Species in the wrong places? Should we love or hate the biological inheritors of the Earth?

Chris Thomas is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of York, where he established the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, of which he was Director from 2019 to 2024. Chris has published over 350 articles in the scientific literature, for which he has received a number of academic prizes; he is a Fellow of the Royal Society and former President of the Royal Entomological Society. He has also authored a popular science book, Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction. Chris has engaged with environmental policy, particularly highlighting the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, the importance of connected, landscape-scale conservation projects, and the need for conservation to accept and to adjust to the inevitability of continuing environmental change. But he is happiest when watching birds, butterflies and flowers in his own wildlife meadow.