Measuring the success of habitat restorations

As you may recall, the time of our Research & Conservation Officer, Jonny Grey, is split (in our favour!) between the muck and bullets of practical river habitat restoration and the ivory towers of academia within the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University.

In a concerted effort to find some sort of halfway house, Jonny has recently devised a PhD project which will draw upon his expertise in stable isotopes (see the article he wrote for us in Salmo trutta a few years back), use them to characterise the structure of food webs, and test their use as a measure of habitat restoration ​‘success’. Everyone (from an early age) learns about the concept of the food web so he is hoping that it will be a useful engagement and educational tool.

Jonny has teamed up with good WTT friends at the Ribble Rivers Trust who will co-supervise and support the student, provide the restoration sites to be considered, and who are interested in this approach as a tool to better convey an understanding and the value of restoration work via their ambitious project, Ribble Life.

So, if you fancy a PhD, or know someone who might be interested in this project, further details can be found here, or contact Jonny directly on jgrey@​wildtrout.​org or j.​grey@​lancaster.​ac.​uk