The effects of parasites on food web structure and dynamics: New ways to improve accuracy and ecological realism
PhD aim:
To investigate new ways to include parasites within food web models and investigate the influence that parasite species have on the structure, dynamics, and function of a commercially valuable marine food web of the west coast of Scotland (wcoS).
PhD objectives:
- To identify the main metazoan parasite species from two to four commercially valuable marine fish species involved in the wcoS food web (literature review and fish dissections).
- To find new ways include the identified parasite species within topological, energetic, and functional food web models.
- To investigate which food web model type best represents parasitic interactions.
- To compare the changes in food web metrics with and without the inclusion of parasites.
- To compare the effect of generalist parasites to specialist parasites on food web metrics.
- To investigate whether the use of eDNA metabarcoding could be used to reduce dissections for parasite identification in future studies.
Contact details:
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn profile: www.linkedin.com/in/tully-osmond-449a26209/