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Professor Chris D Thomas FRS is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist in the Department of Biology at the University of York. His research focuses on the dynamics of biological change in the Anthropocene, examining both positive and negative drivers of biodiversity shifts to inform environmental strategies. He served as founding Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity from 2019 to 2024. In addition to his scientific work, Thomas authored the popular science book Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction, which was named among the Books of the Year by The Times, The Economist, and The Guardian in 2017. He has co-edited nine scientific journals, and his research has been widely quoted in international media and has influenced policy development in climate change and conservation.
Thomas received the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London in 1998, the President’s Medal of the British Ecological Society in 2001, the Marsh Award for Conservation Biology in 2004, and the Marsh Award for Climate Change Research in 2011. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2012, awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Helsinki in 2014, and served as President of the Royal Entomological Society from 2018 to 2020. His current projects emphasize the ecological and evolutionary characteristics of species successful in the Anthropocene and processes underlying biodiversity gains amid rapid environmental change.
A University of York study uncovers how the Black Death led to plant biodiversity decline, not gain, informing modern rewilding debates in Europe.
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