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Research Project: A change in the water?: Using multidisciplinary approaches to leverage understanding of freshwater invertebrate responses to multiple environmental stressors.
Lead Supervisor: Dr Tom Bishop

This project will investigate how multiple stressors impact the performance and ecosystem service provisioning of freshwater invertebrates in South Wales. Invertebrate communities underpin productivity in river ecosystems, converting primary to secondary production, thus facilitating the flux of energy through aquatic and terrestrial food webs. However, these invertebrate communities are vulnerable to multiple ecological stressors.

Rivers in South Wales offer an ideal case study to investigate interacting stressor effects. Combined global heating and local effects on habitat structure mean that temperatures are rising. These rivers have a legacy of industrial heavy metal pollution as well as contemporary chemical inputs such as plastics and pharmaceuticals. Crucially, these rivers have near real-time data on these variables that can be integrated to assess wider ecological changes.

I applied for my multidisciplinary PhD project as an opportunity to continue my learning of entomology, aquatic ecosystems and anthropogenic threats. I am excited to develop my research skills by combining field, laboratory and modelling approaches. I was interested in the Red-ALERT CDT and the associated Living Labs as an effective network for sharing data, resources and expertise. I hope to maximise the impact of my freshwater research through collaboration with the other Red-ALERT CDT students, academics and industrial partners. 
Sian Davies