Anna Sturrock was awarded a 7 year UKFI Future Leaders Fellowship (2022-29) to develop a multidisciplinary framework that integrates emerging technologies (e.g. electronic archival tags and machine learning), novel chemical tracers and modelling to quantify and predict the movements and fitness of key fish species over a broad range of global change scenarios. Focal species include North Sea plaice, tropical tunas, Baltic cod, European sea bass, and UK, California and New Zealand salmonids. By interrogating biogeochemical tracers and natural growth records (‘biochronologies’) in incrementally-grown tissues such as fish otoliths (image left) and eye lenses, she will reconstruct individual movements, growth rate, diet and pollution exposure, and simulate the impact of different global change scenarios on fisheries productivity and food security. Essex co-investigators include Boyd McKew, Tom Cameron and Eoin O’Gorman. External collaborators include Clive Trueman (University of Southampton), Ewan Hunter (CEFAS/AFBI, UK/NI), Serena Wright (CEFAS, UK), Audrey Darnaude (CNRS, France), Rachel Johnson (NOAA & UC Davis, USA), Carson Jeffres (UC Davis, USA), Malte Willmes (UC Santa Cruz, USA), Clement Bataille (Ottawa University, USA), Eimear Egan (NIWA, NZ), Tim Sheehan (NOAA, USA), Colin Bull (AST, UK), Rasmus Lauridsen (GWCT, UK), Nora Hanson (Marine Scotland, UK), Karin Hüssy (DTU, Denmark), Stefanie Haase (Thünen Institute, Germany), Karin Limburg (SUNY-ESF) and Ben Walther (Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, USA).

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Read more here: https://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2021/09/08/major-funding-secured-to-help-track-fish-movement-and-health