PhD Studentship - Miniaturising Gross Proximate Composition Analysis Techniques to Develop Accurate Ecological Models of Marine Species Interactions at the Scale of Offshore Windfarms

Supervisor(s)

1) Dr. Samantha Richardson, University of Hull
2) Dr. Magnus Johnson, University of Hull
3) Christopher Lynam, Cefas
4) Murray Thompson, Cefas

Enquiries email: Samantha.Richardson@hull.ac.uk

Offshore Windfarms are, and will continue to be, the most significant physical anthropogenic change to the North Sea and will significantly change the seascape and surrounding ecosystems. Currently there is little understanding of these impacts, which is particularly acute for benthic organisms as they have limited habitat mobility and thus likely to be significantly affected by changing sea-beds. Benthic organisms are typically small and thus are challenging to study meaning little is known about how their proximate composition changes, this limits our ability to predict how wind farms could affect food chains.

Ecological models are a key route to understanding what the impacts of climate change could be on our marine systems. Cutting-edge fisheries models, like PANDORA, are starting to incorporate both ecological and environmental data in order to understand how whole ecosystems are likely to respond to disturbances. Ecosystem models are very data hungry requiring, ideally, information on who eats who, how much and what nutritional quality is being consumed. However, very few ecological models incorporate nutrient fluxes and the temporal variation in nutritive value of prey items. To understand these complex nutritional relationships between prey and predator at a fine scale detailed proximate composition (PC) analysis is needed.

This project will investigate how PC analysis can be miniaturised to enable more sustainable, efficient sampling at the level of small individual organisms. Successful development of these techniques will enable understanding of changes at this scale and build a much more detailed picture of ecological relationships than analysis of grouped specimens.

The successful candidate will receive comprehensive research training including technical, personal and professional skills. During this project you will develop their laboratory skills utilising spectrometry and separation sciences instruments during methodology development and implementation phases. Working towards miniaturisation of laboratory techniques develops creativity, and perseverance. This project opens a wide range of career pathways for the candidate, from analytical chemistry to data analysis to environmental officer roles in industrial or academic settings.

Further to this the project will be carried out in partnership with CEFAS and it is envisaged that this will provide significant opportunities for networking and access to a range of facilities and samples.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Master’s level with any undergraduate degree (or the international equivalents) in a relevant discipline/subject area e.g. marine biology, chemistry, environmental sciences, biochemistry, we would like to hear from you.

A suitable candidate from this project would have an interest in marine environmental sciences, laboratory analysis and data handling. They would be motivated by problem solving and enjoy method development and exploring the scientific inference between chemistry and environmental analysis.

This scholarship is only available to Home (UK) students.

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