Georgina Mace’s research projects covered a range of topics that related to the trends and consequences of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change. She developed the criteria for measuring species extinction risk that are now used by the IUCN for their regular Red Lists of Threatened Species. Georgina also identified the factors that cause different species to be more or less vulnerable to extinction. She developed approaches to understanding climate change impacts and how this varies between species and in different ecosystems.
A second area of research concerns ecosystem services and natural capital accounting, which she became interested in through her work on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the United Kingdom’s National Ecosystem Assessment. Georgina has been especially concerned with evaluating the links between biodiversity and ecosystem services, incorporating ecosystem services into biodiversity targets and examining trade-offs amongst ecosystem services. Most recently, she developed a new approach to measuring the loss of natural capital, using a risk register.
For her services to environmental science, Georgina was awarded an OBE in 1998, a CBE in 2007 and made a DBE in 2016.
Dame Georgina Mace DBE FRS died on 19 September 2020.
Professional position
- Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London (UCL)
Subject groups
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Patterns in Populations
Ecology (incl behavioural ecology), Taxonomy and systematics, Organismal biology (including invertebrate and vertebrate zoology)
Awards
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International Cosmos Prize
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Rutherford Memorial Lecture
How should we value nature in a human-dominated world?
