Marine fish are exposed to a variety of chemical pollutants accumulating throughout the marine food web. Climate change alters the movement of fish communities, and so this project will track how chemical risk changes as fish species distributions track our changing climate. The research focuses on exploring climate induced changes on the vulnerability of marine fish communities to anthropogenic pollutants for the wider marine food web, ecosystem functions and services. 

Through the development of a comprehensive database covering contaminant load, location, species traits and fish phylogeny, statistical models will be developed to predict contaminant load based on fish traits. This allows quantification of the distribution of North Sea fish species, with a further aim to predict how contaminant impacts on fish communities will change as the climate changes.

Contact: hbond-taylor1@sheffield.ac.uk 

Over a 6-month period, we will investigate the impact of NC mixtures on aquatic macroinvertebrates across the River Taff catchment (Wales, UK). By simultaneously monitoring NC concentrations, macroinvertebrate community structure and functional endpoints (e.g. growth rate and diet), we aim to identify functional impacts of NC pollution in a real-world system.  

Incorporating the field data on NC concentrations, this project will then employ a combination of aquatic macroinvertebrate micro- and meso-cosm systems to further investigate select NCs in controlled conditions, seeking to address two main questions: (1) how do NCs alter ecological interactions (e.g., predation and competition) and the complex networks these interactions form; and (2) do changes to ecological networks result in alterations in ecosystem functioning (e.g. nutrient cycling, water filtration)?

Ultimately, this project seeks to highlight the importance of incorporating behavioural end points and impacts to ecosystem services within standard ecotoxicological tests to inform chemical risk assessment.

Contact: dsouzajm@cardiff.ac.uk 

To do this, I will (i) quantify the direct impacts of nitrogen dioxide exposure on insect fitness, (ii) quantifythe indirect impacts of nitrogen dioxide exposure through host-plant-mediated interactions with insects, and (iii) investigate the biochemical and physiological mechanisms underpinning air pollutant toxicity in insects. By gathering data on the ecological impacts of air pollution, and with the help of project partner JNCC, I hope to add to a growing body of evidence suggesting policymakers look further than human health studies when enacting legislation.

Contact: rahaw1@sheffield.ac.uk  

GPS tagging of birds to study their migratory movement and eventually building up a dynamic energy budget model to determine if these pollutant loads affect the energetic costs required for successful migration.

Some results from the 2023-2024 wintering season from the Exe estuary near Exeter indicated that Eurasian Oystercatchers feed on cockles, periwinkles, pacific oysters, marine worms, crabs as well as some other bivalve species extensively within the estuary while during the high tide, they are found feeding on earthworms across golf courses and open grounds. 

Contact: rj464@exeter.ac.uk  

Research indicates that stressors can reshape food web structure and species interactions in unexpected ways. Additionally, concurrent stressors may combine for distinct impacts compared to individual ones.  Both invasions and contaminants modify species interactions, influencing community composition and metabolic functions. 

Therefore, we suspect contamination to impact an invader’s ability to enter the recipient community by influencing both its invasiveness and the recipient communities invasibility.

Together with the project partner Syngenta this project investigates the role of contaminants in species invasiveness and food web invasibility, and to simulate their joint impacts on complex multi-species communities via a bioenergetic framework.

Here I integrate food web structure, invader trophic position and non-linear population dynamics in large, complex model communities to ascertain (i) how invader traits and network properties mediate invasiveness and invasibility, (ii) how the effects of contaminants on ecological processes and native community structure alter food web invasibility, and (iii) how biological invasions and food web contamination impact on communities and ecosystem processes. 

Contact: l.s.landonblake@sheffield.ac.uk 

The objectives of the project are to:

1. To identify and map freshwater ecosystem services (ES) across England’s River catchments through stakeholder engagement and data sources. 

2. To develop trait-based approaches for linking Water Environment Regulations (WER) biological quality elements (i.e., diatoms, macrophytes, invertebrates, and fish) to ecosystem services.

3. To develop ecosystem service potential scores and an index of ecosystem service delivery for the key taxonomic groups and selected ecosystem services. 

4. To use toxicity data to assess the sensitivity of ecosystem service providers to selected chemicals and compare toxicological thresholds (i.e., EQSs) for selected ecosystem services (i.e., ES EQS). 

5. To evaluate the proposed ES EQSs using existing biological & chemical monitoring data, against the developed methods (Objective 3) to assess the impact on ecosystems service delivery.   

Contact: jm1414@exeter.ac.uk 

The three key aims of my PhD are:

• To identify which chemicals present in the environment today have the potential to cause eggshell thinning.

• To identify which species of birds are currently suffering from eggshell thinning and increased hatching failure.

• Identify key species, sample eggs and analyse them for target contaminants and compare this to the thickness of the shell.

I have been working on a systematic literature review to identify environmental contaminants which have the potential to cause eggshell thinning in birds and the mechanisms by which they might do so. Following this I will be working with the BTO, which is the partner for this project, and using data from the nest records scheme to identify birds which have an elevated level of hatching failure. 

Contact: jfiparkman1@sheffield.ac.uk 

Whilst there has been research into how avermectin wormers can harm dung beetles, little is known about other chemicals which are used in parasite control. There is also no information on how combinations of veterinary medicines which may be present in dung at the same time may impact the ability of dung beetles to aid dung decomposition. 

My project is based at the University of Exeter Penryn campus, and my project partner is the RSPB. I will be investigating the independent and combinational effects of antibiotics and antiparasitic drugs on beetle abundance, diversity and behaviour. Dung beetles host symbiotic bacteria which aid dung digestion – a key question is whether veterinary medicines have the potential to impact the gut microbiome of the beetles. I will then model how these effects may impact the ability of beetles to provide ecosystem services. I hope the findings may lead to more sustainable use of veterinary medicine within agriculture to benefit farming and the environment. 

Contact: lp677@exeter.ac.uk 

Finally, I will identify potential bioindicators among riverine invertebrates to assess the impacts of specific pesticide pollution, focusing on organophosphates and carbamates. 

Contact: Ipp203@exeter.ac.uk  

In addition, I will be doing fieldwork on a nestbox breeding population of common kestrels to test hypotheses regarding the uptake of SGARs by individuals and their reproductive success and survival. 

Contact: cmsp501@york.ac.uk 

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