Project highlights
- The planet is suffering unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss
- There is a need to devise low-cost accurate approaches for biodiversity assessment suitable for use over large spatial scales
- You will use environmental DNA (eDNA) based approaches to unravel spatial and temporal biodiversity in urban habitats, including threatened and introduced species
- You will work with a range of stakeholders to devise approaches to utilise eDNA data to address policy and evidence requirements
Overview
Biodiversity loss is a major global concern, threatening the resilience of ecosystems and their capacity to support human well-being. Biodiversity analysis is important to detect rare, threatened or invasive species and to characterise ecosystem quality, and the success of conservation efforts. Traditional methods to assess biodiversity are expensive, time consuming and inefficient particularly for elusive species. They also pose the risk of misidentification. DNA based approaches provide alternatives to traditional surveys that are faster, cheaper, and more accurate – allowing the scaling up of biodiversity monitoring over large areas. All organisms shed DNA into the environment particularly as epidermal cells, hair, waste and as extracellular DNA. This environmental (eDNA) can be extracted from water, soil or vegetation samples, and used in molecular methods to investigate the presence of either single species or to characterise the biodiversity of whole communities.
The project will use eDNA analysis techniques to investigate urban biodiversity, including locally threatened and invasive species.
Host
University of WarwickTheme
- Organisms and Ecosystems
Supervisors
Project investigator
- Gary Bending, University of Warwick, [email protected]
Co-investigators
- Robin Allaby, University of Warwick, [email protected]
- Molly Williams, University of Warwick, [email protected]
How to apply
- Each host has a slightly different application process.
Find out how to apply for this studentship. - All applications must include the CENTA application form. Choose your application route
Methodology
You will investigate aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity in urban habitats. Initial work will focus on comparative analysis of a city centre and an urban fringe parkland, and their associated water courses, as eDNA observatory areas with high temporal and spatial resolution of biodiversity. Further work will investigate biodiversity across larger spatial scales for targeted investigations such as to determine the way in which habitat connectivity, size and diversity influence communities, and the effectiveness of habitat management and restoration schemes in promoting biodiversity. You will use amplicon based approaches to investigate community level biodiversity of key taxa which could include mammals, amphibians, fish and invertebrates. This will be supplemented with targeted analysis of key species by quantitative PCR. This could include species undergoing population decline such as water voles and white clawed crayfish, and invasive species such as mink and signal crayfish. The data will be used to determine the feasibility of using eDNA to address biodiversity related policy and evidence requirements, and will involve collaboration with a range of stakeholders including Coventry City Council, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the Canal and Rivers Trust.
Training and skills
DRs will be awarded CENTA Training Credits (CTCs) for participation in CENTA-provided and ‘free choice’ external training. One CTC can be earned per 3 hours training, and DRs must accrue 100 CTCs across the three and a half years of their PhD.
Training will be provided by the supervisory team in a wide range of environmental science field sampling and analysis approaches. This will include amplicon based sequencing techniques for community level analysis of biodiversity, the development of quantitative PCR approaches for species detection. This will include bioinformatic analysis and a range of statistical techniques to investigate species assemblages and drivers of community diversity (eg multivariate analysis).
Further details
For any enquiries related to this project please contact Gary Bending, School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick [email protected].
To apply to this project:
- You must include a CENTA studentship application form, downloadable from: CENTA Studentship Application Form 2025.
- You must include a CV with the names of at least two referees (preferably three) who can comment on your academic abilities.
- Please submit your application and complete the host institution application process via: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/study/pgr/studentships/nerccenta/ University of Warwick projects will be added here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/study/pgr/studentships/nerccenta/studentships/ and application guidance is at the bottom of this page. Complete the online application form – selecting course code P-C1PB (Life Sciences PhD); from here you will be taken through to another screen where you can select your desired project. Please enter “NERC studentship” in the Finance section and add Nikki Glover, [email protected] as the scholarship contact. Please also complete the CENTA Studentship Application Form 2025 and submit via email to [email protected]. Please quote ***insert project code here*** when completing the application form.
Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 8th January 2025.
Possible timeline
Year 1
High resolution spatial and temporal analysis of biodiversity in contrasting urban habitats using community based amplicon approaches (continues across the 3 years).
Year 2
Development of targeted quantitative PCR approaches to detect specific invasive and threatened species.
Year 3
Regional scale studies to investigate how key habitat features and habitat restoration schemes affect biodiversity.
Further reading
Allen et al., (2023) Sampling environmental DNA from trees and soil to detect cryptic arboreal mammals. Scientific Reports 13, 180.
King et al. (2022) Using eDNA to simultaneously detect the distribution of native and invasive crayfish within an entire country. Journal of Environmental Management 302, 113929
Ruppert et al (2019) Past, present, and future perspectives of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding: A systematic review in methods, monitoring, and applications of global eDNA. Global Ecology and Restoration 17, e00547.