Passive acoustic monitoring to inform evidence-based policy for coral reefs. PhD (Royal Society Funded)

About the Project

Coral reefs are culturally and biologically important ecosystems threatened by climate change and local stressors. Until greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, we can improve local protection and management for resilience and sustainability. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) and experimental evidence have revealed that traffic noise is a major pollutant causing stress for the inhabitants of coral reefs and affecting their survival. Altering marine traffic patterns around reefs can improve local conditions with immediate effect. This project will examine how PAM can inform us about reef condition and the efficacy of protection and restoration.

In this fully funded PhD project, the successful Post-Graduate Researcher will work collaboratively with Dr Nedelec’s research group who are developing novel ecoacoustic predictors for coral reef resilience. They will refine and test these novel ecoacoustic predictors on new and pre-existing datasets. The PhD Researcher will then apply these predictors at a regional scale along the GBR in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Specific sites will be chosen to reflect different policy and management contexts, noise exposures and reef health indicators. The ecoacoustic predictors and regional monitoring sites will be co-designed where possible, informed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science Indigenous Partnerships team, close stakeholder collaboration, workshops and policy analysis.

The ideal PhD candidate for this marine research project will possess strong fieldwork and analytical skills and be open to interdisciplinary research. Competency in software like R, MATLAB, or Python, is highly desirable, alongside a robust understanding of research design and quantitative methods, and openness to learning qualitative approaches such as Indigenous Standpoint Theory.