Project Background:
Ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation are a few in a multitude of pressures linked to increased greenhouse gas emissions, expressing climate change and directly affecting ocean wildlife. They limit the ability of marine organisms to sustain populations locally, driving global scale ocean biodiversity redistribution and loss. These pressures further limit the efficacy of our best tools to preserve these species: Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs). Designing climate-smart MPAs and OECMs have therefore been global ambitions of the conservation sector for more than a decade, but real-life applications remain sparse. Alongside these challenges, coastal and open ocean ecosystems are increasingly affected by other human pressures such as plastic pollution. This ubiquitous pollutant is found from the poles to the equator, and from the coast to the deep sea. Plastics enter the ocean foodweb through direct ingestion by animals, and have been shown to transfer from prey to predator. Despite their pervasive nature, however, climate change and plastic pollution have almost never been considered together in the context of MPA and OECMdesign. This project is one of the first with the primary objective to use state-of-the art modeling and analytical approaches, from the ocean climate change and plastics research fields, to help inform how to protect marine species in the future ocean, though climate-smart and low plastic MPA and OECM network design.
Project Aims and Methods:
The candidate will have the opportunity to build on the supervisory team’s expertise and extensive professional networks to deliver a leading research project with high impact potential, aiming to address four research questions:
1) Where are low plastic and climate resilient areas of the future ocean that may effectively support the 30 x 30 target of the United Nations Convention on Biological Biodiversity (expand MPAs to 30% of the ocean by 2030)?
2) Where are the opportunities to implement climate-smart and low plastic MPAs across the UK nations, supporting the UK’s commitment to the 30 x 30 target, given the distribution of other maritime sectors?
3) Focusing on a series of charismatic species of conservation concern e.g. whales, turtles and sharks, what is the efficacy of this framework?
4) What recommendations can be made for global policy development to support the implementation of climate-smart and low plastic MPA and OECM networks around the world?
Existing methodologies developed by the supervisory team provide a solid foundation for the PhD student to expand on, including: modelling ocean plastic distributions; global ocean climate modelling, species distributional modelling and validation, and other large dataset analyses; and techniques to assess the present and future efficacy of MPAs and OECMs under different climate futures. The student will build on, and advance, these methods towards the delivery of their thesis.
The student will specifically benefit from integration in, and support from, leading research programmes in the field, including joining the prestigious NERC/ESRC Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources programme via the MSPACE project, and the EU Horizon 2020 programe FutureMARES.
Candidate requirements:
An MSc in marine ecology, conservation, or quantitative statistics; good understanding of megafauna conservation; and excellent R programming skills; prior experience of GIS; and a multi-lingual background are required.
Project partners:
This project offers the candidate a unique opportunity to join research teams in two world leading marine research institutions, providing fantastic stepping-stones for a career in marine research: Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the University of Exeter (UoE). Though global networks of collaborators, from the tropics to the poles, and collaborations with global processes such the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, PML is a leader in ocean climate change research. The Centre for Ecology and Conservation at UoE delivers cutting-edge education and research designed to address the factors that influence biodiversity and complexity in the natural world, focusing on pressing issues in animal ecology including new techniques in monitoring movement in wild animals; and the impacts of climate change. As a project collaborator, the ZSL further offers the student the opportunity to interface with a global conservation NGOs and access complementary techniques.
Training:
Beyond direct training on specific plastics modelling and species distribution modelling analyses by the supervisors, the student will be encouraged to develop analysis protocols for large satellite derived datasets to support their model validation work, under the guidance of Dr Pettorelli at ZSL. As a UKRI DTP, GW4+ further offers an excellent doctoral training programme. UoE further provides an excellent international network of collaboration and has a thriving community of PhD students working at sites across the UK and around the world.
Prospective applicants:
For information about the application process please contact the Admissions team via [Email Address Removed].
Eligibility
NERC GW4+ DTP studentships are open to UK and Irish nationals who, if successful in their applications, will receive a full studentship including payment of university tuition fees at the home fees rate.
A limited number of full studentships are also available to international students which are defined as EU (excluding Irish nationals), EEA, Swiss and all other non-UK nationals. For details please see the NERC GW4+ website.
Those not meeting the nationality and residency requirements to be treated as a ‘home’ student may apply for a limited number of full studentships for international students. Those international students offered a NERC GW4+ Doctoral Training Partnership full studentship starting in 2022 will only be charged the ‘home’ tuition fee rate.
How to apply
In order to formally apply for the PhD Project you will need to go to the following web page.
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/funding/award/?id=4296
The closing date for applications is 1600 hours GMT on Friday 10th January 2022.
Interviews will be held between 28th February and 4th March 2022.
If you have any general enquiries about the application process please email [Email Address Removed] or phone: 0300 555 60 60 (UK callers) or +44 (0) 1392 723044 (EU/International callers). Project-specific queries should be directed to the main supervisor
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