Two fully funded PhD projects in our lab - please share widely
We are offering two fully funded PhD projects on the trophic ecology of marine mammals at the University of Exeter, Penryn campus, starting in the autumn 2023. Please, make sure to contact me if you have any questions or want to know more details about the projects. You can email me at: L.Huckstadt [at] exeter.ac.uk
Project 1:
Understanding the effects of rapid environmental change on the ecology of a key Southern Ocean predator, the Antarctic fur seal
Lead Supervisor: Dr Luis Huckstadt (University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn).
Additional Supervisors: Dr Jaume Forcada (British Antarctic Survey), Dr Stuart Bearhop (University of Exeter), Dr Richard Sabin (Natural History Museum, London), Dr Sally Thorpe (British Antarctic Survey).
This project will investigate the differences in the foraging ecology and patterns of habitat utilisation of Antarctic fur seals across a latitudinal gradient across the Polar Front (South Georgia and South Shetland Islands), as well as build models to project future changes as the environment continues to change. Atmospheric, oceanographic, and sea ice conditions in this region of the Southern Ocean (western Antarctic Peninsula/Drake Passage/Scotia Sea) are rapidly shifting because of human-induced Global Climate Change and local environmental processes. Because the ecology of Antarctic fur seals is tightly linked to the population of their dominant prey, the Antarctic krill, this study will help anticipate how this important prey and the entire krill-dependent community of large predators (whales, penguins, and seals) will respond to the projected environmental changes. Further, ecological historical data from museum specimens provide a unique opportunity to detect past and project future changes in the ecology of this conspicuous Antarctic mesopredator over multiple decades.
For details, please visit https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/funding/award/?id=4596
Project 2:
Developing a novel system to monitor the status of coastal ecosystems in South West England using a complementary approach: from remote sensing to marine top predators
Lead Supervisor: Dr Luis Huckstadt (University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn).
Additional Supervisors: Dr Lauren Biermann (Plymouth Marine Laboratory), Dr Simon Ingram (University of Plymouth), Dr Stuart Bearhop (University of Exeter), Ruth Williams (Cornwall Wildlife Trust), and Rob Deaville (Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) at the Zoological Society of London).
Marine top predators have long been proposed to have the potential to serve as ‘sentinel species’ yet most of our efforts to gather ecosystem-level information from marine top predators remain limited to linking variability in individual success and mortality rates to shifts in the ecosystem productivity regime. This is likely due to the limited understanding that we have of the role of marine top predators in marine biogeochemical cycles, transfer of biomass, patterns of biological productivity, and nutrient fluxes. We propose to develop an ecological monitoring system of the coastal marine ecosystem in South West England by combining approaches: bottom-up (remote sensing) and top-down (biogeochemical markers in marine top predators). By combining these two perspectives of ecosystem monitoring, we will gain a better understanding of how changes at the base of the ecosystem are dispersed through the trophic web until they reach top predators. We will be able to determine the sources and pathways of carbon that support the populations of pelagic fish and marine predators (trophic fluxes), allowing us to empirically link a particular perturbation in the area with the components of the ecosystem that might be affected (e.g.: the effects of temperature anomalies or Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) on fish stocks and marine predators).
Because we are aiming at obtaining a better ecological understanding of mid-trophic species by using this combined monitoring approach, this project will have a direct effect on ecosystem and fisheries management, improving our ability to make better decisions about fishing stocks and other human economic activities in the area that depend on the marine ecosystem.
For details, please visit https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/student-life/your-studies/research-degrees/centre-for-doctoral-training-in-sustainable-management-of-uk-marine-resources/study
