(he/him)
I have had an interest in the natural world since I was young, heavily influenced by David Attenborough and other nature documentaries! This led to me getting into birding and looking for nature in my local area and then taking up photography to capture what I found. I undertook a BSc (Hons) and then MSc in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, both at Edinburgh Napier University, before moving to Heriot-Watt University to take on a PhD!
My undergraduate honours project used nest camera footage from the Heads up for Harriers project to look at the influence of grouse moors on Hen Harrier development and my MSc project studied the effects of disturbance on Kittiwake breeding success at the St Abbs NNR.
The effect of offshore windfarms on the distribution, behaviour, and abundance of fish
PI and Institution:
Paul Fernandes, Heriot-Watt University
PhD aim:
My overall PhD aim is to investigate how the rapidly developing offshore wind industry is influencing fish distributions, behaviour and abundances and their interactions as prey for our seabird populations.
PhD objectives:
- Complete a review of acoustic methods for measuring the abundance and distribution of various marine groups, such as fish and krill.
- Use novel data collection methods (USV and AUV) to collect data on fish school metrics and their characterisation in and around OWF.
- Modelling fine scale fish prey fields in and around OWF.
- Examining the relationships between fish school structures and their potential impact on seabird predator distributions.
Contact details:
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Ross Rutherford
Instagram: @rjr.photos