藍色水幕

PhD position available to start second semester 2010:

Impacts of marine rubbish on sea turtles of Australia

The University of Queensland and CSIRO

Supervisors: Kathy Townsend (UQ), Justin Marshall (UQ), Denise Hardesty (CSIRO) and Chris Wilcox (CSIRO).

Marine debris has become an increasingly important problem, with impacts on numerous wildlife species, particularly marine turtles who may ingest plastics that are discarded as waste or become ensnared in ‘ghost nets’ (abandoned, lost or discarded nets that continue to ‘fish’ until they are washed ashore).

We seek an innovative, self-motivated, creative PhD student interested in working with us to address some of the following research areas:

• Identify lethal and sublethal impacts of ingestion of marine debris for sea turtles (including toxicological implications)
• The role that visual cues play in increasing the probability that the marine rubbish is ingested by sea turtles.
• The feeding behaviour of marine turtles during different life stages makes them susceptible to ingesting marine rubbish.
• Survey live animals to determine the impact of marine rubbish on a broader scale (entanglement and digestion).

• Identify potential source points of fishing gear/marine debris
• Address questions around marine debris movement (based upon oceanographic current modelling) and likely encounter rates with species of concern (particularly marine turtles)
• From this information, models can be developed to understand marine debris movement, encounter rates with focal species, continental differences in debris accumulation amongst regions, and other relevant issues

If interested please email Dr. Kathy Townsend at kathy.townsend@uq.edu.au (subject heading: “Turtle PhD”):

1. Your CV which includes three contactable referees

2. Cover letter with a statement of interest

3. Summary of qualifications

It is expected that the student will be of a high enough calibre to qualify for an APA (Australian Postgraduate Award worth $22.5K) which will then be topped up by a $7K stipend + a $5K research grant from CSIRO.

The student must be identified and in place by 1 June 2010, recently started PhD students can apply.