Centre for Salmonid Research

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Paul Kemp: Paul Kemp has an international reputation in freshwater fish ecology and fisheries management. Particular interests relate to the impact of anthropogenic activity such as hydropower development and habitat degradation on the behaviour and physiology of fish. Experimental research has assessed the response of juvenile salmonids to manipulations of physical and hydraulic habitat. Specific applications include assessing the influence of compensation flow regimes, habitat restoration techniques, and fish pass design on fish behaviour and performance. Dr Kemp established the International Centre for Ecohydraulic Research and the Centre for Salmonid Research and has conducted projects with the US Government, US Army Corp of Engineers, and Native American Tribes to assess and mitigate for the impact of in-river structures on fish migration. He has advised European consortiums including ELFORSK (Swedish Hydropower companies) and the River Rhine Salmon Restoration programme on the importance of considerations of fish behaviour in fish passage design. He has held positions on the scientific and organizing committees of several international conferences, including the Tenth International Symposium on Regulated Rivers (TISORS) (Stirling, August 2006) and the International Conference on Freshwater Habitat Management for Salmonid Fisheries hosted by the Atlantic Salmon Trust and Game Conservancy Trust (Southampton, September 2007) and is the guest editor for the related conference journals. Current research includes an Esmée Fairbairn Foundation funded project to investigate the feasibility of reintroducing an extinct species of fish to the UK, and a Nuffield Foundation funded study to assess fish response to fine-scale hydraulics.

David Sear: David Sear has been actively involved in Salmonid research as a fluvial geomorphologist for over 20 years since working on the impacts of hydropower regulation on salmon habitat in the North Tyne. His interests are in understanding the links between salmon habitat and geomorphological processes, for which he has used field based studies, physical modelling, and numerical modelling to advance this work. A particular interest is in understanding the affects of fine sediment accumulation on incubating salmon embryos and alevin. He has worked on recalibration and application of the USDA SIDO (Sediment Intrusion and Dissolved Oxygen) model for Atlantic Salmon and Brown Trout, called SIDO-UK. Professor Sear has organized sessions on Geomorphology and Salmonids at the AFS conference (Quebec 2003) and is currently editing a research volume for AFS on Salmon spawning habitat. He is currently scientific advisor for the AST 40th anniversary conference at the University of Southampton. Professor Sear advises a range of institutions on the application of fluvial geomorphology in river management including Environment Agency, natural England, DEFRA. Recent research interests are focused on modelling salmon habitat changes in response to channel dynamics arising from natural geomorphic processes or river restoration supported by the Environment Agency. He is currently linking CFD models to fuzzy models of fish habitat and agent-based models of salmon behaviour with colleagues in Environment Agency (UK), University of Aberwrystwyth (Wales), and Humboldt State University (USA).

Terry Langford: Terry Langford is a Visiting Professor in the School. He has been working at the University as a visiting research fellow and Professor since retiring from the Power Industry in 1991. Terry’s work over 44 years has ranged from biological surveys and fisheries biology in the Lincolnshire River Board from 1961-1965, to research on the effects of power station operation on freshwater and coastal ecosystems from 1965-1985. From 1975-1984, Terry was Head of the Power industry’s Marine Biology Laboratory at Fawley Power Station in Hampshire, and from 1985-1991, was an Environmental Manager in National Power. Since joining the university, Terry has concentrated on the stream ecosystems of the New Forest, particularly on the effects of wood debris on salmonid and associated fish populations, together with effects of shade, channel restoration and other stream factors on macro-invertebrate communities. In the 1960s, Terry pioneered fish-biology in River Boards and was also the first biologist to use ultra-sonic tags to track coarse fish in rivers in the 1970s particularly in relation to cooling-water use and thermal discharges at power stations. He also used similar techniques for tracking salmonids in Wales both at Trawsfynnydd and in relation to the building of the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme. Terry’s two books deal with effects of electricity generation, both hydro- and thermal ,on aquatic ecosystems and his papers cover a wide range of topics. He is working on a third book on the Biology of River Pollution :Recovery and Rehabilitation for Springer-Verlag. He is a Council member of the FBA and has served on many relevant Councils and Committees during his career including the Linnean Society, Institute of Biology, NERC Aquatic Sciences, and Solent Protection Society. His publications cover a wide range from ecology of East Anglian rivers to long-term studies of river recovery. Most concern either fish or invertebrate ecology and communities. Current research includes effects of shade on lowland forest streams, recovery of grossly polluted rivers using long-term datasets and effects of sea-level rise on the ecology of regulated rivers in East Anglia.

Paul Carling: Paul Carling interests in salmonid research date back to 1977 when he studied the effects of flow regime on young salmonids with the Freshwater Biological Association (now CEH) and the implications for salmonid spawning habitat and fisheries implications in the River North Tyne with respect to construction of the Kielder Reservoir. Latterly this work was continued with funding from the Department of the Environment, Forestry Commission, and Atlantic Salmon Trust, to investigate the impacts of sediment regime and effects of scour of gravels on salmonid spawning success, setting of compensation flows, and effects of renaturalisation schemes. Later work included determining interstitial flow rates and oxygen flux through redds and the effects of artificial cleansing of spawning gravels. Specific consultancy advice has been provided with respect to these issues for many UK rivers, e.g., the Buncrana, Calder, Test and Wyre to bodies such as the BNFL, DEFRA, the Environment Agency and the Angler’s Conservation Association as well a variety of River’s Trusts. More recently attention has been given to measuring turbulent flows through redds and siltation rates in controlled laboratory conditions and developing the SIDO-UK software for application in UK rivers. This latter model is a variant of the USDA SIDO (Sediment Intrusion and Dissolved Oxygen) model that has been restructured and recalibrated to apply to UK waters and which was a DEFRA-funded initiative. In 1992 he completed a comprehensive review and evaluation of fish pass design for application within the UK on behalf of the National Rivers Authority.

Clive Trueman: Clive Trueman is a geochemist specializing in recovering information about animal location and diet from the trace element and stable isotope composition of mineralized an unmineralised tissues. Of particular interest is the recovery of time-series data of animal behaviour from archived tissue collections. He is currently working in association with CEFAS and DEFRA looking at long-term changes in Atlantic salmon diet and migration patterns derived from the stable isotope and trace element chemistry of archived scale samples. The trace element composition of salmon scales may also be used to distinguish farmed from wild salmon and potentially to identify farm origin of escapee fish and natal river origin in wild fish. Several collaborative projects are ongoing to test the potential of these techniques. More generally, Clive is also studying growth efficiency and metabolic rate in salmonids (and other fish) using stable isotope tracers.

Martin Palmer: Martin Palmer has a long history of studying river water chemistry and is currently developing an in situ sampler for long term and continuous collection of river water samples. Martin comes from a family of salmon fishermen. Indeed, his grandfather contributed some of the scales to the Hampshire Avon scale archive over 30 years ago. He is currently working with Clive Trueman on analyses of salmon scales with the aim of deriving tracers of river origin and migration behaviour of Atlantic salmon. He also hopes to be able to test whether changes in salmon scale chemistry reflect changes in river water quality, such as temperature and geochemistry. This work started with an undergraduate research project and, as noted by Clive, has now attracted funding from several government agencies. In addition, he is working with scientists from the CEH and EA to link salmon scale chemistry and river water quality.

Marc Naura: Marc Naura has been working for more than 10 years with UK Environment Agencies on developing habitat assessment methods for rivers. His interest in salmonid research started in 1996 where he attempted to develop habitat suitability models for salmon and trout using the newly developed River Habitat Survey. Since then, he has been working on developing tools and models for assessing the quality of river habitats for various species and communities including fish. At present, he is carrying out a PhD with Geodata Institute and the School of Geography at Southampton University on developing a Decision Support System for managing fish habitats. The Decision Support System will make use of existing data held by the English and Welsh Environment Agency to help fisheries staff assess the quality of fish habitat in rivers and prioritise sites for habitat enhancement and river restoration. Salmonid communities will feature prominently in the Decision Support System. In his research, Marc is particularly interested in developing habitat assessment models based on a combination of expert knowledge and statistical relationships using structural equation modelling. He is also investigating the use of geostatistics and genetic algorithms to predict the distribution of habitat features of importance to fish species and communities. After 10 years working in an applied environment, he has come to realise the importance of involving users in the development of tools for their successful implementation. Part of his PhD is concerned with the study of human and organisational factors that influence the uptake of research outputs and the development of ways of improving their implementation.

Patrick Osborne: Patrick Osborne is an applied ecologist with special interests in landscape ecology, spatial analysis and biodiversity conservation. He has extensive experience of problem-solving in ecology, having worked on numerous challenging projects both in the UK and overseas, often at the interface of applied ecology and conservation politics. His recent research has focused on large-scale issues such as modelling species distributions and predicting the impacts of environmental change using remote sensing and GIS. Dr Osborne has particular interests in the application of novel technologies to environmental monitoring and in making the most of ecological data which are often costly to collect. He has many years of experience in the teaching and application of statistics in ecology, employing both classical and modern, computer-intensive approaches to data analysis. His research papers often feature applications of methods in ecology, exemplified through work on various taxa, but always applied to real environmental problems. He is currently working with Dr Kemp on the feasibility of reintroducing a species of fish that became extinct in the UK in the late 1960s.

John Jones: John Jones researched previously in aquaculture specializing in salmonid nutrition, growth and reproduction. Principal investigations include broodstock diet and the effects on fecundity. He has wide ranging experience in salmonid hatchery procedures including reproduction techniques, genetic sex reversal, and husbandry. As an applied aquatic ecologist, John is currently researching the impacts of temperature on the distribution and community composition of aquatic organisms. Work currently underway in conjunction with Forest Research (Forestry Commission) is to evaluate the effects of temperature and riparian shade on New Forest fish and invertebrate populations. A continual data set of stream temperature from a variety of forest habitats has been maintained for a number of years. One aim is to establish a base-line and long term data set of lowland forest stream temperatures. Interests include developing a model to further our understanding of the relationship between temperature exchange between the air and stream, and to assess the impact of elevated temperature on spawning and juvenile salmonid stocks. John is responsible for teaching Statistics with Environmental Sciences and contributes to a range of subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. John is a keen angler favoring fly fishing but enjoys visits to the sea having qualified to Ocean Yachtmaster.

Kirsteen MacKenzie: Kirsteen MacKenzie is a fish ecologist specialising in temporal and spatial dynamics of vulnerable species for conservation. She previously worked for the JNCC marine team in GIS and data analysis for habitats and communities, particularly on the MESH (Mapping European Seabed Habitats) project. In her Masters work she used data from the Scottish Fisheries Research Service to map and model the population dynamics of shark species in British waters over a long time scale. This prepared her for her current PhD with the National Oceanography Centre, working for Cefas and DEFRA on long-term records of the marine life of Atlantic salmon, using geochemical signatures in archived scales. Kirsteen is using a combination of stable isotopes and trace elements found in the scales to build a pattern of diet and movements of the salmon at sea, thus determining causative factors in marine mortality throughout the past few decades. Her samples are drawn from archives held around the UK, giving a picture of changes throughout different British salmon populations, which will be used to direct conservation priorities for the marine portion of salmon life history.

Niamh Burke: Niamh Burke joined the University to begin her studies in October 2007, having relocated from Paris where she worked as a photographer for UNESCO. Her PhD research will be focusing on the River Lugg in Powys and Herefordshire, and how its degradation due to multiple pressures has impacted on the habitats of instream biota and salmonids in particular. Two main questions that will be tackled are: 1) what is the impact of fine sediment runoff from the catchment on spawning habitat productivity?, and 2) what is the impact of river channelisation on habitat quality for the freshwater life stages of Atlantic salmon? The research will aim to improve our understanding of the role of catchment scale hydro-geomorphic processes in creating and maintaining salmon habitat during all freshwater life-stages, as well as to develop modelling tools capable of supporting both scientific enquiry and the work of river managers.

Sam Bateman: Sam Bateman joined the University of Southampton in September 2007 as a postgraduate student. Prior to this she had experience working with Environment Agency fisheries teams in SW region. Sam’s research will be focusing on the development of the SIDO-UK model to predict the impacts of siltation on salmonid spawning habitat quality on the Itchen. The research programme revolves around three main goals: 1) The deployment of detailed field experiments in the Itchen to create high resolution datasets for validating and improving the SIDO-UK model; 2) Improving the representation of intragravel flow within the SIDO-UK model; 3) To develop SIDO-UK model scenarios under different land management and restoration scenarios and to evaluate the effectiveness of these options on the quality of the spawning habitat. An interesting aside to the main focus of the project may be to see if we could determine the origins of the organic matter component of the fine sediment, by applying organic fingerprinting techniques to see if this is contributing significantly to siltation problems in wild salmonid habitats.