Author: Lucy Moore Fuller

Having read for degrees in geology and geophysics I now work on a shared PhD project between the British Geological Survey and Lancaster University, where I focus on developing workflows related to long term geoelectrical monitoring on unstable slopes (man made or natural). Geoelectrical methods are sensitive to near surface moisture conditions and rock types which make them a not only a great tool for investigating landslides but other environmental problems (such as agricultural applications). Throughout this project I have worked on numerous challenges when processing geophysical data, not just related to my project, these include:

• Processing ‘big’ problems that require use of super computers and automation.
• Optimisation of code to speed up run times.
• Building complex near surface geophysical models.
• Data visualisation and dissemination.

As part of my efforts of the past few years, I co-developed geoelectrical processing software ‘ResIPy’, which has recently been adopted by BGS (and universities) for training purposes. The aim of the software is to make processing geoelectrical data easier for non-specialists and specialists alike in the academic realm.

To wrap up, my key interests and skills are:

• Site characterisation through geophysical methods
• Geophysical data processing
• Python
• Cython (for writing efficient algorithms used in Python)
• 3D (and 2D) data visualisation
• Workflow development
• Petrophysical relationships

Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jimmy-Boyd

DTP: ARIES (Cohort 1)

Project: The Diurnal Cycle of the Maritime Continent and its Scale Interactions

Supervisors: Prof Adrian Matthews, Dr Rob Hall, Prof Karen Heywood, Dr Marina Azaneu

Find me at: j.mustafa@uea.ac.uk

Jack is a second year PhD student in the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) with research interests in the tropical meteorology and climatology. His project entails study of the diurnal cycle of rainfall and associated climate variables around Indonesia using reanalysis products, weather station data and passive acoustic data acquired from ocean gliders. The diurnal cycle exerts a strong influence on regional weather, but is complicated by complex island topography and various forms of equatorial atmospheric waves and oscillations. This project will contribute toward improved understanding of how regional conditions induced by low-frequency waves and oscillations affect the diurnal cycle, which offers potential to improve model representation of these dynamics in turn.

Jack’s studentship is linked to NERC-funded Large Grant TerraMaris (overview presentation here), a multinational campaign to better understand convective processes around the Maritime Continent using high-resolution modelling and a large-scale field campaign in Indonesia and Christmas Island now planned for Jan-Mar 2023, in which Jack is intended to take part.

Jack enjoys making science accessible through outreach work. Alongside Beth Siddle, he helped create oceanography material for children for Norwich Science Festival 2020 (YouTube video here), for which the pair were recently nominated for a UEA engagement award. He is actively looking forward to future opportunities to showcase his own research!

I am a 3^rd year PhD student in Marine Ecology with the University of Essex and my research focusses on how habitat influences variation in distribution and survival of juvenile European sea bass (Figure 1). Sea bass are an economically important species across their range of the UK and Europe and are a consumer favourite in these regions. Recently, however, high fishing pressure and variable recruitment of new fish to the stock has resulted in stock declines, with sea bass now considered vulnerable to over-exploitation. Recruitment of new individuals is largely influenced by the survival and distribution patterns of juvenile and larval fish. These are thought to be majorly driven by environmental conditions, but how is largely unknown. 

Understanding the distribution and survival of a species requires information on larval supply, habitat usage, habitat function and fish survivability. Bass use different habitats at different life stages. While adults use deeper offshore waters, juveniles are thought to use shallow estuarine systems as nursery habitat (that which promotes survival) during the summer months, but what habitat characteristics of the nursery habitats are important to sea bass is still unknown. The estuarine systems sea bass inhabit over the summer months are under immense anthropogenic pressures, as the result of agriculture and land reclamation, maritime activities, and waste management. As such, it is now more important than ever to identify key areas for habitat conservation and management, which starts with identifying what is important to vulnerable species, such as sea bass. Our findings to date challenge the current dogma that saltmarshes are the most important form of nursery habitat.

Over the last summer, my work focussed on assessing differences in juvenile bass abundance between different types of estuarine habitat; those that can be considered structurally complex like saltmarshes, shingle, and oyster reefs, or those that are simple such as mudflats and sand banks. This involved a combination of seine netting (Figure 2) in open habitats such as mudflats and shingle beds, and fyke netting (Figure 3) more closed habitats such as saltmarshes. This was carried out over both high and low tide at a number of sites within the Colne and Blackwater Estuary. The data gathered here will be used to determine important habitat for bass within nursery systems and its function, to better inform management decisions of coastal habitats.

Recently, I concluded a growth performance experiment investigating how winter temperatures found in the estuarine habitats of the Essex coastline affect the growth of young-of-year bass. This is to be used alongside in-situ measurements of temperature throughout the winter, and seasonal catch data from previous years to determine whether these supposed nursery habitats are accessible to juvenile sea bass during the winter (or whether they must move to other habitats), and what the implications are for their survival and recruitment.

My work has now progressed to concentrating on the supply of larval fish to estuarine nursery habitats, specifically questioning whether larval fish employ some form of transport mechanism to actively move to settlement sites, or whether they passively move with ocean currents. It is hoped this will be used to better inform models of settlement patterns used in recruitment models. Finally, I will soon be using molecular methods to understand differences in diet and food availability between habitats and what are the implications for habitat function and fish survival.

If you would like to see updates on how my work progresses and see more of what I get up to then you can find me on twitter @seabassbase.

DTP: ENVISION