PhD: Capturing ecosystem service delivery from coral reefs
Lancaster Environment Centre
Lancaster University
Start date: 1st February 2017
I am a NERC Envision and Stockholm Resilience Centre funded PhD student based at Lancaster University. Before the PhD, I did a BSc. in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour at Durham University (UK) and an MSc in Conservation and Biodiversity at the University of Exeter (UK). I then worked as a Research Assistant investigating the health and wellbeing of Cornish fishing communities, then as a Marine Policy Officer (Wales) for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
My research project:
I’m doing an inter-disciplinary PhD that combines ecology and environmental social sciences. The aim is to better understand what environmental change, specifically on coral reefs, could mean human wellbeing. Reefs like many ecosystems provide many different benefits to people. These contribute to our wellbeing and are known as ecosystem services. Using this as the focal point, I’m working in the Seychelles to find out:
- How do changes in reef ecology affect the capacity of coral reefs to underpin locally important ecosystem services?
- Do, and how do, coral reefs fishers perceive change in coral reef ecosystem services and do these changes matter?
- How do coral reefs contribute to fishers’ ability to live well?
I am supervised by Prof Nick Graham (Lancaster University), Prof Christina Hicks (Lancaster University), Dr Gareth Williams (School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University) and Dr Albert Norström (Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University) and work in partnership with the Seychelles Fishing Authority.