Postgraduate research opportunities Marine match-mismatch: the ecological consequences of climate driven changes in migration and reproductive phenology in the sea

Phenology is the study of seasonal biological events, such as migration, egg laying, or flowering. The iconic ‘match-mismatch hypothesis’ (Cushing, 1974, 1975) predicts that changes in phenology may affect synchronicity with energy sources and so impact fitness. Examples of this may be failure to migrate in time to exploit a food source elsewhere, or to lay eggs to synchronise hatching with seasonally available food. As species rely on different environmental cues to time these events, it is possible that climate change will disrupt important ecological connections with cascading consequences at the level of the ecosystem.

Although originally conceived in the context of marine biology, the match-mismatch hypothesis has since been embraced as a general concept in ecology. As evidence of phenological shifts in response to changing climate mounts (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003), there has been a surge in publications in the ecological literature reviewing and re-evaluating the hypothesis (Kharouba and Wolkovich 2023; Samplonius et al. 2021). In general, the conclusion is that the conditions under which phenological asynchrony leads to effects on fitness depends on the ecosystem context – in particular the extent to which a consumer species or group is bottom-up or top-down regulated.

The central question for this studentship is: under what circumstances will the widely observed climate-related shifts in phenology lead to notable consequences at the level of the ecosystem?

While ecosystem models already include many aspects of known ecology and trophic coupling, the processes governing phenology and the sensitivity of the system to match-mismatch effects are glaringly missing. Ideally, phenological characteristics should be an emergent property of such models. This is the case for phytoplankton and lower trophic levels, but not for mid- and higher trophic levels. The proposed PhD project aims to spearhead a step change in ecosystem modelling by representing these processes.

If successful in your application, you will complete a programme of doctoral research:

• Systematically reviewing the recent surge in literature on the evidence for match-mismatch effects on fitness in marine ecosystems, compared to terrestrial and freshwater systems.
• Analysing high resolution plankton time series data sets from the Scottish Coastal Observatory, and other sources, to diagnose environmental cues driving phenology.
• Building strategic (exploratory) population dynamics models of resource-consumer-predator systems to test hypotheses about the sensitivity of match-mismatch effects on fitness to the nature of trophic coupling.
• Parameterising phenological processes for mid-trophic levels, guilds of benthos and fish, in an existing end-to-end ecosystem model (StrathE2E).
• Investigating the sensitivity of spawning, recruitment, and migration phenology to environmental cues in the ecosystem and compare the ecosystem’s sensitivity to phenological trends across different regional implementations of StrathE2E throughout the Atlantic Ocean.

Further information

You will be registered as a student in the department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Strathclyde, where Dr Laverick and Prof Heath are based. You will also be supervised by Prof Diele from Edinburgh Napier University.

The Marine Directorate of the Scottish Government will support this project, providing an excellent opportunity for you to work with a non-academic partner. You will use data from the Scottish Coastal Observatory (SCObs) and present to the UK Pelagic Habitat Working Group to support DEFRA-funded work on the impacts of changes in the pelagic habitat on ecosystem services.

Training

You'll:

• have access to training funds, valued at £16,425 for the current academic year, which can be spent to support professional development, attend meetings and conferences, and the acquisition of technical skills
• complete the Strathclyde PGCert in Researcher Professional Development
• receive training in coding, systematic review, time series analysis, and the mathematical modelling of populations and ecosystems

About SUPER

SUPER is multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary; helping to foster a new generation of students equipped to take on diverse careers and to manage our natural environments more sustainably. SUPER brings together the research strengths of the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh Napier, Heriot-Watt, Highlands and Islands, St Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde, and the West of Scotland. All institutional partners are members of the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS), whose research and training collaborations address cutting-edge scientific challenges across the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; part of the UKRI) remit. Underpinning these research partners, providing additional training and projects, are stakeholder organisations including industry and governmental bodies.

SUPER DTP students will be part of a cohort that will develop together, forming a nurturing network, supported by bespoke events. The SUPER cohort will pursue research, engage in training, and learn from each other as part of a large multi-disciplinary group. Members are offered unparalleled opportunities to understand societal and environmental challenges and to deliver science for the benefit of wider society, with international implications.

Background reading

Cushing, D.H. (1974) The natural regulation of fish populations. In: Harden Jones, F.R. (Ed.) Sea fisheries research. London, UK: Elek Science, pp. 399–412.

Cushing, D.H. (1975) Marine ecology and fisheries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Parmesan, C. & Yohe, G. (2003). A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature 421, 37–42.