Prof J Gill, Dr Jennifer Smart, Dr Samantha Franks
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
This PhD, in collaboration with top UK conservation charities, will address the conservation needs of threatened wading birds. Breeding populations of large-bodied migratory waders across the world are in sharp decline, and we urgently need to identify actions to reverse these declines. The UK hosts around one-quarter of the world’s population of breeding Eurasian Curlews, and this species is now the most threatened wader in the UK. National-scale analyses have implicated changes in land use practices and predation pressure as key contributors to Curlew declines and range contraction. This study will address the urgent need to identify the types and scales of land management that could potentially deliver sustainable breeding Curlew populations on lowland farmland.
This project will be based in Eastern England and will have a strong fieldwork component. To test specific hypotheses regarding the demographic and distributional consequences of land management, the study will combine regional-scale surveys of abundance and distribution, local-scale studies of breeding success and tracking of individuals to determine patterns of movement and habitat use. Field-based and remote-sensing datasets will be used to quantify landscape structure and land management characteristics, and to construct models of Curlew population dynamics in response to a range of prospective conservation and management options.
Students will receive training in field and analytical techniques, including bird and habitat surveying, spatial analyses, and modelling population responses to environmental conditions. The student will benefit from a close collaboration with organisations working on breeding wader conservation, including Drs Samantha Franks and Niall Burton from the BTO (CASE partner, https://www.bto.org/science) and Dr Jennifer Smart from the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/centre-for-conservation-science/).
Candidates must have a good Honours degree in a relevant subject area (Ecology, Biology or Environmental Science), and ideally will have an MSc in an ecological discipline. Applicants should have a strong interest in applied conservation, and will ideally have good knowledge of avian ecology and experience in conducting fieldwork, especially ornithological field research. Experience in bird surveying, ringing and/or nest-finding is desirable. Experience of handling large datasets and use of GIS and relevant statistical approaches will be an advantage.
EnvEast welcomes applicants from quantitative disciplines who may have limited background in environmental sciences. Excellent candidates will be considered for an award of an additional 3-month stipend to take appropriate advanced-level courses in the subject area.
This project has been shortlisted for funding by the EnvEast NERC Doctoral Training Partnership, comprising the Universities of East Anglia, Essex and Kent, with over twenty other research partners. Undertaking a PhD with the EnvEast DTP will involve attendance at mandatory training events throughout the course of the PhD.
Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed on 12/13 February 2018.
For further information, please visit www.enveast.ac.uk/apply.
For more information on the supervisor for this project, please go here: https://www.uea.ac.uk/biological-sciences/people/profile/j-gill
Type of programme: PhD
Start date of project: October 2018
Mode of study: Full time or part time
Length of studentship: 3.5 years
Acceptable first degree: Ecology, Biology or Environmental Science
Minimum entry requirement: 2:1 or equivalent.
Funding Notes
Successful candidates who meet RCUK’s eligibility criteria will be awarded a NERC studentship - in 2017/18, the stipend is £14,553. In most cases, UK and EU nationals who have been resident in the UK for 3 years are eligible for a stipend. For non-UK EU-resident applicants NERC funding can be used to cover fees, RTSG and training costs, but not any part of the stipend. Individual institutes may, however, elect to provide a stipend from their own resources.
References
1. Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Brown, D.J., Douglas, D.J.T. et al. (2017) A global threats overview for Numeniini populations: synthesising expert knowledge for a group of declining migratory birds. Bird Conservation International, 27, 6–34.
2. Laidlaw, R.A., Smart, J., Smart, M.A. & Gill, J.A. (2017) Scenarios of habitat management options to reduce predator impacts on nesting waders. Journal of Applied Ecology, 54, 1219–1229.
3. Laidlaw, R.A., Smart, J., Smart, M.A. and Gill, J.A. (2015). The influence of landscape features on nest predation rates of grassland‐breeding waders. Ibis, 157, 700-712.
4. Franks, S.E., Douglas, D.J.T, Gillings, S. & Pearce-Higgins, J.W. (2017) Environmental correlates of breeding abundance and population change of Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata in Britain. Bird Study. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00063657.2017.1359233
5. Leigh, S.G., Smart, J. & Gill, J.A. (2016) Impacts of grassland management on wader nest predation rates in adjacent nature reserves. Animal Conservation, 20, 61–71.
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