PhD in Behavioural Ecology

Award Summary: 100% UK home fees are covered and a minimum tax-free annual living allowance of £20,780 (2025/26 UKRI rate). Research costs covered./nOverview: The role complements a broader NERC funded project investigating Coral Reef Dynamics across Longitude, Latitude, and Depth. The goal is to further our ecological understanding of coral reefs across their full spatial extent to provide a groundbreaking framework with which to assess the shape and robustness of current and future assembly of coral reef biodiversity./nYou will design and carry out your own research, with the support of an international supervisory team. Depending on your current and desired skills and interests, your PhD will combine fieldwork, lab-work, and/or data analysis, to address topics related to: Understanding depth-related plasticity in the physiology and behaviour of mesophotic reef fish; Identifying depth-related changes in the structure and robustness of the ecological networks supporting reef fish communities at different positions along depth, latitude, and longitude gradients; Determining how coral reef fish food webs and energy pathways are connected along extended depth gradients of 0-90 meters./nBased in Newcastle, and with international supervision, you will receive training and skills in some of the following: meta-barcoding, stable isotope analysis, trophic-web analysis, Bayesian statistics, wet-lab experimentation – respirometry, fieldwork.