Tom Sim

Tom is part of the team establishing new research forests with funding from DEFRA’s Nature for Climate Fund (NCF). He is developing trials to evaluate genetic diversity in both native and non-native tree provenances. This includes participating in OptFORESTS, an EU Horizon 2020 project aiming to establish range wide trials exploring variation among and within keystone forest tree species.

These trials will gather evidence to support decision-making about woodland establishment under environmental change.

As the UK National Focal Point for EUFGIS, Tom is responsible for identifying and registering new Genetic Conservation Units (GCUs). The aim of GCUs is to maintain diverse populations across different environmental gradients in order to ensure continued evolutionary processes.

Tom has a BSc in Geography and an MSc by Research from the University of Leeds, with the former including a year studying abroad at the University of Queensland, Australia. He completed a PhD at the University of Leeds in 2022, investigating the ecological and fire regime responses of peatland ecosystems to climate change.

Tom joined Forest Research in May 2023 having previously worked as postdoctoral researcher at the University of Exeter and has volunteered in the conversation sector with the Cumbria Wildlife Trust and Northumberland National Park.

Affiliations

National Focal Point for EUFGIS

PhD

0300 067 5950

thomas.sim@forestresearch.gov.uk

Forest Experimental Scientist

Forest genetics

NRS

Peer reviewed journal articles

Sim T.G. et al. (2023). Regional variability in peatland burning at mid- to high-latitudes during the Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews, 305, 108020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108020

Zhang H., Väliranta M., Swindles G.T., Aquino-López M.A., Mullan D., Tan N., Amesbury M., Babeshko K.V., Bao K., Bobrov A., Chernyshov V., Davies M.A., Diaconu A.-C., Feurdean A., Finkelstein S.A., Garneau M., Guo Z., Jones M.C., Kay M., Klein E.S., Lamentowicz M., Magnan G., Marcisz K., Mazei N., Mazei Y., Payne R., Pelletier N., Piilo S.R., Pratte S., Roland T., Saldaev D., Shotyk W., Sim T.G., Sloan T.J., Słowiński M., Talbot J., Taylor L., Tsyganov A.N., Wetterich S., Xing W., Zhao Y. (2022). Recent climate change has driven divergent hydrological shifts in high-latitude peatlands. Nature Communications, 13(1), 4959. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32711-4

Gałka, M., Kołaczek, P., Sim, T. G., Knorr, K.H., Niedzielski, P., Lewandowska, A. & Szczurek, G. (2021). Palaeoenvironmental conditions and human activity in the vicinity of the Grodzisko fortified settlement (central Europe, Poland) from the late-Neolithic to the Roman period. Geoarchaeology, 37(2), 385-399. http://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21896

Sim, T.G., Swindles, G.T., Morris, P.J., Baird, A.J., Charman, D.J., Amesbury, M.J., Beilman, D., Channon, A. & Gallego-Sala, A.V. (2021). Ecology of peatland testate amoebae in Svalbard and the development of transfer functions for reconstructing past water-table depth and pH. Ecological Indicators, 131, 108122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108122

Gałka, M., Feurdean, A., Sim, T.G., Tobolski, K., Aunina, L., & Apolinarska, K., (2021). A multi-proxy long-term ecological investigation into the development of a late Holocene calcareous spring-fed fen ecosystem (Raganu Mire) and boreal forest at the SE Baltic coast (Latvia). Ecological Indicators, 126, 107673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107673

Sim, T.G., Swindles, G.T., Morris, P.J., Baird, A.J., Cooper, C.L., Gallego-Sala, A.V., Charman, D.J., Roland, T.P., Borken, W., Mullan, D.J., M.A. Aquino-López & Gałka, M. (2021). Divergent responses of permafrost peatlands to recent climate change. Environmental Research Letters, 16(3), 034001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abe00b

Swindles, G.T., Roland, T.P., Amesbury, M.J., Lamentowicz, M., McKeown, M.M., Sim, T.G., Fewster, R.E., & Mitchell, E.A.D. (2020). Quantifying the effect of testate amoeba decomposition on peat-based water-table reconstructions. European Journal of Protistology, 125693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejop.2020.125693

Wolstenholme, J.M., Smith, M.W., Baird, A.J. and Sim, T.G. A new approach to measuring surface hydrological connectivity. (2020). Hydrological Processes. 34. 538-552. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13602

Gałka, M., Lewandowska, A, Niedzielski, P., Sim, T.G., Swindles, G.T., & Szczurek, G. (2020). Late Glacial and Early Holocene development of an oxbow lake in Central Europe (Poland) based on plant macrofossil and geochemical data. The Holocene, 30(1), 178-189. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683619875803

Swindles, G.T., Morris, P.J., Mullan, D., Payne, R., Roland, T., Amesbury, M., Lamentowicz, M., Turner T.E., Gallego-Sala, A., Sim, T.G., Barr, L., Blaauw, M., Blundell, A., Frank Chambers, F., Charman, D., Feurdean, A., Galloway, J.M., Gałka, M., Green, S., Kajukało, K., Karofeld, E., Korhola, A., Lamentowicz, Ł., Langdon, P., Marcisz, K., Mauquoy, D., Mazei, Y., McKeown, M., Mitchell, E., Novenko, E., Plunkett, G., Roe, H., Schoning, K., Sillasoo, Ü., Tsyganov, A., van der Linden, M., Valiranta, M., & Warner, B. (2019). Widespread drying of European peatlands in recent centuries. Nature Geoscience, 12, 922-928. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0462-z

Sim, T.G., Swindles, G.T., Morris, P.J., Gałka, M., Mullan, D. and Galloway, J.M. (2019). Pathways for ecological change in Canadian High Arctic wetlands under rapid twentieth century warming. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(9), 4726-4737. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082611

Swindles, G.T., Outram, Z., Batt, C.M., Hamilton, W.D., Church, M.J., Bond, J.M., Watson, E.J., Cook, G.T., Sim, T.G., Newton A.J., & Dugmore, A.J. (2019). Vikings, peat formation and settlement abandonment: A multi-method chronological approach from Shetland. Quaternary Science Reviews, 210, 211-225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.02.026