Dr Fabrizia Ratto

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds in 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher on a GCRF funded project in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa (VOICES: Valuing Orchards and Integrated Crops Ecosystem Services). The project aimed at documenting the interactive effects of landscape context, orchard management and ownership on fruit production.

My current work with a GCRF Cluster project at the University of Leeds, focusses on the scaling-up of biocontrol innovation in Africa. Using systematic review and meta-analysis techniques, my work aims to understand how biocontrol interventions have been implemented in sub-Saharan Africa and identify potential barriers to the adoption of biocontrol practices.

My career in ecology started with a BSc in Natural Sciences at the University of Milan, I received a MSc Degree in Biodiversity Conservation at Bournemouth University and a Ph.D. in pollination ecology at the University of Southampton.

My MSc project aimed to identify key habitat requirements of Aporia crataegi (Black-veined White Butterfly), through adult behaviour and habitat availability studies, as well as to contribute to the wider project of Butterfly Conservation to establish whether suitable habitat conditions for this butterfly are currently available in the UK.

For my PhD research, I investigated the potential consequences of losing pollination services that are essential to human well-being and provided tools to measure the value of this service to inform biodiversity conservation, both in agricultural and natural ecosystems. My interdisciplinary thesis drawn on work from the Biological Sciences and Geography departments at the University of Southampton and partners such as The University of Cambridge, BirdLife International, the RSPB.

Research interests

My principal research interests include invertebrate ecology, insect-mediated ecosystem services, their protection and enhancement in agricultural systems. More broadly, I am drawn to research that provides applicable solutions to reconcile the needs of biodiversity conservation and those of an increasing human population in the face of climate change.
Particularly, I am intersted in investigating how land-management strategies and biological control approaches can enhance the delivery of insect-mediated ecosystem services to agriculture and support sustainable agriculture and ecological intensification.
 

Qualifications

• PhD Ecology, University of Southampton
• MSc Biodiversity Conservation, Bournamouth University
• BSc (first) Natural Sciences, Universita Statale di MIlano

Professional memberships

• British Ecological Society
• Royal Entomological Society