Libby Ross

I graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2007 with a 1st in Ecology, which included a year of study at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Throughout my degree wherever possible I focused on marine ecology and evolutionary biology, with phylogeography becoming a particular field of interest. My undergraduate project investigated the effects of trampling and beach cleaning on the abundance of talitrid amphipods on sandy shores, supervised by Dr Alistair Grant. After graduating I took up a full time voluntary role as Sightings Officer with the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre in New Quay, Wales for a season.

In October 2008 I started a PhD at the National Oceanography Centre titled ‘Organic Matter Flux and limits to life in the deep sea’ supervised by Dr David Billett, Dr Henry Ruhl, Prof. Paul Tyler and Dr Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez. The main focus of this project is the relationship between the quantity and quality of organic matter flux and the distribution and abundance of abyssal megafauna, holothurians (sea cucumbers) in particular. This includes genetic analyses of populations of certain species of holothurian from various oceans to investigate how connected populations of deep-sea organisms (sometimes separated by thousands of miles) are, and whether large areas of low productivity (and therefore low food supply) form barriers to these organisms' dispersal. Other work includes experimental studies of the effect of food quality on holothurian physiology and comparisons of abyssal benthos from areas under high productivity and those under low productivity using photographs and video footage of the sea floor. It is important to understand the relationship between productivity and the distribution and abundance of deep-sea organisms over large scales so that we better understand mechanisms controlling deep-sea communities in light of potential future change. The interconnectedness of deep-sea populations also has important implications for the design of marine protected areas in the deep sea.