Application Deadline: 13 January 2025
Details
Project aims and methods:
Pond ecosystems are biodiverse and ecologically important freshwater habitats, provide opportunities for mitigating pressures on freshwater organisms, and contribute significantly to society through valuable ecosystem service provision. Despite the fact we know these systems are critical for humans and nature, freshwater research, policy, and conservation have focused on larger water bodies.
A lack of cost-effective and accessible tools, combined with their structural variability and sheer abundance in the landscape, are major reasons for our restricted understanding. Recent developments in environmental DNA (eDNA), including methodological standardisation and testing across ponds ecosystems, have unlocked new opportunities.
In this project, existing metabarcoding and metagenomics data, alongside eDNA monitoring tools can be used to answer questions, including:
1. Can molecular tools identify the effects of anthropogenic stressors and climate change on pondscapes?
2. How can we best conserve pondscapes in anthropogenically dominated landscapes?
3. How are pondscapes best managed to maximise ecosystem health and service provision?
Building on these questions, it will also be possible to contribute to the development of a pond ecosystem health assessment tool – something which is desperately required to place ponds on the radar of national and international conservation research and po
Project CASE partner:
Natural England will provide access to data, field sites and time and resources of the DNA metabarcoding team members.
Lead Supervisor: Fredric Windsor, Cardiff University, School of Biosciences
Co-Supervisor: Daniel Read, UKCEH, Molecular Ecology Group
Co-Supervisor: Lynsey Harper, Natural England, Evidence Directorate
Co-Supervisor: Jordan Cuff, Newcastle University, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences
Useful recruitment links:
For information relating to the research project please contact the lead Supervisor via: windsorfm@cardiff.ac.uk
Please ensure that at the time of making the application, you upload the ‘GW4 + DLTP Personal Statement’ in place of the Cardiff University Personal Statement/cover letter. Please e mail BIOSI-PG@cardiff.ac.uk prior to starting your online application for a copy of the statement which you would then complete and upload. Also, at the point of making an application please complete the ‘DLTP PhD applicants questionnaire’ at the following link https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/nercdtp/dltp-phd-applicants-questionnaire-2024-25
Applications can be made using the following link: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research/programmes/programme/biosciences-phd-mphil-md Use the black boxes on the right hand side and select ‘Doctor of Philosophy’, ‘Full-Time’ and the start date of ’01/10/2025′. If you have studied with us before, or made a previous application, please use the same login details and application number.
Please ensure that you type in the project title, the lead supervisor and the source of funding as GW4+ Doctoral Landscape Training Partnerships (DLTP).
The application deadline is Monday 13 January 2025 at 2359 GMT.
Funding Notes
Students will receive a stipend for 3.5 years, payment of their university tuition fees, a Research and Training and Support Grant (RTSG) of £11,000 and an individual training budget of £3,250. The stipend for 2025/26 will be the amount for 2024/25 (£19,237 p.a.) plus an annual inflation adjustment. The training budget of £1,000 is for each student to undertake specialist training relating to their specialist area of research and career development and to pay for travel and accommodation.
