About the project
There are over 350,000 synthetic chemicals in production many with no environmental risk assessment for tropical fish species. The project aims to address the paucity in information by identifying chemicals of concern, which coral reef fishes are most vulnerable and how chemicals impact on organism behaviour and physiology.
Pollution is one of the Triple Planetary Crises (including climate change and biodiversity loss) that humanity is facing, and pollution is one of the drivers for biodiversity loss. With over 105chemicals in production and a huge number of potentially impacted species, identifying chemicals that pose the most risk and the most vulnerable species is a daunting task. Coral reefs are one biome with limited information on the impact of pollution, particularly for coral reef fishes. This project will involve training in the use of novel computational approaches to predict chemicals and species of concern. The results from these computational predictions will guide the design of experiments to confirm (or refute) the computational results. Experiments may include cell-based assays as well as fish behaviour and physiological experiments at Southampton as well as abroad. Ultimately the knowledge gained will feed into wider approaches to protect tropical regions from chemical pollution.
Specific training will include:
- Ecotoxicology methodologies including prioritization of chemicals of concern and use of novel New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) for environmental risk assessment, knowledge of the Adverse Outcome Pathway concept for toxicology and regulatory application
- More specifically, computational methods for chemical of concern identification
- Cell based assays measure chemical impacts
- Chemical analysis for bioaccumulation assessment
- Coral reef fish ecology
- Fish behaviour assays
- Fish physiological measurements (e.g. hormone measurements, ionoregualtion and enzyme function)
