Nottingham University is a major research-led institution in the UK and a member of Universitas 21. The Schools of Biology and Biosciences (www) have broad research activities in Plant, Microbial, Animal and Soil Sciences. Environmental interests are strong, especially in polar ecology. Projects are currently underway in the Antarctic, on Svalbard and on peatland systems of northernmost Scotland. The Schools have excellent facilities for sample preparation and chemical analyses which have recently been upgraded under the UK Government SRIF-3 scheme.

Peter Crittenden is an ecologist with expertise in plant-microbial interactions. He has worked extensively on the ecology of, and nitrogen cycling in, lichen-dominated ecosystems in both polar and hot desert ecosystems. Specific topics include nitrogen deposition in rainfall and snow and its retention by lichens, spatial variation in soil fertility in lichen woodlands, nitrogen fixation by lichens in boreal forests and impacts of acid and nitrogen deposition on lichens.

Scott Young is a Senior Lecturer in Soil Chemistry. His major research expertise is in soil chemical processes governing the post-depositional fate of pollutants (nitrogen, metals, radionuclides). He has recently worked on soil microbial capture of nitrogen in high Arctic soils on Svalbard funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and metal deposition in the taiga and tundra regions of northern Russia within the TUNDRA and SPICE projects.