The Department of Biology, established in 2022, is a science department in the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. It was formed on 1 August 2022 after a merger between the Department of Plant Sciences and Department of Zoology. The department has two main buildings: Department of Biology (Mansfield Road) and Department of Biology (South Parks Road). It also has an additional field station, The John Krebs Field Station, based in

Wytham Wytham ( ) is a village and civil parish on the Seacourt Stream, a branch of the River Thames, about northwest of the centre of Oxford. It is just west of the Western By-Pass Road, part of the Oxford Ring Road ( A34). The nearest village is ...

Overview

The Department's research spans levels from molecules to ecosystems in order to address fundamental questions relating to

food security Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, healthy Human food, food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender, ethnicity, or religion is another element of food protection. Simila ...

plant molecular biology The ''Plant Molecular Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of plant molecular biology. It was established in 1981 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Motoaki Seki. According t ...

, disease biology, evolutionary mechanisms,

conservation biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an i ...

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

evolutionary developmental biology Evolutionary developmental biology, informally known as evo-devo, is a field of biological research that compares the developmental biology, developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolution, evolved. ...

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

and

animal behaviour Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

. This department also delivers the teaching of an undergraduate MBiol degree in biology. Within its research portfolio, the department incorporates several research institutes such as the

Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology The Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology (EGI), at Oxford University in England, is an academic body that conducts research in ornithology and the general field of evolutionary ecology and conservation biology, with an emphasis on under ...

(EGI), the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU); as well as housing the Oxford University

Herbaria A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

. Several members of academic staff work within the Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research and were involved in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional partnerships and resources of the Department include the

Oxford University Museum of Natural History The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the univers ...

, the Oxford

Botanic Garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

and Arboretum, the John Krebs Field Station and

Wytham Woods Wytham Woods is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north-west of Oxford in Oxfordshire. It is a Nature Conservation Review site. Habitats in this site, which formerly belonged to Abingdon Abbey, include ancient woodland and limest ...

Research themes

Research at the Department of Biology is grouped into five broad and cross-cutting themes: *

Behaviour Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of Individual, individuals, organisms, systems or Artificial intelligence, artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or or ...

Biomechanics Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to Organ (anatomy), organs, Cell (biology), cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechani ...

Ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

& Conservation *

Evolutionary Biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biolo ...

Microbiology Microbiology () is the branches of science, scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular organism, unicellular (single-celled), multicellular organism, multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or non-cellular life, acellula ...

Infectious Disease An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...

Molecular A molecule is a group of two or more atoms that are held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions that satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, ...

Plant Biology Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empiri ...

Notable staff

The following people of note are or have been associated with the Department: *

Roy M. Anderson Sir Roy Malcolm Anderson (born 12 April 1947) is a leading international authority on the epidemiology and control of infectious diseases. He is the author, with Robert May, of the most highly cited book in this field, entitled '' Infectiou ...

* Timothy Coulson (Former Head of Department) *

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

* Liam Dolan *

Charles Elton Charles Elton may refer to: * Charles Isaac Elton (1839–1900), English lawyer, politician, writer and antiquarian * Charles Sutherland Elton (1900–1991), English biologist * Charles Elton (police), Chief of Police in Los Angeles, California (19 ...

* E S Goodrich *

Sunetra Gupta Sunetra Gupta (born 15 March 1965) is an Indian-born British infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. She has performed research on the transmission dynamic ...

* John Gurdon * Bill Hamilton * Nicholas Harberd * Sir Alistair Hardy *

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

(Former Head of Department) * Steven A. Hill * Peter Holland (Former Head of Department) *

John Krebs John Richard Krebs, Baron Krebs, FRS (born 11 April 1945) is an English zoologist researching in the field of behavioural ecology of birds. He was the principal of Jesus College, Oxford, from 2005 until 2015. Lord Krebs was President of the ...

David Lack David Lambert Lack FRS (16 July 1910 – 12 March 1973) was a British evolutionary biologist who made contributions to ornithology, ecology, and ethology. His 1947 book, ''Darwin's Finches'', on the finches of the Galapagos Islands was a land ...

* Jane A. Langdale * Sir E Ray Lankester * Chris J. Leaver * Bob May * Angela McLean * E.J. Milner-Gulland (Former Head of Department) *

Desmond Morris Desmond John Morris FLS ''hon. caus.'' (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book ''The Naked Ape'', and for his televis ...

Chris Perrins Christopher Miles Perrins, (born 11 May 1935) is Emeritus Fellow of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and His Majesty's Warden of the Swans since 1993. Educat ...

* John Pringle * Ben Sheldon (Former Head of Department) * Sir Richard Southwood *

Niko Tinbergen Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen ( , ; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning th ...

Katherine Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, (born 16 January 1964) is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodive ...

History

The Department of Biology was formed from the merging of the former Departments of Plant Sciences and Zoology on the 1 August 2022. The former Department of Zoology, founded in 1860, was housed in the Tinbergen Building until it was demolished in Spring 2022. Designed in 1965 by Sir Leslie Martin (who also designed the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London, England. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a G ...

) and opened in 1971, the Tinbergen Building was a large

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

building housing over 1,600 staff and students. It was Oxford University's largest building at the time. In February 2017, university officials announced that the Tinbergen Building would be closed for two years and all research and teaching activities of the Department would be moved elsewhere. This was due to the discovery of more

asbestos Asbestos ( ) is a group of naturally occurring, Toxicity, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous Crystal habit, crystals, each fibre (particulate with length su ...

than had been previously known; too much than could be removed during necessary maintenance with the building remaining occupied. The former Department of Plant Sciences was formed from the Imperial Forestry Institute. The 'Imperial Forestry Institute' was formed from in 1924,; later it became the

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...

Forestry Institute from 1939. The Oxford Forestry Institute was incorporated and became the Department of Plant Sciences in 2002. In January 2021, the

Oxford City Council Oxford City Council is the local authority for the city of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. Oxford has had a council since medieval times, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1974, Oxford has been a non-metropolitan district, wi ...

approved the £200m construction of the Life and Mind Building, which will be the university's largest building project and house the Departments of Experimental Psychology and Biology. It will replace the Tinbergen Building on

South Parks Road South Parks Road is a road in Oxford, England. It runs east–west past the main Science Area of the University of Oxford. Many of the university science departments are located nearby or face the road, including parts of the geography, z ...

. The building will feature multiple laboratories, teaching and testing spaces providing research facilities for 800 students and 1200 researchers. Work started in 2021, with the building expected to open in 2025.

External links

Life and Mind Building website

References

{{reflist Departments of the University of Oxford Research institutes in Oxford