BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH GROUP
Welcome to our lab, this is a multidisciplinary lab group with projects studying the ecology of marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, combining a mixture of theoretical and empirical approaches. All of our study systems are within easy access of Cork City.
The Biodiversity Research Group (BRG) is based at UCCs Environmental Research Institute (ERI), where we have our labs and offices. Although we are based within the ERI all members of the research group contribute to the teaching and research that takes place within the Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant Sciences (ZEPS) at UCC.
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is a community-ecosystem ecologist using a mixture of empirical and theoretical
approaches to broadly study the effects of biodiversity change on ecosystem
functioning in natural systems. He has a background in marine ecology,
but since being appointed in the Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant
Sciences at UCC, Mark has initiated projects in a range of systems including
terrestrial (e.g. Gearagh,
BioUP, AGRIPOPES and SIMBIOSYS) freshwater (e.g. Natterjack Ponds) and marine (e.g. Lough
Hyne). The main goal of Marks research is to establish a series
of well studied field sites easily accessible from Cork, where ecological
ideas can be tested and explored experimentally. This requires an understanding
of how different species interact with one another and one of the central
themes of Mark's work has been how body size affects the strength of trophic
interactions in 'real' food webs. With this information in place it should
be possible to simulate food web dynamics and then predict the consequences
of biodiversity change in natural systems. These predictions could then
be tested experimentally. Marks interests are diverse and if you would
like to learn more please follow the link to his home page.
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My research group was established in 2003, although we are part of the Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant Sciences at UCC, the biodiversity research group is located at the new Environmental Research Institute next to the river Lee to the west of Cork City.
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Postgraduate or Postdoctoral opportunities
If you are interested in a PhD or Postdoctoral research opportunities at UCC then please contact me, there are a range of funding mechanisms including the Embark Scheme, EPA and adhoc opportunities always arise. To get a feel for some of the projects we have currently running take a look at the folk below, they are the ones that make things happen!
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Freshwater
Ecology
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Aurélie carried out her PhD studying the conservation ecology of the natterjack toad (Bufo calamita) at a number of sites in Co. Kerry South West Ireland. The project attempted to place the toads in an ecosystem context - what does that mean? The main aim of Aurélie's study wasto investigate how toad populations are influenced by their biotic (predation) and abiotic (habitat complexity) environments. Among the Kerry populations a gradient of habitat complexity has been established from sites where there are many ponds with interlinking drains to sites with single isolated ponds. The aim is to determine whether this gradient of environmental complexity (in a landscape context) can explain the survival of toads from eggs through to toadlets. Aurelie also investigated to what extent the survival of the toad tadpoles is determined by the predator burden of ponds that are constructed through conservation efforts. Another major aim was to determine whether some of the kerry sites function as metapopulations and how do the toads contribute to the functioning of the sand dune systems of which they are a part. e-mail: aurelieaubry@yahoo.fr |
Relevant Papers:
Aubry, A., Becart, E., Davenport, J. & Emmerson, M.C. (2010) Estimation of survival rate and extinction probability for stage-structured populations with overlapping life stages. Journal of Population Ecology. doi:10.1007/s10144-010-0194-9. Download: pdf
Becart, E., Aubry, A., Whelan, P. & Emmerson, M.C. (2007) The natterjack toad, Bufo calamita, in County Kerry, Ireland: Conservation status, current and forseeable threats. Irish Naturalists Journal. 28: 477-487. Download: pdf
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Órla completed her PhD in 2009. Her work is concerned with the food web structure of terrestrial invertebrate communities and how biodiversity change affects the temporal dynamics of food web structure and ecosystem functioning (primary productivity and decomposition). A combination of both empirical and theoretical approaches was used to explore food web dynamics and the consequences of species loss. Órla's fieldwork was carried out in the Gearagh, near Macroom, County Cork, Ireland (51052'N 009001'W). She manipulated the food web structure of small replicate islands within this riverine system and explored the effects on ecosystem functioning. The Gearagh is a mixed deciduous alluvial woodland in the floodplain of the River Lee. It is one of the last semi-natural forested floodplains in Europe and is unique in Ireland. e-mail: o.mclaughlin@mars.ucc.ie |
BioUP (Biodiversity change in the Kerry UPlands) - Ros Anderson and Nadine Kramm
Ros Anderson
| Roz is a PhD student funded by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) to study BIOdiversity
Change in the Irish UPlands (BIOUP). Changes in land management practices
in recent years, from overgrazing to undergrazing are closely linked to
the biodiversity status of these areas. The aim of this project is to
monitor, evaluate and model biodiversity change in the uplands of County
Kerry. This will involve extensive vegetation and invertebrate sampling,
as well as bird surveys. The project will also make extensive use of mathematical
approaches to model the consequences of alternative abandonment scenarios.
This information will then be used, along with socio-economic data (collected
by a joint PhD Nadine Kramm) to develop a model to predict the biodiversity
status of priority upland habitats and species under different land management
scenarios. This is a unique project as it integrates ecological and socio-economic
data, as well as stakeholder participation, making it relevant and valuable
to the people as well as the biodiversity of Ireland.
Roz's background is mainly in population ecology. She completed her BSc (Hons) in Zoology at the University of Glasgow and her MSc in Ecology at the University of Aberdeen. Since then she has worked on the dynamics of infectious diseases in wild rodent populations in Kielder Forest and feral goat maternal time budgets on the Isle of Rum, both with the University of Liverpool. As part of the Soay Sheep Project rut behaviour and vegetation analysis were undertaken on St Kilda, while work at the Macaulay Institute included observing social and foraging behaviour, diet choice and composition in domestic sheep and goats, red deer habitat use and aspects of alpine willow conservation. An interest in marine biology was also gained through her work on deep water coral behaviour and brittlestar growth at Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory. Roz hopes this wide range of expertise will provide a good basis for her PhD and may help formulate some interesting questions over the next three years. Roz is supervised by Dr. Mark Emmerson and Prof. John O'Halloran. |
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Nadine Kramm
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Nadine is a PhD student with a background in environmental policy and ecological economics. Her research is part of a Science Foundation Ireland funded project examining biodiversity change in the Irish uplands under different management scenarios. Nadine has a strong interest in human-environment interactions and inter-disciplinary research. She will work on the socio-economic factors driving biodiversity change in the Kerry uplands including land use change, farm management systems and the policy environment. Her aim is to illicit local stakeholders' understanding of biodiversity and to develop acceptable stakeholder future scenarios for reconciling rural development, agriculture, recreation and biodiversity in the uplands. Nadine is supervised by Dr. Eileen O'Rourke. |
AGRIPOPES - Catherine Palmer and Chris Dennis
Catherine Palmer
| Catherine is a PhD student whose studies are part of the European wide AGRIcultural POlicy-Induced landscaPe changes (AGRIPOPES) project. Amongst other objectives, the aim of the AGRIPOPES project is to examine the effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity. Catherine completed an MSc by research in Mathematics at UCC and is currently exploring mathematical approaches to model biocontrol foodweb dynamics. She is modelling the way in which indirect effects (caused by agricultural intensification) spread throughout biocontrol food webs and is developing models to explore how the effects of natural enemy diversity affect the magnitude of trophic cascades. Catherine is co-supervised with Alexei Pokrovskii in Applied Mathematics. |
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Chris Dennis
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Chris started
his PhD in 2006 at University College Cork. He has joined the group
from Sheffield University where he studied for a degree in Ecology.
His PhD is part of the AGRIPOPES project a large-scale pan-European
study involving 10 countries that will examine the effect of agricultural
intensification on biodiversity. Working alongside Catherine Palmer,
Chris will be investigating the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity.The
project will examine the extent to which biocontrol food webs are simplified
by agricultural intensification and which predator species are most
important for the control of agricultural pests, specifically aphids.
The focus of Chris's fieldwork has been in south east Ireland and has
involved quantifying weeds, predators and biological control potential
across a wide range of farms (30 farms). He has also compared and contrasted the effects of Agricultural management on the efficacy of biocontrol in organic and conventional farms.
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Relevant papers:
Geiger, F., Bengtsson, J., Berendse, F., Weisserc, W.W., Emmerson, M., Morales, M.B., Ceryngierg, P., Liira, J., Tscharntkei, T., Winqvist, C., Eggers, S., Bommarco, R., Part, T., Bretagnolle, V., Plantegenst, M., Clement, L.W., Dennis, C., Palmer, C., Onatef, J.J., Guerrero, I., Hawrog, V., Aavikh, T., Thies, C., Flohrei, A., Hankei, S., Fischeri, C., Goedhartl, P.W., Inchausti, P. (2010) Persistent negative effects of pesticides on biodiversity and biological control potential on European farmland. Basic and Applied Ecology. 11: 97-105. Download: pdf
SYMBIOSIS - Lisa Dolan, Erin O'Rourke and Rosalyn Thompson & Padraig Whelan
Lisa Dolan
Lisa is working as a post doctoral researcher focussed on the impacts of transport networks in particular the impacts of roads on landscapes. She has been responsible for the development of best practice guidelines for the design of roadside landscapes. The aim of her research in Symbiosis is to quantify the efficacy of landscape design measures for roadside diversity and subsequently the services that are provided. These road margins, often very large on national road schemes, may provide a source of biodiversity that percolates out into the surrounding landscape matrix
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Erin O'Rourke
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Erin joined the Biodiversity Group in the Environmental Research Institute in October 2008 (funded by the Irish EPA). She is part of a research project called SIMBIOSYS - Sectoral IMpacts of BIOdiversity and ecoSYStem services. SIMBIOSYS began in April 2008 and involves multi-disciplinary research across three Irish research institutions: Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Cork (UCC), & University College Dublin (UCD). The SIMBIOSYS project focuses on the sectoral impacts of bioenergy crops, road landscape treatments and aquaculture on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Additionally, Erin’s research is examining the ecosystem service of biological control (biocontrol) by natural enemy or predatory carabids. This research involves an investigation into:
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Rosalyn Thompson
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Rosalyn started her PhD in 2008 working on the sectoral impacts of transport networks and agriculture on biodiversity. Ros aims to 1) quantify and assess the interactions between the biodiversity of the road corridor and that surrounding semi-natural and agricultural ecosystems under new and old landscape guidelines. 2) Document correlations between biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions and services; and 3) Investigate the degree to which management of biotic and abiotic landscape treatments on roads can promote invasion resistance to aliens. As part of the overall SIMBIOSYS project Ros has also been working on the plant diversity of bioenergy crops. Ros is supervised by Dr. Padraig Whelan and Dr. Mark Emmerson |
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Eugene Finnerty
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Eugene started his PhD in 2010 and is funded by the National Roads Authority. The aim of his Phd is to assess the efficacy of wildlife mitigation measures developed in association with road schemes. In particular, Eugene will focus on the use of underpasses and culverts by mammals and amphibians. He is co-supervised by Dr. Padraig Whelan, Dr. Fidelma Butler and Dr. Mark Emmerson.
e-mail: eugene.finnerty@student.ucc.ie |
Maria Kirrane
Maria started her PhD at UCC in 2009. She will be working on grooming behaviour in honey bees in response to the invasive mite Varroa. The Varroa mite is native to South-East Asia, where its native host is the Asian bee Apis cerana. Since arriving in Europe in the 1960's the mite has shifted host to the European honey bee, and has spread throughout the world to every continent except Australia. Beekeepers must now treat colonies regularly to keep them alive, however, resistance to the more effective miticides has recently developed in a number of countries. An untreated colony will typically die within two to five years and this has brought about the almost complete loss of wild populations of Apis mellifera. e-mail: m.kirrane@student.ucc.ie |
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Tad Kirakowski
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Tad started his PhD in 2009 funded by the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology. Tad's project focuses on Varroa destructor, an introduced parasitic mite of the native honey bee Apis mellifera mellifera. Varroa was first recorded in Ireland in 1998. Varroa mites weaken Honey bees and facilitate the spread of disease (e.g. deformed wing virus) in Honey bee colonies leading to the death of colonies over the winter. Over the past ten years Varroasis has destroyed feral honey bee populations throughout Ireland. A number of semi-natural forest areas in South West Ireland have been identified from which feral Honey bee colonies have disapeared. The facility to replace these colonies of Honey bees with bees of the same subspecies kept in hives (in which Varroa can be controlled), creates the opportunity to study the role of native honey bees in the delivery of pollination services within semi-natural woodlands. Tad is supervised by Dr. Padraig Whelan and Dr. Mark Emmerson.
e-mail: t.kirakowski@student.ucc.ie |
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Marine
Ecology
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Dr. Eoin O'Gorman
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Eoin completed his PhD at UCC in 2009. The aim of his work was to investigate the role of intermediate predators for food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning using Lough Hyne as a model system to play with these ideas. Selected species included a range of gobies, e.g. Black Goby (Gobius niger), Rock Goby (Gobius paganellus), and Two Spot Goby (Gobiusculus flavescens), small wrasse such as the Gold Sinny (Ctenolabrus rupestris), Corkwing Wrasse (Crenilabrus melops) and Ballan Wrasse (Labrus bergylta) and the highly abundant common prawn, Palaemon serratus. A major component of the study involved subtidal caging experiments to determine the indirect effects of these species on primary productivity and decomposition, both individually and using different combinations of species (diversity effects on ecosystem functioning). Such effects are likely to be mediated through predatory effects on important functional groups such as decomposers and herbivores. He also carried out longer term studies using enclosed benthic communities, examining the effects of intermediate predators on the process of community assembly. These communities once assembled were perturbed by removing predators from different parts of the resulting food webs. The next step is to predict the effects of such perturbations using a range of theoretical approaches. Eoin is now working as a IRCSET post doctoral research fellow at University College Dublin e-mail: e.ogorman@ucd.ie |
O'Gorman, E.J., Jacob, U., Jonsson, T. & Emmerson (2010) Interaction strength, food web topology and the relative importance of species in food webs. Journal of Animal Ecology. 79: 682–692. Download: pdf
O’Gorman, E.J. & Emmerson, M.C. (2009) Perturbations to trophic interactions and the stability of complex food webs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 106:13393-13398. Download: pdf
O’Gorman, E., Enright, R., & Emmerson, M.C. (2008) Predator diversity promotes high levels of secondary production and decreases the likelihood of trophic cascades. Oecologia. 158: 557-567. Download: pdf
Marion Twomey
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Marion graduated from UCC with a degree in Zoology, followed by an M.Sc. in Environmental Management at the University of Ulster. Having worked as a project scientist preparing EIAs for a couple of years, she decided to return to UCC to study field ecology. She is funded by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology to undertake a PhD looking at the consequences of biodiversity change in a marine food web at Lough Hyne, Co.Cork. The project uses a mixture of field-based approaches to document patterns of body size, abundance, food web structure (trivariate patterns) and metabolic rates of species from the lough. By perturbing the real food web through large-scale species removal experiments, we will also investigate how the loss of three important consumer species; the purple sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus, the spiny sea star, Marthesterias glacialis and the velvet swimming crab, Necora puber, would affect the stability and the ecosystem functioning of the Lough Hyne food web.
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Dr. Aleksandr Pimenov
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Aleksandr (Sasha) has a PhD in Applied Mathematics. He started work in the group in 2009 as a postdoctoral researcher working on the dynamics of food webs. Aleksandr has focussed on resolving issues over the parameterisation of complex multidimensional networks using species functional traits, e.g. body size, to guide the choice of parameter values. His work is tied to the InterWEBS project (which has a marine focus), but he is studying ecological networks in general. Aleksandr's work is funded by the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology.
e-mail: pimenov.aleksandr@gmail.com |
Past Researchers in the Lab |
Over the past few years a number of people have contributed to life in the lab: Dr. Nessa O'Connor - currently Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences, at Queens University Belfast. Dr. Ute Jacob. Dr Tom Doyle - currently CMRC University College Cork. Emeline Becart.
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More folk from within the Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant Sciences during a postgraduate away day at Lough Hyne
Background: Mark Jessopp and John O'Driscoll; from Left to right: Orla Mclaughlin, Aurelie Aubry, Emeline Becart, Richard O'Callaghan, Niamh Kilgallen, Geroid Webb and Mark Emmerson; foreground: Jane Kavenagh.