Professor Andrew Rowley from Swansea University’s School of the Environment and Society has been awarded more than Euro €400,000 (approx £340,000), as part of a collaborative project looking at the impact of climate change on shellfish productivity in the Irish Sea.
The project, entitled “Shellfish productivity in the Irish Sea: working towards a sustainable future (SUSFISH)”, is led by Bangor University in partnership with Aberystwyth and Swansea Universities in Wales and University College Cork in Ireland.
The total €2.9 million (approx £2.5 million) project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Ireland Wales Cross Border Territorial Cooperation Programme (INTERREG 4A); an EU Community initiative that aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion by promoting international and cross-border co-operation.
The researchers will produce guidelines for future fisheries management, ensuring sustainable development of the shellfish industry in Ireland and Wales.
They will achieve this by assessing the potential effects of climate change, using oceanographic models, on shellfish productivity in the Irish Sea and determining adaptation or mitigation strategies for the industry, including recommendations for protection of certain areas.
The Swansea-based component of the grant will look at potential changes in shellfish health with particular emphasis on cockles, edible crabs and lobsters.
The Swansea team, which includes Drs Emma Wootton and Ed Pope from the School of the Environment and Society, and Dr Claire Vogan from the School of Medicine, will initially examine a condition called shell disease, which affects crabs and lobsters.
This syndrome is responsible for major losses in lobster fisheries off the eastern seaboard of North America where one of the contributory factors appears to be a small rise in sea water temperature. High levels of shell disease are also found in edible crabs in some areas of the Wales.
Professor Rowley, who is based in the Department of Pure and Applied Ecology, said: “This is an exciting project that brings together a large team of researchers from Wales and Ireland to investigate what changes may occur in commercially important shellfish in our waters over the coming 50 years.
“Swansea’s role in this project will be to examine a range of important disease conditions in both cockles and crustaceans.”
For further information about the School of the Environment and Society, visit: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/environment_society/, and for more information about the School of Medicine, visit: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/medicine/.
