Science Group

Marine Ecology and Biodiversity

Our mission is to undertake excellent high-impact research on marine ecosystems to understand how and why they respond to environmental change and human pressures, and what determines their potential for adaptation, resilience and sensitivities in different contexts.

By better understanding fundamental ecological processes, their natural variability across time and space and links within the ecosystem, we increase our ability to predict and mitigate the consequences of human impact, helping to maintain healthy and biologically productive marine ecosystems.

The Marine Ecology and Biodiversity group is at the forefront of work on the assessment of biological and ecosystem responses to climate change, ocean acidification and Blue Carbon as well as pioneering research on the prevalence and impacts of microplastics and artificial light at night.

The group employs field investigations, laboratory experiments and analyses of large biological and numerical modeling datasets to determine the causes and consequences of ecological change, the mechanisms driving ecological interactions and to address specific hypotheses regarding the impacts of climatic and anthropogenic stressors.Our activities encompass timescales from the short term (minutes, hours, weeks) to multi-decadal observations, and scales of organization from molecules through microbes, phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic meiofauna, macrofauna to megafauna.

We use this knowledge to further help the development of state-of-the-art, process-based models of the marine environment, its species and habitats, as well as to support a better understanding of the goods and services it provides. Our scientists and data from the Western Channel Observatory (WCO) have been central in developing indicators and reporting targets for marine policy in the UK and the EU (e.g. UK Marine Strategy, MSFD, OSPAR) and at pan-Atlantic scales (e.g. ICES).

Our research seeks to:

Understand and quantify the ecological connections among organisms and between organisms and their environment, identifying what drives changes in these interactions and the consequences, in order to to facilitate novel management strategies and enhance blue growth
Explore the range of temporal and spatial variability across scales of biological organisation, using and developing analytical approaches and applying them to spatial and temporal data to quantify how species and systems vary.
Identify the impacts of climatic change and human activity on organisms and ecosystems. This includes the direct and indirect effects of climate change (e.g. warming, stratification, extreme weather, ocean acidification, deoxygenation) and stressors from human activity including disturbance, contaminants, noise, and light.
Understand and investigate the specific drivers of change in the polar regions that lead to sensitivity and/or resilience of polar animal and plant life, increasing our ability to predict ecosystem shifts in both the polar regions and at lower latitudes
Determine what nature-based solutions limit and mitigate the impacts of climate change and pollution impacts in the marine environment, conducting research into ecologically inspired solutions.

Our vision for the next 5 years is to:

Cement PML as a leader in Marine Ecology and Biodiversity Research; fully exploiting our world class facilities, existing and new data sets and highly skilled staff.
Focus key areas of scientific excellence in multiple stressors, emerging contaminants and climate change impacts.
Increase our understanding of variability in biodiversity, community structure and ecological processes at different scales, including the biotic and abiotic links within marine ecosystems.
Apply our knowledge to better identify, predict and mitigate the consequences of human impacts and climatic change and to protect biodiversity, thereby underpinning the maintenance of healthy, diverse, resilient and productive marine ecosystems.

PML Project pages

Other projects

BIO-PLASTIC-RISK
Climate Change Stresses of Antarctic krill
Developing Nature-based solutions to plastic pollution
MicroOPT
MSPACE
Tyre-LOSS

Resources and Links

MEB researchers play a major part in the sampling, analysis and data curation of the Western Channel Observatory (WCO). The WCO is an oceanographic time-series and marine biodiversity reference site in the Western English Channel just south of Plymouth. In situ measurements are undertaken weekly using the research vessels of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association, coupled to higher resolution sampling, for example at data buoys. Some of these measurements provide a near unbroken time series typically at weekly resolution, and bridge across pelagic, benthic and atmospheric domains and multiple sites, are complemented by PML's recognised excellence in ecosystem modelling and satellite remote sensing science. By integrating these different observational disciplines we can begin to disentangle the complexity of the marine ecosystem and understand how it is responding to stressors that are superimposed upon the natural seasonality.

These time series feed into a series of networks, for example ICES, MCCIP reports, reporting indicators to meet policy requirements (OSPAR) and South West Marine Ecosytems Annual Reports.

Capabilities

People are the key resource in MEB. We have a great depth of taxonomic expertise that includes benthic meiofauna to macrofauna, planktonic protists and metazoans, analytical expertise spanning carbonate both in terms of chemistry to multivariate statistics of large datasets. In terms of infrastructure we have Plymouth’s Research vessel Quest, the Western Channel Observatory time series and biodiversity reference site, and our excellent newly refurbished research laboratory facilities. These include our state-of-the-art intertidal mesocosm laboratory, the behaviour, sound and imaging laboratory, and polar to tropical constant temperature rooms, where we can design and implement cutting-edge research into the impacts of anthropogenic change through comprehensive environmental controls.

A suite of new analytical laboratories, including the molecular biology facility, the microbiology facility, the biodiversity suite and the ultraclean microplastic facility, housing new equipment such as a Fourier Transform Infra-red and near infra-red imaging system, infra-red photography, a suite of microscopes, FlowCam and various optical sensors, enable MEB to deliver globally leading marine ecology and biodiversity research.

Latest publications

Tarling, GA; Belcher, A; Blackwell, M; Castellani, C; Cook, KB; Cottier, FR; Dewar-Fowler, V; Freer, JJ; Gerrish, L; Johnson, ML; Last, KS; Lindeque, PK; Mayor, DJ; Parry, HE; Stowasser, G; Wootton, M; 2022. Carbon and Lipid Contents of the Copepod Calanus finmarchicus Entering Diapause in the Fram Strait and Their Contribution to the Boreal and Arctic Lipid Pump . Frontiers in Marine Science.
Connelly, DP; Bull, JM; Flohr, A; Schaap, A; Koopmans, D; Blackford, JC; White, PR; James, RH; Pearce, CR; Lichtschlag, A; Achterberg, EP; de Beer, D; Roche, B; Li, J; Saw, K; Alendal, G; Avlesen, H; Brown, R; Borisov, SM; Böttner, C; Cazenave, PW; Chen, B; Dale, AW; Dean, M; Dewar, M; Esposito, M; Gros, J; Hanz, R; Haeckel, M; Hosking, B; Huvenne, VAI; Karstensen, J; Le Bas, T; Leighton, TG; Linke, P; Loucaides, S; Matter, JM; Monk, S; Mowlem, MC; Oleynik, A; Omar, AM; Peel, K; Provenzano, G; Saleem, U; Schmidt, M; Schramm, B; Sommer, S; Strong, J; Falcon Suarez, I; Ungerboeck, B; Widdicombe, S; Wright, H; Yakushev, E; 2022. Assuring the integrity of offshore carbon dioxide storage . Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Queiros, AM; Talbot, E; Kay, S; Sailley, SF; Vu Hoang Le, T; Thi Pham, C; Widdicombe, S; 2022. Climate-smart spatial planning assessment in support of conservation and blue growth in Da Nang city’s marine environment. . .

Botterell, ZLR; Bergmann, M; Hildebrandt, N; Krumpen, T; Steinke, M; Thompson, RC; Lindeque, PK; 2022. Microplastic ingestion in zooplankton from the Fram Strait in the Arctic . Science of The Total Environment.
Mutshinda, CM; Mishra, A; Finkel, ZV; Widdicombe, CE; Irwin, AJ; 2022. Bayesian two-part modeling of phytoplankton biomass and occurrence . Hydrobiologia.
Atkinson, A; Hill, SL; Reiss, CS; Pakhomov, EA; Beaugrand, G; Tarling, GA; Yang, G; Steinberg, DK; Schmidt, K; Edwards, M; Rombolá, E; Perry, FA; 2021. Stepping stones towards Antarctica: Switch to southern spawning grounds explains an abrupt range shift in krill . Global Change Biology.
Ostle, C; Paxman, K; Graves, CA; Arnold, M; Artigas, LF; Atkinson, A; Aubert, A; Baptie, M; Bear, B; Bedford, J; Best, M; Bresnan, E; Brittain, R; Broughton, D; Budria, A; Cook, K; Devlin, M; Graham, G.; Halliday, NC; Helaouët, P; Johansen, M; Johns, DG; Lear, D; Machairopoulou, M; McKinney, A; Mellor, A; Milligan, AJ; Pitois, S; Rombouts, I; Scherer, C; Tett, P; Widdicombe, CE; McQuatters-Gollop, A; 2021. The Plankton Lifeform Extraction Tool: a digital tool to increase the discoverability and usability of plankton time-series data . Earth System Science Data.
Tarling, GA; Freer, JJ; Banas, NS; Belcher, A; Blackwell, M; Castellani, C; Cook, KB; Cottier, FR; Daase, M; Johnson, ML; Last, KS; Lindeque, PK; Mayor, DJ; Mitchell, E; Parry, HE; Speirs, DC; Stowasser, G; Wootton, M; 2021. Can a key boreal Calanus copepod species now complete its life-cycle in the Arctic? Evidence and implications for Arctic food-webs . Ambio.
Li, J; Weinberger, F; Saha, M; Majzoub, ME; Egan, S; 2021. Cross-Host Protection of Marine Bacteria Against Macroalgal Disease . Microbial Ecology.
Agarwal, V; James, CC; Widdicombe, CE; Barton, AD; 2021. Intraseasonal predictability of natural phytoplankton population dynamics . Ecology and Evolution.

View more publications on our repository

Related Facilities

Mesocosm

Videos

The Mesocosm at Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Key facts

Our successful research history includes work on ocean acidification, warming, blue carbon, and our pioneering work on the impacts of anthropogenic stressors.
We use our knowledge and work with other Science Areas to further help the development of state-of-the-art, process-based models of the marine environment, its species and habitats, as well as to support a better understanding of the goods and services delivered by the coastal and marine environment.
Our scientists and WCO data have been central in developing indicators and reporting targets for marine policy in the UK and the EU (e.g. UK Marine Strategy, MSFD, OSPAR) and at pan-Atlantic scales (e.g. ICES).
We have been at the forefront of work on the assessment of biological and ecosystem responses to climate change, ocean acidification (e.g. ICCI Cryosphere 1.5 report, 2019) and blue carbon (e.g. IPCC SROCC 2019), as well as pioneering research on the prevalence and impacts of microplastics (e.g. winners of the NERC societal impact award) and artificial light at night.