Miniaturising gross proximate composition analysis techniques to develop accurate ecological models of marine species interactions at the scale of offshore windfarms

Project Description:

This PhD scholarship is offered by the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience; a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Loughborough and Sheffield. The project is sponsored by industry partner, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture (CEFAS). The successful applicant will undertake six-month of training with the rest of the CDT cohort at the University of Hull before continuing their PhD research in Hull.

Offshore Windfarms are, and will continue to be, the most significant physical anthropogenic change to the North Sea and will significantly change the seascape and surrounding ecosystems. Currently there is little understanding of these impacts, which is particularly acute for benthic organisms as they have limited habitat mobility and thus likely to be significantly affected by changing sea beds. Benthic organisms are typically small and thus are challenging to study meaning little is known about how their proximate composition changes, this limits our ability to predict how wind farms could affect food chains.

Ecological models are a key route to understanding what the impacts of climate change could be on our marine systems. Cutting-edge fisheries models, like PANDORA, are starting to incorporate both ecological and environmental data in order to understand how whole ecosystems are likely to respond to disturbances. Ecosystem models are very data hungry requiring, ideally, information on who eats who, how much and what nutritional quality is being consumed. However, very few ecological models incorporate nutrient fluxes and the temporal variation in nutritive value of prey items. To understand these complex nutritional relationships between prey and predator at a fine scale detailed proximate composition (PC) analysis is needed.

This project will investigate how PC analysis can be miniaturised to enable more sustainable, efficient sampling at the level of small individual organisms. Successful development of these techniques will enable understanding of changes at this scale and build a much more detailed picture of ecological relationships than analysis of grouped specimens.

Training and development

You will benefit from a taught programme, giving you a broad understanding of the breadth and depth of current and emerging offshore wind sector needs. This begins with an intensive six-month programme at the University of Hull for the new student intake, drawing on the expertise and facilities of all four academic partners. It is supplemented by Continuing Professional Development (CPD), which is embedded throughout your 4-year research scholarship.

The successful candidate will receive comprehensive research training including technical, personal and professional skills. During this project you will develop their laboratory skills utilising spectrometry and separation sciences instruments during methodology development and implementation phases. Working towards miniaturisation of laboratory techniques develops creativity, and perseverance. This project opens a wide range of career pathways for the candidate depending on their preferred aspects from analytical chemistry to data analysis to environmental officer roles in industrial or academic settings.

Further to this the project will be carried out in partnership with CEFAS and it is envisaged that this will provide significant opportunities for networking and access to a range of facilities and samples.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Masters level with any undergraduate degree (or the international equivalents) in a relevant discipline/subject area e.g. marine biology, chemistry, environmental sciences, biochemistry, we would like to hear from you.

A suitable candidate from this project would have an interest in marine environmental sciences, laboratory analysis and data handling. They would be motivated by problem solving and enjoy method development and exploring the scientific inference between chemistry and environmental analysis.

If your first language is not English, or you require a Student Visa to study, you will be required to provide evidence of your English language proficiency level that meets the requirements of the Aura CDT’s academic partners. This course requires academic IELTS 7.0 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each skill. Please contact [Email Address Removed] for further guidance or questions.

If you have any queries about the project, please contact Dr Samantha Richardson, samantha.richardson@hull.ac.uk or Dr Magnus Johnson, M.johnson@hull.ac.uk

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

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Funding Notes

The Offshore Wind CDT is funded by EPSRC, allowing us to provide scholarships for Home students that cover fees plus a stipend set at the UKRI nationally agreed rates, circa £19,795 per annum at 2025/26 rates (subject to progress). In addition, a number of scholarships will be made available for International students.

Eligibility

Research Council funding for postgraduate research has residence requirements. Our CDT scholarships are available to Home (UK) Students. To be considered a Home student, and therefore eligible for a full award, a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the scholarship (with some further constraint regarding residence for education). For full eligibility information, please refer to the EPSRC website.

We also allocate a number of scholarships for International Students per cohort.