Soils Advice: developing tailored support for managers to optimise forest soil health
Author(s): Elena Vanguelova, Beth Brockett, Grace van der Wielen, Duncan Ray, Nathan Brown
Nathan Brown
BSc, MSc, PhD
Nathan Brown
BSc, MSc, PhDEnvironmental Modeller
Physical environmental sciences
About Nathan Brown
Nathan works as an Environmental Modeller at Forest Research. He works on Tree Health issues within the physical environment group, investigating the linkages between woodland condition and the environment. He is currently using disease distribution data to reveal the role of environmental predisposition on pest and disease occurrence and conducting research to support volunteer reporting activities (Forest Lab and Observatree). Nathan returned to Forest Research in 2022, after spending 9 years working with the epidemiological modelling group at Rothamsted Research, where he was most recently involved in the SMARTIES project which investigated multiple threats to ash trees (Ash Dieback and the potential introduction of Emerald Ash Borer) across GB. Nathan has a long-standing interest in the monitoring of woodland affected by Acute Oak Decline, which began in 2009 as a MSc project with Imperial College London and Forest Research. This has continued through a PhD program and has more recently formed a component of multiple interdisciplinary research projects including BAC-STOP and Future Oak. Before this he completed a Biology BSc, at the University of Sussex, and worked as a surveyor for an arboriculture and landscape design company.
What Nathan does
Spatial modelling and data management to support tree health and soil surveys. Risk assessments for disease occurrence. Project management and funding acquisition.
Other Research
Other Publications
- Combes, M., Brown, N., Thompson, R. N., Mastin, A., Crow, P., & Parnell, S. (2025). Unlocking plant health survey data: an approach to quantify the sensitivity and specificity of visual inspections. PLOS computational biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.13.642969
- Alonso Chávez, V., Brown, N., van den Bosch, F., Parnell, S., Dyke, A., Hall, C., Karlsdottir, B., Marzano, M., Morris, J., O’Brien, L., Williams, D., & Milne, A. E. (2025). Early detection strategies for invading tree pests: Targeted surveillance and stakeholder perspectives. Journal of Applied Ecology, 62(4), 857–871. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70009
- Hall, C., Marzano, M., Karlsdóttir, B., Clarke, T., Dyke, A. J., Morris, J., Brown, N., Alonso-Chávez, V., Milne, A. E., & O’Brien, L. (2025). Ash trees in Great Britain: How might land-managers respond to a new threat? Trees, Forests and People, 21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2025.100915
- Denman, S., Brown, N., Vanguelova, E., & Crampton, B. (2022). Temperate Oak Declines: Biotic and abiotic predisposition drivers. In F. Asiegbu & A. Kovalchuk (Eds.), Forest Microbiology (pp. 239–263). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-85042-1.00020-3
- Brown, N., Pérez-Sierra, A., Crow, P., & Parnell, S. (2020). The role of passive surveillance and citizen science in plant health. CABI Agriculture and Bioscience, 1(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43170-020-00016-5
- Brown, N., Vanguelova, E., Parnell, S., Broadmeadow, S., & Denman, S. (2018). Predisposition of forests to biotic disturbance: Predicting the distribution of Acute Oak Decline using environmental factors. Forest Ecology and Management, 407 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2017.10.054
- Brown, N., van den Bosch, F., Parnell, S., & Denman, S. (2017). Integrating regulatory surveys and citizen science to map outbreaks of forest diseases: acute oak decline in England and Wales. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1859), 20170547. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0547
- Brown, N., Jeger, M., Kirk, S., Xu, X., & Denman, S. (2016). Spatial and temporal patterns in symptom expression within eight woodlands affected by Acute Oak Decline. Forest Ecology and Management, 360, 97–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2015.10.026
- Brown, N., Inward, D. J. G., Jeger, M., & Denman, S. (2015). A review of Agrilus biguttatus in UK forests and its relationship with acute oak decline. Forestry, 88(1), 53–63. https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpu039
- Denman, S., Brown, N., Kirk, S., Jeger, M., & Webber, J. (2014). A description of the symptoms of Acute Oak Decline in Britain and a comparative review on causes of similar disorders on oak in Europe. Forestry, 87(4), 535–551. https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpu010
- Selected reports and popular articles Brown, N., Combes, M., Marzano, M., Chavez, V.A., Milne, A.E. and Crow, P. (2025) The importance of visual surveys in tree health surveillance and the role of public reporting. Quarterly Journal of Forestry, 119(4):234-240 https://rfs.org.uk/brown-et-al-october-2025-qjf/
- Denman, S., & Brown, N. (2023). What Does it Take to Stop Bad Bacteria on Oak ? Quarterly Journal of Forestry, 117(2), 98–106.
- Wright, R., Finch, J., & Brown, N. (2022). Oaks and fungi in the UK. Arb Magazine, 197, 52–59.
- Reed, K., Brown, N., Vanguelova, E., Finch, J., & Denman, S. (2021). Current Understanding of Acute Oak Decline. Quarterly Journal of Forestry, 115(1), 38–45.