Modelling the effect of marine renewable developments on UK seabird populations.

Studentship strategic priority area: Ecology, biodiversity and systematics - Ecology 50% - Conservation 50%
Keywords (maximum of five keywords): Seabirds, marine renewables, anthropogenic change, wind farms, tidal energy, population viability models, sublethal effects

Abstract: Britain has rapidly become the world leader in offshore renewables, with more offshore wind turbines consented in UK waters than in the rest of the world combined, and many new developments proposed. Britain also holds internationally important populations of many species of seabirds. Impacts of marine renewables on seabird populations are uncertain. All breeding seabird species in the UK are protected by EU law with over 80 Special Protection Areas designated in the UK for seabirds, representing a potential constraint on offshore renewables development, as cumulative impacts could at some point exceed legal thresholds. There is an urgent need to develop a tool to assess cumulative impacts of renewables on seabird populations, to assist developers and regulators to refine assessment of impacts of renewables on seabird populations. This project will address that urgent need. The student will work with academic and industrial supervisors and with scientific staff of the statutory nature conservation bodies (SNCBs) and regulators to develop a population viability analysis (PVA)-based population modelling approach that recognises the meta-population structure of seabird populations, their seasonal migrations and overlap of different international regional populations, and the concept of biologically defined minimum population scales (BDMPS) being promoted by SNCBs. The modelling approach will use the detailed demographic data available for most seabird species and combine that with the high quality colony census data available for seabirds in the UK. Assessments of the impacts of collision mortality and displacement by marine renewables will be coupled with the PVA model to project likely future dynamics. This modelling will assess projected population level impacts of marine renewables at an appropriate spatial scale (regions of the UK marine area or the whole of UK waters depending on the seabird species), with the consequences of impacts partitioned by season (since populations at risk differ among seasons).