Dr Oscar Morton

School of Biosciences

Research Associate

image of Dr Oscar Morton in a field
Profile picture of image of Dr Oscar Morton in a field
o.morton@sheffield.ac.uk
Alfred Denny Building

Full contact details

Dr Oscar Morton
School of Biosciences
Alfred Denny Building
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
Profile

Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, ±¬ÁÏTV (2025 - Present)
Post-doctoral researcher, University of Cambridge (2023 - 2025)
Research data manager, ±¬ÁÏTV (2021 - 2023)
PhD in "Understanding the species-level impacts of wildlife trade", ±¬ÁÏTV (2019 - 2022)
MRes Ecology and Environment, ±¬ÁÏTV (2018 - 2019)

Research interests

I'm interested in how we can best manage the current biodiversity crisis to ensure the best outcomes for people and nature. This spans from understanding why species are threatened to ensuring we have robust methods to assess the effectiveness of conservation actions. My current work focuses around 3 core themes.

(1) What determines how species are and are not used by people, how we can predict and assess when/if this use becomes a threat, and if unsustainable how will any impacts cascade through ecosystems and functional space.

(2) Can we harness large scale citizen science data and counterfactual approaches to develop a scalable evidence base to assess the impacts of species use across space and time.

(3) Developing tools to collect near real-time data on the illegal trade and use of species (seizures etc.) and the subsequent methods to address the limitations inherent to data on illegal activities. 

Publications

Journal articles

  • Vale PD, Bousfield C, Morton O, Poffley J, Lamb I, Koffi BJC, Koné I, Garrett RD & Edwards DP (2026) . Environmental Research Letters, 21(5), 059501-059501.
  • Berger I, Kamble A, Morton O, Raj V, Nair SR, Edwards DP, Wauchope HS, Joshi V, Basu P, Smith B & Dicks LV (2025) . Nature Ecology & Evolution.
  • Berger I, Kamble A, Morton O, Raj V, Nair SR, Joshi V & Dicks LV (2025) . Landscape Ecology, 40(7).
  • Meeks D, Morton O & Edwards DP (2025) . Current Biology, 35(12), 2848-2857.e3.
  • Bousfield CG, Morton O, Lindenmayer DB, Pellegrini AFA, Hethcoat MG & Edwards DP (2025) . Nature Communications, 16(1).
  • Hughes AC, Morton O & Edwards DP (2025) . Conservation Letters, 18(2).
  • Werling JL, Morton O & Edwards DP (2025) . Biological Conservation, 302.
  • Meeks D, Morton O & Edwards DP (2025) . Ecological Applications, 35(1).
  • Naqinezhad A, Morton O & Edwards DP (2024) . Communications Earth & Environment, 5.
  • Morton O, Nijman V & Edwards DP (2024) . Nature Ecology & Evolution, 8, 2048-2057.
  • Bousfield CG, Morton O & Edwards DP (2024) . Nature Climate Change, 14(10), 1071-1077.
  • Assersohn K, Morton O, Slate J & Hemmings N (2024) . Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 291(2019).
  • Morton O, Nijman V & Edwards DP (2024) . Journal of Environmental Management, 354, 120240-120240.
  • Paplauskas S, Morton O, Hunt M, Courage A, Swanney S, Dennis SR, Becker D, Auld SKJR & Beckerman AP (2024) . Ecology and Evolution, 14(2).
  • Meeks D, Morton O & Edwards DP (2024) . People and Nature, 6(2), 446-457.
  • Jackson A, Edwards DP & Morton O (2023) . Global Ecology and Conservation, 48, e02742-e02742.
  • Hughes LJ, Massam MR, Morton O, Edwards FA, Scheffers BR & Edwards DP (2023) . Nature, 620(7973), 351-357.
  • Morton O, Scheffers BR, Haugaasen T & Edwards DP (2023) . Conservation Biology, 37(4).
  • Hughes LJ, Morton O, Scheffers BR & Edwards DP (2022) . Biological Reviews.
  • Morton O, Scheffers BR, Haugaasen T & Edwards DP (2022) . Current Biology, 32(5), 999-1009.
  • Davies RW, Morton O, Lawson D, Mallord JW, Nelson L, Boafo K, Lamb I & Edwards DP (2021) . Environmental Research Letters, 16(11).
  • Morton O, Borah JR & Edwards DP (2020) . Environmental Research Letters, 15(6).
  • Valé PD, Bousfield C, Morton O, Poffley J, Lamb I, Koffi BJC, Kone I, Garrett RD & Edwards DP () . Environmental Research Letters.
  • Berger I, Kamble A, Morton O, Raj V, Nair SR, Edwards DP, Wauchope HS, Joshi V, Basu P, Smith B & Dicks LV () . Nature Ecology & Evolution.
  • Morton O, Scheffers BR, Haugaasen T & Edwards DP () . Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(4), 540-548.

Preprints

  • Berger I, Kamble A, Morton O, Raj V, Nair S, Edwards D, Wauchope H, Joshi V, Basu P, Smith B & Dicks L (2024) , Springer Science and Business Media LLC.
Professional activities and memberships

Member of the British Ecological Society
Trustee for Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust