Animal Ecology - Environmental Change

Overview

The environment is changing faster than at any time in recorded history, due to a range of factors including climate change, habitat loss, renewable energy developments, pollution and over-exploitation of natural resources. These changes are having profound effects on biodiversity and human and animal health - and we need to be able to predict the consequences.

Learning outcomes

Animal Ecology - Environmental Change Institute at University of Glasgow integrates studies of the effects of environmental change operating at all levels of biological organisation. For instance, at the cellular level we are investigating how environmental conditions influence physiological and molecular processes including metabolism, oxidative damage, telomere loss  and the rate of ageing. This is linked to studies of how individual animals and plants cope with environmental fluctuations, and how in turn this influences population dynamics, species interactions (including those between parasites, vectors and their hosts) and community structure. We conduct both short-term experiments and long-term monitoring of wild populations (at a range of field sites including loch and woodland research programmes at SCENE, our field station on the banks of Loch Lomond).

We have many links to other research in the Institute and the wider university.  For example:

• through the effect of environmental conditions on disease transmission or food production

• through investigation of how animals evolve in the face of changing environments

• through links with geographers, statisticians and mathematicians in the College of Science and Engineering.

Study Options

PhD programmes in Animal Ecology - Environmental Change offered at University of Glasgow last 3-4 years, with individual research projects tailored around the expertise of principal investigators within the Institutes. A variety of approaches are used, including collection of experimental and observational data, epidemiological, mathematical, computational and statistical modelling, bioinformatics, physiology, parasitology, immunology and polyomics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics). Basic and applied science projects are available  involving field, laboratory and in silico approaches are available, within research programs underway in both the UK and overseas.

Our excellent facilities and dedicated staff will equip you with training complementary to a range of career options, and you can tailor your study pathway to the precise aspects that suit your objectives.