Overview
The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster than ever before, releasing huge amounts of freshwater and nutrients into surrounding fjords. These changes are transforming the physical and chemical environment in unpredictable ways, with consequences for phytoplankton—the microscopic plants that form the base of the Arctic food web and play a vital role in global carbon cycling.
About this opportunity
Fjords provide natural laboratories where the impacts of melting glaciers on ocean ecosystems can be studied most clearly, yet there are still knowledge gaps on how these ecosystems function. This project will address these gaps and provide urgently needed insights into how climate change is reshaping polar marine environments.
Aims and Approach
The project will investigate how glacier type—whether marine-terminating (calving directly into the ocean) or land-terminating (melting onto land before reaching the sea)—affects the structure, diversity, and productivity of phytoplankton in Greenland’s fjords. You will:
- Study the phytoplankton biomass, diversity, and community structure using the state-of-the-art McLane Imaging FlowCytobot, which produces high-resolution images of individual plankton cells.
- Relate these biological patterns to the fjords’ physical (temperature, salinity, mixing, light) and chemical (nutrients, iron) characteristics.
- Use a one-box computational model (DAR1) to integrate these data and identify the key factors driving phytoplankton dynamics under contrasting glacier influences.
Novelty and Timeliness
This project is timely because Greenland’s glaciers are retreating at unprecedented rates, rapidly altering fjord ecosystems. By combining fine-scale imaging with fjord-scale modelling, the project offers a new way to connect individual plankton diversity to ecosystem-scale nutrient and carbon cycling. Using fjords influenced by different glacier types provides a unique comparative framework, while deploying advanced imaging technologies in such remote and challenging environments will generate data not previously possible. With climate change accelerating, now is the critical moment to understand these dynamics before they are irreversibly altered.
Research Environment and Training
You will join a vibrant ocean research community, working alongside experts in marine ecology, oceanography, and climate science. Training will be provided in:
- Laboratory and technical skills: You will receive hands-on training in imaging flow cytometry and phytoplankton identification.
- Computational skills: You will develop expertise in data analysis, machine learning, statistics, and simple numerical modelling to link biological observations with environmental drivers.
- International experience: You will have the opportunity to spend up to 1 month at the project partner institute, Greenland Institute for Natural Resources to learn from leading experts in fjord dynamics and biogeochemistry.
- Transferable skills: Opportunities will be available to present your research at conferences, collaborate across disciplines, and engage with international polar research networks.
Why Apply?
This PhD offers the chance to work at the cutting edge of polar marine science, using innovative technologies to answer pressing questions about the impacts of climate change. You will gain highly transferable skills in laboratory analysis, and computational modelling, and be part of an international collaboration linking directly with a new NERC-funded project.
Project CASE Status
This project is a CASE project. Your project will be co-supervised by the non-academic partner organisation, and you will spend 3-6 months on a placement with your CASE partner in their workplace. You will experience training, facilities and expertise not available in an academic setting, and will build business and research collaborations.