Project Description
Supervisors
Dr Benjamin Ciotti, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth – contact me
Dr Keiron Fraser, University of Plymouth
Professor Clive Trueman, University of Southampton
Dr Mark Rawling, University of Plymouth
Scientific Background
Fisheries and fish biodiversity depend on coastal nurseries which are heavily exposed to human activities. In particular, commercially important flatfish, such as turbot, sole and plaice, rely critically on knee- or waist-deep areas of sandy beaches in their first summer. In heatwaves, these shallows warm rapidly but also receive an influx of beachgoers. Impacts of warming and human disturbance on these coastal nurseries are little studied, but likely include direct feeding interference and thermal stress as well as indirect effects through displacement to suboptimal habitats, ultimately impacting growth, survival and recruitment to the adult population. This project aims to untangle the interactive effects of increased temperature and human disturbance on fish nurseries through applications of state-of-the-art tools, developed at Plymouth and Southampton, for measuring metabolism, growth and stress responses in situ.
Research Methodology
Working at University of Plymouth’s exceptional Brixham Laboratory, the student will explore physiological responses of juvenile turbot to temperature increase under different feeding conditions. Turbot are commercially valuable, locally available, with well-developed husbandry practices; juveniles rely on the most-impacted, shallowest areas of beaches around Plymouth. Physiological traits investigated will include metabolic rate, growth rate, protein synthesis, oxidative stress as well as field proxies for these processes (RNA-based indices, otolith carbon-isotope chemistry). Field investigations using the proxies will then examine influences of warming and human presence on distribution, feeding, growth energetics and stress in situ. Bringing insights from these efforts to an existing long-term beach-sampling dataset, the student will identify drivers of nursery habitat quality and apply this to forecast changes under future scenarios.
Training
The PhD presents an unrivalled opportunity to complement cutting-edge experimental work in controlled aquaria with field approaches, developing a broad, in-demand skillset relevant to contemporary fisheries and conservation management. Training will be provided in field sampling, fish husbandry and advanced analytical approaches that bridge pioneering expertise of the supervisors: biochemical growth and stress indices (Ciotti+Rawling), flooding dose methods to measure protein synthesis (Fraser), geochemical approaches to infer field metabolic rate (Trueman).
Person Specification
Would suit individuals with interests in ecophysiology fisheries/conservation ecology who seek to combine laboratory and field approaches.
Acceptable first degree subject(s): Biological, environmental, marine or related science.