Prevention, Control and Eradication of Invasive Species (1; Queen’s University Belfast)

PhD studentship is funded (EU/UK Students only) and will start on 1st March 2016.

Institution: School of Biological Sciences, Medical and Biological Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7BL, N. Ireland, UK.

Partner: INVAS Biosecurity Ltd., Ireland

Co-Supervisor: Dr Joe Caffrey

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) cites the impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) as “immense, insidious, and usually irreversible”, with new EU legislation on “the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species (IAS)” to be implemented in 2016. Increasingly, IAS threaten biodiversity, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, recreation, and human and animal/plant health, with £Billions in annual economic costs. It is thus timely to boost research and development capacity to tackle IAS at local, regional and global scales. This fully funded PhD project will join a range of research projects on invasive species being conducted at Queen’s University Belfast and the Institute of Technology Sligo, partnered with INVAS Biosecurity, to tackle IAS problems with multiple approaches. The student will address: (1) systematic reviews and horizon scans of IAS issues in general and within Ireland in particular; (2) development of communications for prevention, control and eradication of IAS. Further, the student will develop biosecurity protocols with disinfectants, such as Virkon, using ecotoxicological methods and, in the laboratory and field, develop control and eradication methods for the invasive Asian clam, Corbicula fluminea (e.g. based on dry ice application). The student will benefit from research and training in a truly inter-disciplinary environment at Queen’s University Belfast and IT Sligo and with practitioners in the field (INVAS Biosecurity), with further opportunities to collaborate with ecologists, engineers, geographers, sociologists, state agencies, government and regulators, industry stakeholders and local communities.