adaptive significance of polar forest deciduousness, established following Scott of the Antarctic's discovery of Glossopteris fossils on the Beardmore Glacier at 82ºS in 1912.[23] BBC News covered these findings in a 2003 report 'Antarctic Scott's lasting legacy'[24] and again in a 2011 report entitled 'Secrets of Antarctica's fossilised forests'.[25]

Beerling's has published over 200 papers in leading peer reviewed scientific journals including Science[26][27] and Nature.[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]

Beerling's best-selling popular science book The Emerald Planet: How plants changed Earth's history [2] presents a case for recognising the role of plants in shaping Earth's history. Reviewed in many journals (e.g. Nature[36]) and newspapers, including The Times[37] and The Guardian,[38] the book was named by Oliver Sacks as his favourite non-fiction book of the year in The Observer.[39] Sacks wrote of it

Beerling promoting The Emerald Planet at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts

The story Beerling tells could not have been put together even 10 years ago, for it depends on the latest insights from palaeontology, climate science, genetics, molecular biology and chemistry, all brilliantly and beautifully integrated.

The Emerald Planet has been translated into three languages and attracted public acclaim and that of his academic peers. The book formed the basis of a major three-part BBC Two television series, How to Grow a Planet.,[40] for which Beerling acted as the Scientific Consultant. Enhanced public awareness of plant science followed, with the series attracting average viewing figures of 1.7 million per episode. The book was reprinted by Oxford University Press in 2009 with a foreword written by Iain Stewart, the presenter of How to Grow a Planet. Beerling is also the author of an advanced technical book Vegetation and the terrestrial carbon cycle: the first 400 million years.[41]

History of Science

Beerling is interested in the history of science and publishes occasional scholarly articles on this theme. These have included an invited commentary entitled 'Gas valves, forests and global change: a commentary on Paul Gordon Jarvis classic 1976 paper[42] written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,[34] and the discovery that Isaac Newton's interest in botany extended to thinking about how water moves from roots to leaves and into the atmosphere over 200 years before botanists got round to explaining it.[3][43] His discovery was widely reported including in Scientific American[44] and Science[45] which coined the memorable 'Newton was no sap' strap line. In 2010, he wrote a piece for Nature discussing theoretical analyses revealing how plant investment in the architecture of leaf veins can be shuffled for different conditions, minimising the construction costs associated with supplying water to leaves.[46] He placed these findings in the context of the pioneering English plant physiologist Stephen Hales's book Vegetable Staticks published in 1727. Hales observed that plants lose water by "perspiration" and then went one better by conducting experiments to quantify the process.

Funding

Beerling's research has been funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC),[47] the Department for International Development (DFID),[48] the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC),[48] The Royal Society,[49] and The Leverhulme Trust.[10] In 2012 he was awarded a prestigious European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant to research 'Carbon dioxide regulation of Earth's ecological weathering engine: from microorganisms to ecosystems'.[50]

In 2015, he was awarded £10 million for establishing a Leverhulme Centre for Climate change mitigation which hopes to revolutionise approaches to climate change mitigation and transform the evidence base needed to alter land management options for mitigating climate change and promoting food security, whilst safeguarding natural resources. The vision is to develop and assess the role of enhanced rock weathering as a means of safely removing large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere to cool the planet, while also mitigating ocean acidification.[51]

As of 2015 the plan is to deliver these aims through Earth system modelling, lab-based controlled environment experimental investigations and large-scale field studies, embedded with social science analyses of sustainability and public engagement. Beerling, Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation at the University of Sheffield, said:

I am delighted that the Leverhulme Trust is providing substantial long-term investment in our pioneering Leverhulme Centre at the University of Sheffield. It couldn't be more timely and represents a huge vote of confidence for the outstanding team of scientists and social scientists involved from Sheffield and elsewhere.[52][53]

Beerling added:

The ambition of our new interdisciplinary Leverhulme Centre is to deliver a step-change in the development of feasible, scalable, atmospheric CO₂ removal options and avert ocean acidification. We will objectively develop the science, sustainability and ethics necessary for harnessing the photosynthate energy of plants to accelerate the breakdown of silicate rocks applied to agroecosystems and ultimately sequester carbon on the sea floor. In effect, the approach uses natural reactions that have been stabilising climate for millions of years to safely remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."[52][53]

On November 29 2018, the BBC's Science Editor, David Shukman, reported on progress of the Centre on the National BBC news and in an accompanying BBC New online article entitled Climate change: Can 12 billion tonnes of carbon be sucked from the air?

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46345280

Awards and honours

Beerling was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Earth sciences for outstanding contributions to palaeobotany and palaeoclimatology in 2001. He was elected the 2008/9 Edward P Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar at the Yale Institute for Biosphere Science, Yale University.[54] The Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholars Program was created in July 2002 with a generous gift by Edward P. Bass to the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS), which he also established in 1991 with a generous gift to Yale University. In 2009, Beerling was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2009–2014), a scheme funded by the Wolfson Foundation and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for recruiting or retaining respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential to the UK.[55] Beerling was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014, his certificate of election reads:

David Beerling is one of the world's leading botanists widely respected internationally for his major contributions to understanding the co-evolution of plants and the environment over the past half billion years. He is distinguished for pioneering cross-disciplinary research programmes that combine palaeobotanical, experimental and theoretical modelling approaches. His research demonstrates how experimental and fossil evidence can be blended to enhance our understanding of plant evolution and its feedbacks on past environments. His integration of ecosystem processes into a broad geosciences framework established the importance of the terrestrial biosphere in Earth's climate history.[6]

Beerling's life and career have been profiled in Steel Science,[56] the online magazine of Science Communication at the University of Sheffield.

Personal life

Beerling is the son of Johnny Beerling[1] former Controller of BBC Radio 1 and Carol Ann Beerling. Beerling married Juliette Fraser in 2011,[1] they have one son Joshua.

gollark: It should be `x` or `a` or `y`.
gollark: The random ampersands.
gollark: R U S TUST
gollark: Actually, my great grandparents are immortal, for legal reasons.
gollark: Invented by whom, Dr. Bees?

References
  1. Anon (2016). "Beerling, Prof. David John". Who's Who. ukwhoswho.com (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U281969. (subscription or UK public library membership required) (subscription required)
  2. Beerling, David John (2008). The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954814-9.
  3. David Beerling publications indexed by Google Scholar
  4. Beerling, David John (1990). The ecology and control of two introduced invasive plants Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica Houtt.) and Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera Royle.) on river banks in South Wales. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Wales. OCLC 557284857. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.358067.
  5. "Professor Ron Edwards (1930–2007)". Archived from the original on 19 August 2014.
  6. "Professor David Beerling FRS". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2 May 2014.
  7. David Beerling publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  8. How Plants Changed Earth's History by David Beerling on YouTube
  9. Professor David Beerling discusses ancient trees on YouTube
  10. "Professor David J Beerling F.R.S., University of Sheffield". University of Sheffield. Archived from the original on 18 March 2015.
  11. Chaffey, N. (2014). "Plant Cuttings". Annals of Botany. 114 (2): iv–vii. doi:10.1093/aob/mcu158. ISSN 0305-7364. PMC 3838569.
  12. Beerling, D. J.; Bailey, J. P.; Conolly, A. P. (1994). "Fallopia Japonica (Houtt.) Ronse Decraene". The Journal of Ecology. 82 (4): 959–979. doi:10.2307/2261459. JSTOR 2261459.
  13. Beerling, D. J.; Perrins, J. M. (1993). "Impatiens glandulifera Royle (Roylei Walp.)". The Journal of Ecology. 81 (2): 367–382. doi:10.2307/2261507. JSTOR 2261507.
  14. Beerling, D. J. (1993). "Impact of temperature on the Northern distribution limits of the introduced species Fallopia japonica and Impatiens glandulifera in North-West Europe". Journal of Biogeography. 20 (1): 45–53. doi:10.2307/2845738. JSTOR 2845738.
  15. Beerling, D. J.; Huntley, B.; Bailey, J. P. (1995). "Climate and the distribution of Fallopia japonica: Use of an introduced species to test the predictive capacity of response surfaces". Journal of Vegetation Science. 6 (2): 269–282. doi:10.2307/3236222. JSTOR 3236222.
  16. McElwain, J. C.; Beerling, D. J.; Woodward, F. I. (1999). "Fossil Plants and Global Warming at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary". Science. 285 (5432): 1386–1390. doi:10.1126/science.285.5432.1386. PMID 10464094.
  17. Beerling, D. J.; Berner, R. A. (2002). "Biogeochemical constraints on the Triassic-Jurassic boundary carbon cycle event". Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 16 (3): 10–11. Bibcode:2002GBioC..16.1036B. doi:10.1029/2001GB001637.
  18. Hansen, J.; Sato, M.; Kharecha, P.; Beerling, D.; Berner, R.; Masson-Delmotte, V.; Pagani, M.; Raymo, M.; Royer, D. L.; Zachos, J. C. (2008). "Target Atmospheric CO₂: Where Should Humanity Aim?". The Open Atmospheric Science Journal. 2 (1): 217–231. arXiv:0804.1126. Bibcode:2008OASJ....2..217H. doi:10.2174/1874282300802010217.
  19. "Climate target is not radical enough – study". The Guardian.
  20. "Professor Jonathan R Leake, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (APS)". Sheffield: University of Sheffield. Archived from the original on 20 November 2015.
  21. Kidston, R. & Lang, W. H. On Old Red Sandstone plants showing structure, from Rhynie Chert Bed, Aberdeenshire. Part V. The Thallophyta occurring in the peat-bed; the succession of the plants throughout a vertical section of the bed, and the conditions of accumulation and preservation of the deposit.Trans. R. Soc. Edinb. 52, 855–902 (1921).
  22. Humphreys, C.P.; Franks, P.J.; Rees, M.; Bidartondo, M.I.; Leake, J.R.; Beerling, D.J. (2010). "Mutualistic mycorrhiza-like symbiosis in the most ancient group of land plants". Nature Communications. 1 (8): 103. Bibcode:2010NatCo...1E.103H. doi:10.1038/ncomms1105. PMID 21045821.
  23. Seward, A. C. (1914). "Antarctic Fossil Plants. British Antarctic ('Terra Nova') Expedition, 1910. British Museum Natural History Report". Geology. 1: 1–49.
  24. Briggs, Helen. "Antarctic Scott's lasting legacy". BBC News. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  25. Falcon-Lang, Howard. "Secrets of Antarctica's fossilized forests". BBC News. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  26. Royer, D. L.; Wing, S. L.; Beerling, D. J.; Jolley, D. W.; Koch, P. L.; Hickey, L. J.; Berner, R. A. (2001). "Paleobotanical Evidence for Near Present-Day Levels of Atmospheric CO₂ During Part of the Tertiary". Science. 292 (5525): 2310–3. Bibcode:2001Sci...292.2310R. doi:10.1126/science.292.5525.2310. PMID 11423657.
  27. Berner, R. A.; Petsch, S. T.; Lake, J. A.; Beerling, D. J.; Popp, B. N.; Lane, R. S.; Laws, E. A.; Westley, M. B.; Cassar, N; Woodward, F. I.; Quick, W. P. (2000). "Isotope Fractionation and Atmospheric Oxygen: Implications for Phanerozoic O₂ Evolution". Science. 287 (5458): 1630–3. Bibcode:2000Sci...287.1630B. doi:10.1126/science.287.5458.1630. PMID 10698733.
  28. Deconto, R. M.; Galeotti, S; Pagani, M; Tracy, D; Schaefer, K; Zhang, T; Pollard, D; Beerling, D. J. (2012). "Past extreme warming events linked to massive carbon release from thawing permafrost". Nature. 484 (7392): 87–91. Bibcode:2012Natur.484...87D. doi:10.1038/nature10929. PMID 22481362.
  29. Singarayer, J. S.; Valdes, P. J.; Friedlingstein, P; Nelson, S; Beerling, D. J. (2011). "Late Holocene methane rise caused by orbitally controlled increase in tropical sources". Nature. 470 (7332): 82–5. Bibcode:2011Natur.470...82S. doi:10.1038/nature09739. PMID 21293375.
  30. Pagani, M; Caldeira, K; Berner, R; Beerling, D. J. (2009). "The role of terrestrial plants in limiting atmospheric CO₂ decline over the past 24 million years". Nature. 460 (7251): 85–8. Bibcode:2009Natur.460...85P. doi:10.1038/nature08133. PMID 19571882.
  31. Bowen, G. J.; Beerling, D. J.; Koch, P. L.; Zachos, J. C.; Quattlebaum, T (2004). "A humid climate state during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum". Nature. 432 (7016): 495–9. Bibcode:2004Natur.432..495B. doi:10.1038/nature03115. PMID 15565152.
  32. Royer, D. L.; Osborne, C. P.; Beerling, D. J. (2003). "Carbon loss by deciduous trees in a CO₂-rich ancient polar environment" (PDF). Nature. 424 (6944): 60–2. Bibcode:2003Natur.424...60R. doi:10.1038/nature01737. PMID 12840757.
  33. Beerling, D. J.; Osborne, C. P.; Chaloner, W. G. (2001). "Evolution of leaf-form in land plants linked to atmospheric CO₂ decline in the Late Palaeozoic era" (PDF). Nature. 410 (6826): 352–4. doi:10.1038/35066546. PMID 11268207.
  34. Beerling, D. J. (2015). "Gas valves, forests and global change: a commentary on Jarvis (1976) 'The interpretation of the variations in leaf water potential and stomatal conductance found in canopies in the field'". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 370 (1666): 20140311. doi:10.1098/rstb.2014.0311. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 4360119. PMID 25750234.
  35. Franks, P. J.; Beerling, D. J. (2009). "Maximum leaf conductance driven by CO₂ effects on stomatal size and density over geologic time". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (25): 10343–7. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10610343F. doi:10.1073/pnas.0904209106. PMC 2693183. PMID 19506250.
  36. Falkowski, Paul (2007). "Secret life of plants: Book reviewed, The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History". Nature. 447 (7146): 778–779. Bibcode:2007Natur.447..778F. doi:10.1038/447778a.
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  39. "Writers and other cultural figures choose their favourite books of 2007 | The Observer". The Guardian. 25 November 2007. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  40. David Beerling on IMDb
  41. Beerling, David John (2001). Vegetation and the terrestrial carbon cycle modelling the first 400 million years. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80196-6.
  42. Jarvis, P. G. (1976). "The Interpretation of the Variations in Leaf Water Potential and Stomatal Conductance Found in Canopies in the Field". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 273 (927): 593–610. Bibcode:1976RSPTB.273..593J. doi:10.1098/rstb.1976.0035. ISSN 0962-8436.
  43. Beerling, D. J. (2015). "Newton and the ascent of water in plants". Nature Plants. 1 (2): 15005. doi:10.1038/nplants.2015.5. PMID 27246764.
  44. "Newton Figured Out How Tree Sap Rises". Scientific American. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  45. Conover, Emily (2015). "Gravity-defying trees explained by Newton". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aaa6430. ISSN 0036-8075.
  46. Beerling, David J.; Franks, Peter J. (2010). "Plant science: The hidden cost of transpiration". Nature. 464 (7288): 495–496. Bibcode:2010Natur.464..495B. doi:10.1038/464495a. PMID 20336123.
  47. "UK Government Grants awarded to David Beerling by NERC". Research Councils UK. Archived from the original on 15 April 2015.
  48. David Beerling's ORCID 0000-0003-1869-4314
  49. Anon (2014). "David Beerling FRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 19 November 2015. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." --
    "Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2016.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  50. "ERC Advanced Grants". European Research Council. Archived from the original on 28 April 2015.
  51. Taylor, Lyla L.; Quirk, Joe; Thorley, Rachel M. S.; Kharecha, Pushker A.; Hansen, James; Ridgwell, Andy; Lomas, Mark R.; Banwart, Steve A.; Beerling, David J. (2015). "Enhanced weathering strategies for stabilizing climate and averting ocean acidification". Nature Climate Change. 6 (4): 402–406. Bibcode:2016NatCC...6..402T. doi:10.1038/nclimate2882.
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