Life Below Water

Helping shark conservation (2024): Vulnerable or endangered shark species are caught in large numbers by fisheries and traded around the world, but monitoring is difficult, as current techniques for identifying species rely on visual examination by experts or DNA barcoding techniques, which require specialist laboratory facilities and trained personnel. Researchers from Manchester Metropolitan have developed an innovative new paper lab-on-a-chip device which can help monitor the number of vulnerable sharks being fished and mis-sold, allowing officials to test fish quickly, easily and cheaply (full article published in PLOS ONE, April 2024).

The Ecology and Environment Research Centre is evaluating the restoration of salt marshes. One study has shown how wetlands can store four times the amount of carbon compared to fast-growing forests. This quantification is valuable science in its own right but is also critical to their work with Wildlife and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in establishing a blue carbon accounting scheme. 

Our analyses of the geochemistry of coral from the tropical South Atlantic Ocean show how they provide a natural, high-resolution archive of changes to climate.