PhD Studentship: Conserving and assessing ecosystem processes through species traits. NERC GW4+ DTP PhD studentship for September 2026 Entry

University of Exeter - Department of Biosciences

About the Partnership

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The GW4+ DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus five Research Organisation partners: British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Natural History Museum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. The partnership aims to provide a broad training in earth and environmental sciences, designed to train tomorrow’s leaders in earth and environmental science. For further details about the programme please see http://nercgw4plus.ac.uk/

For eligible successful applicants, the studentships comprises:

• An stipend for 3.5 years (currently £20,780 p.a. for 2026/27) in line with UK Research and Innovation rates
• Payment of university tuition fees
• The budget for project costs is £9,000 which can be used for computer, lab, and fieldwork costs necessary for you to conduct your research.
• There is also a conference budget of £2,000 and individual Training Budget of £1,000 for specialist training

Project Aims and Methods

How do we adapt conservation for a time of rapid global environmental change? Conservation scientists have recently suggested we should focus more on maintaining and restoring ecological processes than on preserving individual species. This approach could create well-functioning ecosystems, resilient to threats such as climate change. But how do we measure and conserve ecological processes in practice? Species’ traits provide a promising framework for quantifying ecosystem integrity. We are looking for a Doctoral Researcher with a strong interest in ecology and conservation biology to develop the following research questions:

1. a) How do species traits predict important ecological processes, including food web structure and resilience to perturbations?
2. b) Can the patterns and correlations of species’ traits in ecological communities be used to quantify ecosystem integrity?
3. c) What are the practical uses of traits in conservation, including assessment of ecosystems and increasing their resilience?

The supervisory team comprises senior researchers with expertise covering conservation, ecosystem functions, species traits, ecological interactions, and environmental change. The Doctoral Researcher will have the opportunity to devise an exciting research project, to receive training in data capture and manipulation, statistics, trait analysis, and modelling of interaction webs, and to undertake fieldwork at conservation sites in the UK.

Useful recruitment links:

For information relating to the research project please contact the lead Supervisor via: jmbul@ceh.ac.uk

This Project will be hosted by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) but you will need to apply to the University of Exeter as the registered University who will be awarding the PhD.