Melting of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets contributes more than one third of global sea-level rise. One of the most rapidly changing polar regions is the Antarctic Peninsula which, during the…
Loktak Lake, located in Manipur, is the largest freshwater lake in NE India, declared a Ramsar site in 1990. It is divided into three main basins which have different land use practices by local popul…
Environmental change is causing temperatures to rise across the globe – how this will affect the distribution and abundance of species is therefore an important current focus for ecologists worl…
Mussels, bryozoans and sponges are sessile filter-feeders that are known to fulfil important ecosystem functions in temperate freshwater habitats, such as water clearance, nutrient cycling and promoti…
How coral reefs can sustain their extreme biomass of large reef fishes has continued to puzzle scientists. By living fast and dying young, small, bottom-dwelling (‘cryptobenthic’) reef fishes have…
Greenspaces provide incredible valuable benefits to people. For example, there are over 62,000 urban greenspaces in Great Britain, estimated to provide just over £130 billion to those living nearby. …
Lake ecosystems host diverse communities of organisms which show great variation over seasonal, year-to-year and decadal timescales. Growing evidence demonstrates that these communities are already be…
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship within the NERC-ENVISION Doctoral Training Partnership with a project entitled: “Modelling the future of coastal soft cliffs under changing climate…
The continental-range of the African elephant has been dramatically reduced and fragmented due to the rapid expansion of human settlements and agriculture, resulting in escalating conflict over access…
You will be based at UKCEH Bangor and Bangor University, joining a dynamic group of forest ecosystem, climate change and air pollution researchers, based in the Environment Centre Wales. You will make…
The ecological and evolutionary transitions that accompany environmental change often involve alterations in diet and accompanying morphological adaptations. These changes are abundantly well research…
The project will investigate how increasing temperatures are affecting northern butterflies in the UK, and test the potential for managing habitats to promote climate change adaptation. It provides …
Atmospheric CO2 is high (over 416 ppm) and rising, and the impacts of this are felt across the globe as climate change. Tropical forests (which contain ~50% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversi…
Rivers are among the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Freshwater fisheries are at risk from multiple stressors including climate change, pollutants and the presence of dams which inhibit fish mov…
The risk of flooding is changing worldwide, associated with population and socioeconomic growth, and climate change. Lowland catchments and estuaries are particularly vulnerable because of high land v…
Extreme weather such as floods, heat waves, unusually cold harsh winters are increasingly prevalent across the Northern Hemisphere. For instance, the Thames barrier, designed to prevent flooding of th…
The vast majority of plant species use C3 photosynthesis. However, a turbo-charged form of photosynthesis called C4 evolved independently in nearly 70 lineages and is used by our most productive food …
This project offers the exciting opportunity to develop fundamental new insight into the certainty of satellite estimates of climate change, with a focus on Earth’s polar ice sheets. The melting of …
This project assesses geodiversity-biodiversity relationships and hypothesised drivers, mainly at the Târnava Mare Natura 2000 site, Transylvania (Romania). This landscape of traditionally managed gr…
This PhD will create a novel methodology for GIS mapping of the extent of Pb pollution through time in Central Britain, resulting in an important addition to the BGS Isotope Biosphere Domain Map. The …
Coral reef ecosystems are in a state of change. Increasingly frequent and severe disturbances, and escalation of human interactions, are transforming many tropical coral reefs. At the same time, speci…
Palaeoceanographic studies have often focused on understanding how the North Atlantic Ocean responds to and has driven past changes in the global climate-oceanographic system. In recent years, it has …
This inter-disciplinary project addresses the intractable problem of how to reduce tropical deforestation. Current strategies such as REDD+ are failing and rooted in assumptions of rational economic d…
We are looking for a student with interests in Arctic science, microbial ecology and lake ecosystems. Focused on the Kangerlussuaq area of West Greenland, this project will determine the genetic diver…
The high Arctic is warming at an alarming rate, disrupting soil carbon, nutrient and hydrological cycles. This is resulting in increased soil microbial activity with subsequent increases in nutrient a…
Southeast Asian (SE-Asian) freshwater biodiversity is declining rapidly. This is particularly true for Borneo, renowned for its highly diverse and globally important biodiversity. The situation is ala…
Understanding the mechanisms and evolution of drought tolerance in plants is crucial to support the development of drought-tolerant crops, assess the vulnerability of wild species to climate change, a…
Several iconic plant species that used to be common in cropped fields, including corncockle and corn marigold have dramatically decreased in frequency and abundance since the 1960s due to the intensif…
Climate change may drive the emergence of disease epidemics with severe ecological and economic consequences. Freshwater ecosystems, and their iconic inhabitants such as salmonid fish, are among the m…
Tropical reef-building corals are vulnerable to breakage by waves and some corals also asexually reproduce via fragmentation. Early descriptions of coral reefs noted the ability of these coral fragmen…
Globally, 20-40% of crops are lost to insects, pathogens and weeds. Novel solutions to combat these biotic threats and protect crop health are urgently required, but they need to be intertwined with s…
The emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance genes (AMR) amongst pathogenic microorganisms is one of the greatest health issues of this century. Over-use of antibiotics in treating humans and …
The Benguela upwelling system supports fisheries that are key marine resources of the developing nations of South Africa and Namibia. Benguela fisheries yield has experienced large fluctuations over…
Loktak Lake, located in Manipur, is the largest freshwater lake in NE India, declared a Ramsar site in 1990. It is divided into three main basins which have different land use practices by local popul…
Aedes albopictus, a highly invasive mosquito species and important transmission vector of dengue, zika, yellow fever, dirofilaria and chikungunya, has spread rapidly from Asia and is now established a…
Why this project is important: Ensuring grasslands, which cover 40% of the UK, provide a suite of ecosystem goods and services and store natural capital is critical for societal needs. However, new un…
The Atacama Desert is the oldest and driest desert on earth. It is also one of the most hostile environments for microbial life on Earth due to its hyper arid moisture regime, thermal extremes, high c…
Are you looking to transfer your experience of computational methods to tackling some important Earth science problems? We are interested in imaging the shallow subsurface (the top 100m of the Ear…
The world’s population relies on using nitrogen to boost crop yields and ensure sufficient food production. However, application of nitrogen fertilizer in excess of that taken up by plants and anima…
In this multidisciplinary, international project you will address novel and exciting questions about the ecological and evolutionary consequences of mitochondrial variation in wild animals. You will c…
Complex species interactions make the impacts of global environmental change difficult to foresee. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary relationships between species, and the way that the fit…
Bean yields are significantly affected by pollinator visitation, a visitation which can be heavily influenced by the release of floral volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Ozone pollution and climate ch…
Groundwater constitutes 99% of accessible freshwater on the planet and is a vital resource for public water supply in the UK. It contains a little-studied indigenous microbial ecosystem responsible fo…
We seek a numerate, enthusiastic student with a passion for understanding how woodland habitats have been shaped by human activity past and present. The proposed research provides a unique opportunity…
Poor air quality is the number one environmental health threat in the UK, contributing to ~30,000 deaths per year, while also exacerbating several health conditions. Air quality depends on the amount …
This exciting PhD project will work at the cutting edge of mathematical and statistical sciences to deliver automatic insect pest detection. Whilst the focus is on developing and applying data science…
Global declines in migrant bird populations are a major threat to the world’s ecosystems. Migrants provide vital ecosystem services at large spatial scales, and avian population trends are key indic…
Weather patterns are changing across the globe, and these changes may affect populations of animals. For coastal seabirds, it seems likely that associated changes in precipitation levels and wind char…
Successful invasive species often escape top-down pressure in the early stages of invasion. However, emerging evidence suggests that over time local animal consumers can adapt to control and moderate …
Stress is ubiquitous in UK society (85% of which is urban). However, access to green space is correlated with better quality of life, and can actively reduce levels of stress hormones, such as cortiso…
Growing awareness of the rapid rate of biodiversity loss, and the ultimate impacts on human wellbeing, has resulted in increasing policy commitments that infrastructure development should deliver a Ne…
This project offers the exciting opportunity to develop fundamental new insight into the certainty of satellite estimates of climate change, with a focus on Earth’s polar ice sheets. The melting of …
Accelerated climate change and environmental degradation make it necessary to improve our understanding of, and ability to predict, species’ responses to environmental change. The availability of la…
Climate change, urbanisation and exploitation of natural resources increasingly alter the environment, posing significant challenges for plants and animals. We have a poor understanding of how organis…
Invasive species represent one of the most pressing threats to earth’s biodiversity. This ENVISION PhD studentship is an exciting opportunity to work at the interface of biomechanics and genomics to…
Invasive lionfish threaten native Caribbean marine biodiversity. Lionfish predate unchecked on native fish which, unlike in the lionfish’s native Indo-Pacific, have no evolved defence. Current manag…
Coral reef species are undergoing widespread mortality under increasingly frequent mass coral bleaching events, which will continue until global efforts reduce CO2 emissions. In the meantime, it is cr…
Arctic summers are now characterized by ever-expanding areas of open water exposed by the declining sea ice. This dramatic decline has input fresh meltwater to the surface ocean and created more openi…
The ecological impact of artificial light at night has been a rapidly growing field of global change science in recent years. While understanding of direct lighting impacts (for example street lights)…
Poor outdoor air quality, particularly that associated with high concentrations of very fine particles (PM2.5) has been identified globally as a major cause of early mortality. In the UK, DEFRA have i…
River deltas occupy about 0.6% of the Earth’s surface area, but contain 4% of the world’s population (about 300,000,000 people). They are also frequently highly fertile, due to the capture of sedi…
Human exposure to soil-dust can be climate driven in that airborne particulates can be transported (and deposited great distances from the point of origin) through the atmosphere by weather and climat…
Plants have evolved different versions of photosynthesis to maintain efficiency under diverse environmental conditions. While the vast majority of plants use C3 photosynthesis, some plants evolved a t…
We are looking for a student with strong interests in freshwater sciences and complex development problems to work with a large transdisciplinary international team. Bangladesh has a profound drinking…
We are looking for a versatile student with a keen interest in tropical freshwater ecology and conservation, and willing to undertake exciting molecular analyses to define biodiversity. This project w…
We seek an excellent student to investigate environmental change, monsoon variability, and human impact in a Southeast Asian tropical lake. Southeast Asia is a critical zone for the global hydrologica…
Accurate estimates of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions underpin national land use policy and subsequent targets, e.g. the recent UK target for net zero carbon emissions by 2050. However, modellin…
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) disrupt the chemical equilibrium of the atmosphere causing increased formation of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. The majority of these VOCs are known to origina…
Up to 88% of flowering plant species depend on insect pollinators. Although flowers and their visual cues are known to be important for pollinators, more recently it has been shown that VOCs are also …
Poor air quality is a major global health concern affecting all industrialised nations and virtually all of society. Worldwide, ~3 million deaths are attributable to air pollution annually (World Heal…
Slope instability is responsible for considerable social and economic harm. In the UK, impacts are principally economic, through damage and disruption to critical infrastructure (e.g. railways, flood …
Many plant species, including numerous agricultural ones, depend on pollinator services; yet agricultural intensification and urbanisation have caused habitat loss and fragmentation, leading to substa…
The potential role of changes in total solar irradiance (TSI) (sun spots) in driving climatic variability has been widely cited and hotly debated. This is particularly true in the tropical Americas, w…
Global agriculture is rapidly expanding in response to the growing demand for food, with ‘agricultural frontiers’, such as dry and fertile lands of the Gran Chaco in South America contributing to …
Estuaries connect terrestrial and marine environments, providing one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth. Complex land-sea interactions combined with intensive land-use and land-value mean that…
This project will use cutting edge projections of the future state of society to predict how pollution and its impacts may change across Britain in the 21st century. Working alongside a team of enviro…
Nitrogen inputs into agricultural systems are an essential requirement for healthy, high yielding crop production, but they can also result in the release of excess N either by leaching or by emission…
Would you like to earn a PhD doing research at the cutting edge of biodiversity, ecosystem services, environmental genomics and land-use change? We are looking for an enthusiastic, numerate student wi…
Savanna ecosystems occupy 20% of the Earth’s land surface and are characterized by open canopied mixed woodland with a grassy understorey and seasonal rainfall in tropical or sub-tropical regions. T…
The need to produce healthy and food sustainably is reliant on healthy soil. This is certainly true of grassland ecosystems on which over half of the people of the Earth rely for their livelihoods and…
Human populations are expected to increase by 50% to 9 billion by 2050 as climate change continues. The global challenge is to manage terrestrial ecosystems sustainably whilst mitigating climate chang…
The Earth experiences ‘space weather’ that impacts the planetary environment in a variety of ways. These impacts are a recognised environmental hazard, as detailed in the UK National Risk Register…
Complex species interactions make the impacts of global environmental change difficult to foresee. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary relationships between species, and the way that the fit…
You have probably heard of the Anthropocene? But, what is it and when did it actually begin? Scientists are certainly still arguing over the second of these questions. The most recent epoch in Earth…
Globally, huge investment is made in infrastructure to obtain, process and distribute clean water to human society. These public water supply (PWS) processes also alter the movement of a wide range of…
Nature of the problem: Contamination of the terrestrial, freshwater and marine biosphere by microplastics is now widely recognised as one of the world’s greatest pollution threats. Microplastics (pl…
This multi-disciplinary PhD will study urban green space and benefits at a range of scales, to tackle critical questions in urban ecosystem services research: whether greenspace benefits demonstrate n…
Armillaria species, are devastating fungal root-rot pathogens that affect over 500 woody plant species globally. They are facultative necrotrophs that colonise and attack the cambium of living roots, …
We require a versatile student who is comfortable working with “mud and molecules” for a project that aims to develop and apply the use of ancient DNA in lake sediments (sedDNA). Traces of DNA p…
Tropical forests are a major global carbon sink and account for a third of the carbon fixed globally by photosynthesis. Recent research shows that these forests are changing, including increases in …
Understanding variation and change in biodiversity as a consequence of changing environments is one of today’s main scientific challenges. One problem is that recent climate change has tended to b…
Cold-adapted species, including those restricted to mountains, are highly vulnerable to climate change. For UK butterflies, cold-adapted species are similarly threatened by climate change-mediated d…
In January 2016, the first reports of a new invasive pest was received in Africa. In less than two years, the new pest – the Fall armworm, Spodoptera frugiperda – had spread to most countries (&…
Quantifying dispersal ability and how organisms navigate through the environment is an essential step required to predict how individual species will cope with land use changes. There is a growing d…
With the global population projected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, food security is a growing concern in many world regions. Rising temperatures, changes in precipitation and deteriorating air…
Animals face many challenges as increased urbanization impacts their ability to survive and reproduce. Nowhere is this more evident than in migratory birds. Throughout Europe evidence indicates that…
**The deadline for applications for this project only is the 15th December 2017** Fish in a biogeochemical barrel: taking aim at the evolutionary consequences of nutrient colimitation in freshwater. …
Tuffisite veins are particle-filled hydraulic fractures formed around and within volcanic conduits, which are opened by and provide transient pathways for flow of pressurised magmatic fluids. Tuffis…
The Red River in Vietnam supports 20 million inhabitants, includes a major rice-growing region, the mega-city of Hanoi and a range of industries each of which have expanded in recent decades. The Re…
In summer 2017 the Larsen C ice-shelf in Antarctica calved a 6000 km2 iceberg, and the Halley research station closed over winter 2017 due to nearby crevasses opening up, potentially calving another…
Coral reefs are undergoing substantial change around the world as mass coral bleaching and other disturbance events disrupt ecological communities. Animal behaviour is thought to be a crucial mechan…
Applications are invited for a PhD by Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Nottingham University and Rothamsted Research on soil organic carbon stabilization. Climate change is now at the heart of scie…
Our current best estimates suggest that enough ice could be lost from Antarctica by the end of this century to contribute over a metre to global sea level if current rates of climate change are not cu…
In a world of increasing anthropogenic influence, understanding how rare and specialised species adapt to human-modified landscapes is essential for conservation. Primates face many threats includin…
Many plant species, including numerous agricultural ones, depend on pollinator services; yet agricultural intensification and urbanisation have caused habitat loss and fragmentation, leading to substa…
This CASE PhD studentship will use a combination of organic geochemistry and data-driven modelling to elucidate the factors responsible for the skin absorption of hazardous organic chemicals in contam…
The “4‰ Soils for Food Security and Climate” agreement has focussed regulators’ and scientists’ minds alike on the role that carbon plays in fertility and global climate change. Organic ca…
Would you like to earn a PhD doing research at the cutting edge of biodiversity, ecosystem services, land-use change and agriculture? Would you like to produce novel science that could help shape la…
This is an exciting opportunity to explore machine learning and big data methods, in combination with earth observation data, to extract information on land cover, landscape features and habitat condi…
In both nature and society, distribution networks are fundamental, facilitating the exchange of materials, energy and information. As systems evolve, these networks become complex leading to fragile s…
Predicting when sediment will move in a river is fundamental to successful management of that river, which includes coping with floods, maintaining navigation, and preventing loss of banks through e…
Hyper-arid hot deserts experience some of the most severe climatic conditions on Earth, and are often used to understand the potential for life on exoplanets such as Mars. In addition, studying the …
This CASE PhD studentship is a unique opportunity to make significant advances in the field of organic geochemistry and risk-based land management of post-industrial brownfield land. Your research wil…
The last century has seen a rapid increase in populations of deer species across Europe due to altered land use, improved wildlife management, reduced predation and more favourable climatic conditio…
Lake systems in Africa provide drinking water to some of Earth’s fastest growing and most vulnerable human populations. In response to climatic and anthropogenic pressure, such as land-use changes…
*******Application deadline – Friday 29th June 2018******* Background: Ecosystem services (ES; the goods humans get from nature) such as crop production, carbon capture and livestock grazing are…
Can our upland landscapes provide clean drinking water, store carbon, maintain biodiversity, act as a platform for leisure activities and provide a rural economy around grazing all whilst coping wit…
The project: Phosphorus is central to globally-significant challenges, including the need for sustainable approaches to reduce nutrient enrichment within aquatic ecosystems. This project will develo…
This exciting project, which is jointly supervised by scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool and Bangor University, focuses on a key question in Climate Change Science; i.e. is …
Methane (CH4) emissions are far more devastating to global climate than carbon dioxide as CH4 is 21-times more potent a greenhouse gas on a per molecule basis. The International Panel for Climate Ch…
This project will explore the mobilisation and bioaccumulation of heavy metal contaminants from historic mine waste from old mine sites in Wales, and their impact on wildlife health. This is a uniqu…
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship within the NERC-ENVISION Doctoral Training Partnership with a project entitled: “The influence of extreme events in the longterm evolution of mix…
We are seeking an enthusiastic PhD student to work as part of our interdisciplinary team based at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Bangor with registration at Bangor University. You will work…
To reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, it is crucial that we continue to explore renewable energy resources and technologies. It is possible to convert the kinetic energy that resides in ocean curr…
The project: Changes in the availability of nitrogen and carbon within rivers, for example associated with anthropogenic inputs from sources such as fertilisers or wastewater, have profound effects …
Phosphorus (P) is an essential element for food production but rock phosphate reserves are non-renewable and set to become increasingly scarce, making phosphorus critical for global food security. T…
Now that humanity has cleared or damaged at least three-quarters of the world’s primary forests, the regrowth of tropical forests plays a key role in global biogeochemical cycles, climate regulation…
Secondary forests are increasingly prominent features in tropical landscapes and the importance for the restoration of the original hyperdiverse mature forests they replace is widely recognized. None-…
This project will explore the coalescence and break up of bubbles as they emerge through cracks in the earth’s crust. This is truly interdisciplinary work, where you will define your experiments and…
In social insects, such as pollinators, infectious diseases challenge the survival and effective function of both the individual and the entire colony. While pests and pathogens have been implicated i…
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship within the NERC-ENVISION Doctoral Training Partnership with a project entitled: “Coastal flood mitigation potential of artificial tidal lagoonsR…
There is a growing interest in linking hydrogeological and geomechanical models to improve understanding of landslide failure processes, but progress has been limited by an inability to provide high s…
Recent advancements in telemetry technology has dramatically enhanced our understanding of movement ecology, and generated novel opportunities for exploring how animals are responding to a rapidly cha…
Forests play a key role in climate regulation, water purification and biodiversity conservation, whilst providing renewable wood-based resources critical for the circular economy. Forest cover in the …
Oceanic islands provide replicated ‘natural experiments’ that can be harnessed to disentangle general evolutionary patterns from unique evolutionary outcomes. In particular, high-altitude oceanic …
In addition to providing benefits to society, biodiversity also brings costs. The aerial biosphere includes ecologically complex mixtures of pollens that negatively affect human health. Almost a quart…
Ecology has traditionally assessed communities based on species identity, but increasingly the traits of those species are being assessed instead, to measure functional diversity. By focussing on trai…
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global challenge. It is estimated that globally 700,000 human deaths per year are due to AMR, predicted to rise to 10 million by 2050. While much research is …
Britain, in common with many other parts of the globe, faces the challenge of managing its land for multiple ends in the face of a rising population and likely climate warming. Thus new science is nee…
The past 60 years have seen dramatic changes in the amount of atmospheric pollutants being deposited on semi-natural habitats. Between 1960 and 1990, industrialisation and the intensification of agric…
The Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice at a rapid rate. As these large volumes of ice melt, they can disrupt key pathways in the Earth System, including changing ocean heat transports and ocean circula…
Ozone pollution has negative effects on many species of semi-natural vegetation, and grasslands have been shown to be particularly sensitive. Nitrogen deposition is also a threat to vegetation and can…
Many insect pests have the ability to migrate vast distances in remarkably short periods of time. This has significant implications with regards to their geographical spread and the transmission of th…
The very presence of engineering species within a landscape promotes high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem goods/services. However, their loss and degradation is one of the most significant driver…
Biogeochemical processes in rivers, estuaries and coastal seas play key roles in the global carbon C cycle by controlling the flux of material from land to ocean. It has been estimated that as little …
This PhD studentship presents a unique opportunity in the fields of organic geochemistry and risk-based land management. The student will optimise in vitro methods to measure the dermal bioavailabilit…
This industrial CASE studentship is a unique opportunity to develop innovative science in the field of organic geochemistry and risk-based land management of post-industrial brownfield sites affected …
Environmental change due to human activities can have devastating impacts on microbial activities that are essential to the earth’s ecosystem functions. Microbial adaptations to stresses have been d…
This project will address the controversial and highly topical question of how we ensure that rivers do as good a job as possible of transporting water and thus reducing flood risk, whilst at the same…
This project will investigate the effects of joint climate and land cover change on the thermal vulnerability of animals at a global scale. While rising global temperatures are predicted to reduce the…
Being able to accurately quantify the transport of fine sediment (sand particles and finer) in rivers is hugely important for many reasons, for example because it is a major mode of pollution transpor…
Deforestation is a major global driver of soil carbon loss. Soil carbon is central to ecosystem functioning including the regulation of climate change, and quantifying the effects of deforestation on …
Tropical lakes systems provide vital ecosystem services to some of Earth’s fastest growing and most vulnerable human populations, but in response to climatic and anthropogenic pressure, the latter c…
Scientific background: Rip currents interact with density-driven freshwater plumes along the coast to mix and disperse contaminants from fluvial discharge into the shelf-sea where they impact the envi…
By SolarWriter (Own work), cropped [CC BY-SA 3.0] What it’s about? Supplying sufficient energy to meet rising demands whilst transitioning to low carbon sources to avoid dangerous climate change is …
Phosphorus is an element at the heart of globally-significant challenges, in particular the need to identify sustainable approaches that are able to reduce nutrient enrichment within aquatic ecosystem…
Climate change poses many risks to human health and historical insights can enhance understanding of human vulnerabilities and inform potential consequences of future climate change on the spread of d…
Methane (CH4) emissions are far more devastating to global climate than carbon dioxide as it is 21-times more potent a greenhouse gas on a per molecule basis. The International Panel for Climate Chang…
Many freshwater fisheries of ecological and economic importance are in decline, while populations of piscivorous (fish-eating) birds such as goosanders and cormorants are increasing. This has led to g…
This project will explore the mobilisation and bioaccumulation of heavy metal contaminants from historic mine waste from old mine sites in Wales, and their impact on wildlife health. This is a unique,…
Every summer, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets develop a rash of supraglacial lakes around their edges. When they grow large enough, the water they contain can drain into the ice beneath which c…
Sea-level rise and enhanced storminess, driven by climate change, is greatly increasing coastal vulnerability and the impacts of coastal recession worldwide. Although coastal cliffs provide valuable n…
Air bubbles trapped in the ice of the Earth’s cold regions provide a unique, fascinating and long term record of atmospheric composition. Ice-core records of reactive gases are a relatively recent i…
Bioaerosols consist of biota such as pollen, fungal spores, bacteria and viruses and include plant allergens that negatively affect human health. Almost a quarter of people display allergic reactions …
Satellites and other high-resolution imaging techniques have enabled landscape ecologists to explore the spatial ecology of terrestrial biological communities, such as forests, for decades. The same o…
The deterioration in water quality across the world over recent decades as a result of nutrient pollution is now a huge environmental problem. The need to restore the water quality of lakes is stimula…
Environmental change and perturbation due to human activities can have devastating impacts on microbial activities like biogeochemical cycling that are essential to the earth’s ecosystem functions. …
Predation has a fundamental role in determining the structure, dynamics and functioning of natural ecosystems. Predators don’t just consume prey – they scare them – and hence alter their behavio…
This project will explore the role of environmental geochemistry in land use decisions by wild African elephants. This is a unique, interdisciplinary project involving environmental geochemistry, plan…
We require a motivated, curious and independent student with interests in lake water quality and environmental change in the tropics to apply for our studentship investigating the impacts of aquacultu…
Good environmental policy has to be founded on high-quality environmental science, but delivering the research needed by policy makers can be a challenge. The Montreal protocol is widely held to be th…
Coral reefs are ocean oases, supporting immense diversity and providing fisheries for small island nations. These important ecosystems are under threat from local anthropogenic impacts and global clim…
Coral reefs house exceptional biodiversity, and provide food and livelihoods to hundreds of millions of people across the tropics. The full range of benefits people gain from coral reefs can be termed…
The failure of the Rio Convention to halt the loss of global biodiversity resulted in the new Aichi Target: “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosyst…
The earth’s oceans and atmosphere are warming, with the volume of snow and ice diminishing. Arctic temperatures have warmed at twice the global rate, with increasing inter-annual variability of sea-…
The accidental drilling into rhyolitic magma at Krafla volcano, Iceland in 2009 has opened exciting possibilities for research that could transform our ability to detect stored magma, whilst potential…
Major advances in our understanding of how microbiota contribute to the living world have resulted from genomic advances. So-called second-generation sequencing now allows high throughput and cost-eff…
Currently there is an array of persistent organic pollutants that undergo long-range transport in air and seawater and are present in the Earth’s Polar Regions. These chemicals, arising from industr…
In the transition stage towards a dominant use of renewable clean energy, the emission of greenhouse gases is currently mitigated by capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the main greenh…
Researching crustal deformation processes and the degree of their proposed coupling with climate is the focus of this research, using the type example of India-Asia collision and Himalayan-Tibet evolu…
This is an exciting opportunity to use ecology-driven science to understand why moths are in such dramatic decline and to offer solutions that can reverse these destabilising trends. The project will …
Biogeochemical processes in rivers, estuaries and coastal seas play key roles in the global carbon C cycle by controlling the flux of material from land to ocean. It has been estimated that as little …
Soil hosts a quarter of the planet’s biodiversity and represents one of the most complex ecosystems on Earth. Understanding how soils function and respond to natural and anthropogenic perturbation i…
Coastal erosion and flooding are global environmental and economic threats. The safety of coastal communities is of paramount importance in the U.K., given the relevance of these areas for the economy…
Would you like to earn a PhD doing research at the cutting edge of biodiversity, ecosystem services, land-use change and agriculture? We are looking for an enthusiastic, numerate student with a passio…
This project aims to develop new geophysical data processing techniques for imaging groundwater changes within unstable slopes (e.g. natural landslides and vulnerable earthworks). Conventional monitor…
Rhizosphere microbes are key players in the carbon transformations underlying the generation and sustenance of soil organic matter. Recent evidence suggests that the production of stable soil organic …
Approximately 20% of people display allergic reactions to combinations of tree and grass pollen causing symptoms ranging from discomfort (e.g. hay fever) to respiratory complications (e.g. asthma), wi…
This project brings together the paleoclimate data and modelling communities to test ways of comparing data on past climate change with modelled scenarios of that climate. The studentship will involve…
Why is this research exciting? The relationship between plants and mycorrhizal fungi is central to the maintenance of plant growth and ecosystem productivity worldwide. Mycorrhizal fungi also play an …
Global warming poses grave risks for society and ecosystems. To date, mitigation efforts have been insufficient to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from continuing to rise. Solar radiation management …
Global circulation models predict that severe and widespread drought will occur throughout Europe. Soil is the largest carbon pool of the terrestrial biosphere and is an ofter-overlooked carbon pool t…
Tropical forests are a major global carbon sink and account for a third of the carbon fixed globally by photosynthesis. Recent research in South America shows that these forests are changing, includin…
We mostly enjoy the coast by visiting the beach, which, apart from the waves and tides, can seem quite static. Viewed from the air, however, the coastline is dynamic and complex, exhibiting many curio…
Now that humanity has cleared or damaged at least three-quarters of the world’s primary forests, the regrowth of tropical forests play a key role in global biogeochemical cycles and climate. For exa…
In the last decade, polar regions have seen rapid climate change. From the sea ice loss and impact on polar bears in the Arctic to rising Antarctic sea level and temperatures and the calving of contin…
The decline of Afro-Palearctic migrant bird populations is a major challenge facing European biodiversity. Avian population trends are important indicators of environmental change and used by the UK g…
Alongside being a media for plant growth soils provide many other essential ecosystem services, such as: storing carbon, regulating greenhouse gases, recycling nutrients, buffering pollutants and puri…
Good environmental policy has to be founded on high-quality environmental science, but delivering the research needed by policy makers can be a challenge. The Montreal protocol is widely held to be th…
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that evidence for global warming is unequivocal and is very likely anthropogenic in origin. However, climate change is not solely anthropogenic …
We are seeking a PhD student to work as part of an interdisciplinary team, based at Bangor University, with collaborators in the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge. The project will focus on charac…
The norm is to be exposed to a wide range of infectious organisms and most wild animals are infected with a wide range of parasites. Yet in modern societies we humans are infected with relatively few …
Long-range insect migration occurs on an enormous scale and provides huge costs and benefits to agricultural ecosystems. Insect population dynamics and migration phenology are both strongly influenced…
We have recently found convincing evidence that soil dust contamination of food is an important (non-haem) dietary source of iron in several sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. In rural Malawi, compo…
With increasing energy prices and advances in drilling and hydraulic rock fracturing (‘fracking’) technology, shale gas has radically changed the energy landscape over the world. However, knowledg…
When storms cause trees to break or become uprooted they can be responsible for loss of lives, destruction of buildings/infrastructure and disruption to transport, energy and communications networks. …
Many cuttings and embankments within the UK transport and utilities infrastructure networks were constructed more than 100 years ago and were poorly engineered. Consequently many of these structures a…
Mangroves provide a wide variety of ecosystem services to some of the poorest people on the planet. Under natural conditions, mangroves can persist in an incredibly improbable edaphic (“soil”) env…
This project investigates how increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration impacts on greenhouse gas release from wetlands which provides an important feedback on the global climate. Today natural wetland…
You will reconstruct different landform assemblages from geophysical and sedimentological data, revealing how landscapes have evolved offshore the UK and Ireland from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to…
Soil aggregates, essentially the building blocks from which soils are composed, control many soil properties on which our understanding of many of the major challenges facing society depend; how much …
Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE) sponsorship secured with BGS. “The transition of Earth’s glacial-interglacial cycles from 40 kyr to 100 kyr periodicity during the middle…
Forests’ ecosystems and their soils represent the largest reservoir of organic carbon (C) in terrestrial ecosystems. The belowground processes of forests mediate many key biogeochemical processe…
Tropical forests contain more carbon (C) than any other terrestrial ecosystem, at least half of which is stored belowground. Roughly 50% of the world’s tropical forests are now degraded, making them…
This studentship explores the relationship between atmospheric ammonia concentrations at the landscape scale and agricultural management practices at the field and farm scale for predominantly grassla…
Global change including population driven land use change is putting tropical forests under pressure. Changes in forest plant and soil biodiversity as a result of logging and clearance for oil palm cu…
Variability in the magnetic field generated by dynamic processes outside the solid Earth can occur over a variety of timescales. As well as limiting the accuracy of geomagnetic field models, this exte…
Toxic cyanobacterial blooms have a damaging effect on water quality in lakes. Hot summers typically enable formation of a shallow mixed layer at the surface of stratified lakes, providing a warm and l…
The spatial and temporal dynamics of soil moisture content can have a critical effect on slope stability in landslides and engineered earthworks. But measurement of soil moisture over large areas is n…
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and aid sustainable development, there is an urgent need to support our electricity generating capacity through the development of low carbon technologies, particula…
After remaining stable for almost a decade, methane (CH4) concentrations in the atmosphere have started to rise again since 2007. Increasing emissions from the warming high northern latitude wetlands …
This project will evaluate how incorporating interspecific ecological interactions into species distribution models affects predictions of species’ responses to climate change. Although ecological t…
Malaysia’s North Selangor peat swamp forest is experiencing rapid and large-scale conversion of pristine swampland to oil palm agriculture, contrary to prevailing environmental guidelines. This peat…
It is now widely recognised that hydrological and biogeochemical processes that occur at the interface of groundwater (GW) and surface water (SW) can have a significant impact on catchment water quali…
The adverse health effects of air pollution are the main drivers of policies to improve air quality both nationally and internationally. Although many pollutants have health effects, the clearest case…
This studentship offers a unique opportunity to explore the key controls of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from hill and upland soils using state-of-the-art measurement equipment linked to national fl…
At the global scale, ozone pollution, formed from complex photochemical reactions involving pollutants formed from vehicle and industrial emissions has been predicted to pose as big a threat to food s…
Currently there is an array of persistent organic pollutants that undergo long-range transport in air and seawater and are present in the Earth’s Polar Regions. These chemicals, arising from industr…
In the last decade, polar regions have seen rapid climate change. From the sea ice loss and impact on polar bears in the Arctic to rising Antarctic sea level and temperatures and the calving of contin…
The effects of soil nutrition on plant growth and yield are well known and plant resource and life-history theories can predict patterns of plant community assembly in terms of functional traits expre…
This studentship offers you the opportunity to work with scientists across the UK to develop a new isotope tracer for the element phosphorus (P). Phosphorus is critical for life, being integral to the…