News
Find out the latest in what the group have been up to.
2024
We are super excited that Dr Cordelia Roberts has joined our research group as a Post-doctoral Research Associate! She will be working on the NERC BIO-Carbon project as well as continuing her exciting research on all things particles and microbes!
2023
As part of our WWF project to increase knowledge on how krill and salps contribute to carbon sequestration, Research Assistant Anona Griffiths headed off to Tasmania (Australia) to carry out experiments with, of course, krill poo! Anona spent 2-months at the Australian Antarctic Division krill aquarium experimenting on how krill poo, as well as krill dead bodies and exoskeletons, contribute to carbon sinks in the ocean.
July has been a bumper month in funding to support the Cavan research group in driving forward research on the ocean carbon cycle. In the next 6 months three new projects will start (and excitingly 3 post-doc positions will be available), two of which were funded by NERC and the third by Horizon Europe.
Emma is now a co-chair of ICED, the international multidisciplinary program on ‘Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Southern Ocean’. ICED is a regional group of IMBeR, and works to coordinate Southern Ocean scientists to better understand climate interactions in the Southern Ocean, the implications for ecosystem dynamics, the impacts on biogeochemical cycles, and the development of sustainable management procedures.
A 3-year project funded by WWF and led by Imperial has just begun with the aim to increase knowledge on how krill and salps contribute to carbon (C) sequestration. Excitingly Anona Griffiths has joined the team as a Research Assistant to lead this work, having finished her Masters at Imperial in September 2022. You can read more about the project on the Research page.
This week in collaboration with OCB I co-chaired an online workshop to bring together experts on 1) the role of fish in the biological carbon pump, 2) the potential impact of fishing on oceanic carbon and 3) what the implications to society would be if fishing management changed to protect the biological pump.
A new ICES workshop has been formed, to assess the impact of fishing on oceanic carbon. The new workshop WKFISHCARBON will be chaired by Emma and David Reid, with the first meeting scheduled for 24-28th April at ICES headquarters in Denmark. The Terms of Reference can be found online.
2022
Our Fish held an event at COP27 this year in the Ocean Pavilion to discuss how Fish are carbon engineers and the impact fisheries may be having on carbon storage.
WWF Australia have published a report ‘Antarctic krill: Powerhouse of the Southern Ocean’ to highlight the critical role krill have in maintaining ecosystem health. A key part of the report was to estimate the value of krill in ‘blue carbon’, storing carbon in the ocean away from the atmosphere.
This year I was awarded one of the Challenger Society of Marine Science fellowships, which celebrates ‘excellence in marine science’ and the careers of early-mid level researchers in the UK. It was an honour to receive the award and recognition, and even more exciting to receive it at the Challenger Society’s biennial conference, this year celebrating 150 years since HMS Challenger set sail to circumnavigate the globe to learn about the ocean depths.
I have recently been appointed to the NERC Advisary Network, otherwise known as NAN! The network is formed of leading science users including academia, business and policy to provide strategic and policy advice to NERC. NERC is the Natural and Environmental Research Council responsible for funding environmental science in the UK.
In June I got to spend a week in Plymouth teaching Imperial students about rocky shores, muddy estuaries and plankton! Biological Sciences undergraduate students at Imperial can choose to do a summer module in their second year called ‘Ecological Field Skills’ coordinated by my wonderful colleague Dr Emma Ransome. Thankfully the weather was kind to us, mostly, this year!
We have just published a paper in Nature Geoscience on assessing how well or poorly different Earth System Models (that project the future climate) represent detrital carbon export by plankton. This Perspective piece was led by my colleague Prof Stephanie Henson from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, with other female colleagues from the US, Germany and the UK.
For the first few months of 2022 I am seconded (on loan) from Imperial to DEFRA, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK government. This is an incredible opportunity where I can learn more about how UK policy is made and crucially how science is used as evidence in policy making. I have been seconded onto a specific project within DEFRA which is classified as ‘Official Sensitive’ and so the details cannot be shared.
New paper out in Global Change Biology identifying global hotspots of fishing intensity and the pelagic carbon sink. Dr Simeon Hill and I also explore the potential impacts fishing could be having on the carbon sink, from directly removing faecal pellet producing species, to causing trophic cascades negatively impacting low trophic plankton important in sinking carbon to the deep ocean and sediments.
2021
This year got to attend my first COP (UN Climate Change summit), which was the 26th COP held in Glasgow, UK. I was able to attend the Blue Zone representing Imperial College, which is the area where the negotiations took place to write an agreed text to be passed by all UN delegations.
WWF along with the help of some expert UK scientists made this animation showcasing the superhero qualities of Antarctic krill through their ability to sink carbon to the deep ocean in their faecal pellets.
The NGO Our Fish delivered an online symposium Delivering on Climate & Biodiversity Targets Through Better Fisheries Management in March 2021, to explore how ending overfishing can help realise biodiversity and climate change goals.
New paper out in Ecology and Evolution showing how feeding on detritus (krill poo) can stimulate microbial respiration of organic carbon decreasing the ocean carbon sink, whilst simultaneously providing the detritivores (i.e. krill) with essential nutrients.
2020
I am now part of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI) Fisheries working group led by Matt Gianni and Lissette Victorero.
Today Emma gives an online seminar to the OCB community on the impact of fishing to the ocean carbon cycle.
Emma is now an Imperial College Research Fellow. This is a 4-year post where Emma will work on numerical modelling the impacts of climate change through changing nutrients to the Antarctic krill and the Southern Ocean krill fishery. You can read more about the fellowship on the Research page.
Emma attended her first British Ecological Society policy committee meeting today. She will be part of the committee for 3 years representing Early Career Researchers. The committee meets quarterly to discuss and approve various projects the BES is endorsing to promote ecological science to the wider public and policy makers.
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An Feature Article on the super-powers of krill, based on this Nature Communications paper (Cavan et al. 2019), was published in the British Ecology Society’s ‘The Niche’ magazine summer edition. It even made the front cover!