Synthetic Ecology for the management and commercial exploitation of freshwater ecosystems

Theme: Agriculture and Food Security

In collaboration with members of the Plant Sciences Department a concept paper (Kazamia et al., 2013) was developed on how we can use our understanding of ecosystem processes to push a system towards a desirable end-point. The aim is to seed a system with key components, which are therefore likely to stabilise towards a desirable end point. We have the potential to use bivalve moullscs, allelopathic substances, competitors and synergists, or limiting nutrients to intentionally alter communities. This might, for example, allow us to gain clear water (i.e. standard biomanipulation), move a system towards a lipid rich algal community for biofuel production, or create conditions that are particularly favourable or unfavourable for a threatened or invasive organism respectively. Studies can combine laboratory studies with scaled-up mesocosms and full scale trials with the water industry.

This project has the potential to utilise systems biology and modelling to emulate ecosystem interactions and predict the stable climax communities which may arise under a range of different environmental conditions and species diversities. The project will certainly require the use of statistical analysis and modelling which can be achieved by using programmes such as R Studio and MatLab.