Overview

Dan Bebber obtained his PhD in Tropical Ecology at the University of Oxford, studying the effect of El Nino-related drought and insect herbivores on tree regeneration in Sabah, Malaysia. He then moved to the Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto to take up a post-doctoral position in forest regeneration in Ontario, followed by a research into the role of fungi in forest nutrient dynamics at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford. In 2007 he joined the environmental NGO Earthwatch, based in Oxford, as Head of Climate Change Research, managing an international citizen science research programme into forest carbon dynamics. He joined Exeter in 2013, studying the global distributions of crop pests and pathogens and the impacts of climate change on crop production. He is particularly interested in abiotic and biotic threats to tropical crops like coffee and banana, and works closely with the organization CABI on pest and pathogen impacts. He is currently Chair of the British Mycological Society's Fungal Biology Research Committee, and co-Technical Director of CABI's Global Burden of Crop Loss initiative.

Qualifications

MA, DPhil (Oxford)

Career

2000-2001: Researcher, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto

2002-2006: Researcher, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford

2007-2012: Head of Climate Change Research, Earthwatch, Oxford

2013-2015: Senior Research Fellow, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter

2016-2019: Senior Lecturer in Microbial Ecology, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter

2020-: Associate Professor in Ecology, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter

Research group links

• Environmental Biology
• Environment and Sustainability
• Environmental change
• Disease Ecology and Evolution

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Research

Research interests

Broad research specialisms:

• plant pathogen epidemiology
• fungal ecology
• food security
• species distributions

Research projects

BananEx - Securing the future of the UK's favourite fruit: Global Food Security project funded by BBSRC, NERC, ESRC and Scottish Government, 2016-2019.

MUSA - Microbial Uptakes for Sustainable management of major bananA pests and diseases: EC Horizon 2020 project, 2017-2021

Impact of Climate Change on UK Agriculture: Turing Institute funded project with Joint Centre for Environmental Intelligence (Exeter), Rothamsted Research, John Innes Centre and University of Cambridge, 2021-2023

Research networks

Open Plant Pathology https://openplantpathology.org/

Research grants

• 2017 Horizon 2020
  MUSA -Microbial Uptakes for Sustainable management of major bananA pests and diseases is a 4-year, €4 million international project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 initiative.
• 2016 BBSRC
  The UK is highly dependent on imported fruit and vegetables that make up eighty per cent of the market, compared with half of cereals and one sixth of meat and dairy produce. Yet, fruit and vegetables are a key component of a healthy diet, often overlooked in studies of global food security that tend to focus on the major grains. Reliance on imports makes the UK vulnerable to instabilities in international production and supply, placing the issue of resilience of the UK food system firmly in a global context. This vulnerability is epitomized by the banana, the most popular fruit in the UK by consumption, and the most important fruit in the world by production. More than five billion bananas are purchased in Britain each year, and the UK accounts for seven per cent of the global export market. Though hundreds of banana varieties are grown around the world for domestic consumption, only one variety, Cavendish, is internationally traded. The previous export variety, Gros Michel, was eliminated by Panama Disease (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense) in the 1950s, and now a new virulent strain, Tropical Race 4 (TR4), is emerging from Asia to threaten Cavendish. No alternative tradable varieties are available, and no chemical disease controls exist. If TR4 reaches Latin America and the Caribbean, supply to the US and EU will collapse, with significant impacts on the UK diet and on producers in the developing world. The vulnerability of the banana trade is an extreme case of the more general issue of imported crops that are vulnerable to emerging pests and diseases, for example citrus greening disease devastating oranges in Florida and California. Around the world efforts are underway to develop a resistant export banana variety, using both conventional breeding and genetic modification, as well as research into disease detection and alternative methods of control. However, the banana remains under-researched compared with the major crops, there has been little academic analysis of the resilience of the banana trade nor development of mitigation strategies to maintain supply or manage the impact of sudden catastrophe. In this multidisciplinary research programme, we will work with the UN FAO World Banana Forum (WBF) to collate detailed data on production levels, disease impacts, and mitigation methods. We will analyse patterns, trends and drivers of banana production, including pests, diseases, management, and climate, to provide robust models of production and how this could vary in future as diseases spread and the climate changes. We will test a new antifungal compound against TR4, to determine whether chemical control could mitigate production impacts while alternative resistant varieties remain under development. We will develop an economic model that characterizes the main features of the UK value chain, forming the basis for assessing the price transmission impacts following shocks in upstream markets and, by extension, the impact on UK consumers and the responses by UK food retailers and other market intermediaries. We will calibrate the theoretical framework and simulate the impact of projected production shocks in exporting countries on UK consumers, and derive the welfare impact for participants at each stage of the value chain. The banana market is politically sensitive, and over the past decade the price of bananas in the UK has declined, while production costs have increased, placing pressure on producers. Via the WBF, the UK charity Banana Link and the food sector consultancy 3Keel we will engage the UK retail sector and other stakeholders in rigorous key informant analysis of potential responses to vulnerabilities in the sector, impacts of prices rises on the UK consumer, feedbacks to producers, and strategies to improve resilience to production shocks. Our goal is to secure the future of the UK's favourite fruit, and provide a case study for improving the resilience of other vulnerable imported commodities.

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External Engagement and Impact

Journal and book series Editorships and Editorial board membership

Associate Editor, Tropical Plant Pathology 

Associate Editor, Ecological Solutions and Evidence

Associate Editor, Fungal Ecology

Member, Fungal Biology Research Group of the British Mycological Society

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Teaching

I manage the 3rd year undergraduate module "Living in a Microbial World", which discusses the roles and functions that microbes play in global biogeochemistry and ecosystem function, and how we can harness the power of microbes in biotechnology.

I also teach MSc module BIOM563 Crop Security.

Modules

2023/24

• BIO3037 - Ecology of Environmental Change
• BIO3097 - Living in a Microbial World
• BIOM543 - Ecology of Environmental Change
• BIOM546 - Living in a Microbial World

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Supervision / Group

Postdoctoral researchers

Postgraduate researchers

Alumni

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