DEAL: DEcentrAlised Learning for automated image analysis and biodiversity monitoring
Science Group
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:
Our vision for the next 5 years is to:
DEAL: DEcentrAlised Learning for automated image analysis and biodiversity monitoring
FOCUS: Future States of the global Coastal ocean: Understanding for Solutions
BIO-PLASTIC-RISK: Biodegradable Bioplastics – Assessing Environmental Risk
FutureMARES: Climate Change and Future Marine Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity
DREAMS – Decommissioning – Relative Effects of Alternative Management Strategies
Atlantic Ecosystem Assessment, Forecasting and Sustainability (AtlantECO)
North East Atlantic hub of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network
S-3 EUROHAB – Sentinel products for detecting EUtROphication and Harmful Algal Bloom events
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.
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.