linking the presence of invasive alien species to measure ecological quality

Tender description

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is European Union (EU) legislation which aims for 'good status' for all ground and surface waters in the EU. The ecological and chemical status of surface waters is assessed on four criteria including, Biological Quality (fish, benthic invertebrates, aquatic flora). Biological invasions are increasing and are widely acknowledged to threaten bio-diversity. Although this general principle is not disputed we cannot currently produce the evidence that the presence of invasive species is reducing ecological status as measured for the WFD. The concept behind this proposed work is that our biological monitoring is likely to contain enough information to enable a dedicated researcher to either show that biodiversity is reduced by some or all alien invasive species or that their presence has little or no effect. The research will also enable us to understand when our biological tools may have 'missed' an impact or provided a false signal, or which tools are likely to respond to which species. The project requires a dedicated researcher, ideally an ecologist, with extensive knowledge and experience of handling very large datasets, who is able to work with data of varying quality and can perform reasonably complex statistical analysis in order to extract the maximum benefit from existing data. They should also be a good communicator and capable of producing a final report that will be published.