PhD Studentship: Understanding and Managing Solutions for Emerging UK Fisheries Challenges: Expansion of Bluefin Tuna into the North Sea

RESEARCH QUESTION: Decades of work on protected areas, rewilding and careful management have produced several conservation gains. The return of Atlantic bluefin tuna to the North Sea after a 60-year absence is one such story, but it also poses an environmental solutions question that this PhD will tackle: how do we manage the re-emergence of an apex predator into ecosystems now naïve to it, and coastal communities that wish to exploit it? And how does this feed forward into rewilding and other conservation projects? This PhD will improve our understanding of the consequences of rapid re-expansion of the species, ecosystem function and stock management, and build the interdisciplinary, systems-thinking skillset for the researcher that NERC's environmental solutions agenda calls for.

METHODS: This project takes a science for environmental solutions approach, tackling demographic recovery (using fisheries surveys), genetic health (using molecular ecology), ecosystem function (with modelling) and fisheries governance (using stakeholder surveying) through a unique and diverse supervisory partnership across science and policy.

TRAINING: The researcher will be trained in marine field skills (tagging tuna and carrying out fisheries surveys) at Exeter and with NEIFCA, including time at sea on their research vessel. They will also be trained in programming and ecosystem modelling at Exeter and PML, in molecular ecology at Exeter, in policy at Natural England, and stakeholder engagement at collaborator The Angling Trust. They will present their work at international training courses and conferences, building personal reputation and understanding they can use to direct the research as it evolves. This multi-disciplinary approach to brand new challenges in fisheries will position the researcher at the front of the field.

PROJECT PARTNER COLLABORATION: The supervisors have built this meaningful and strong partnership over many years, working from diverse angles, and bringing together our shared needs and interests to this important project.

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