Life history and dispersal of the alien seaweed Sargassum muticum in Scottish coastal waters: an individual-based modelling approach

This project will address the key factors driving the expansion of the invasive seaweed Sargassum muticum in Scottish coastal waters. As invasive species tend to have negative impacts on key ecosystem services such as aquaculture, recreation and marine transportation, elucidating the mechanisms that lead to the successful invasion of Sargassum muticum will contribute to our understanding of Sargassum muticum expansion and may allow management to preserve the key ecosystem services of our coastal seas.

We plan to develop an individual based model (IBM) that considers the life history of the alien seaweed Sargassum muticum and then couple it with the Scottish Shelf Model (SSM) developed by Marine Scotland (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-shelf-model-part-1-shelf-wide-domain/). The SSM-IBM model will be used to simulate the distribution, dispersal, and possible future expansion of Sargassum muticum in Scottish coastal seas and will be optimised against observational data such as the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) atlas (https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NHMSYS0021058667).

The model results will help to address the following key questions:
1) What are the key factors (biological traits versus dispersal ability) that allow the quick invasion of Sargassum muticum in Scottish coastal waters?
2) What is the role of ocean currents and mixing in determining the dispersal of Sargassum muticum?
3) Will the future changes in temperature and ocean circulation favour the expansion of Sargassum muticum in Scottish waters?