The underwater world is home to some weird and wonderful creatures, and seagrass meadows are no exception. However, there hasn't been much research into what animals like to live in seagrass in Scotland. Issy's PhD is addressing this by comparing the animal biodiversity in seagrass with that of neighbouring sandy seabed. She's looking across the food chain, from tiny snails and anemones that live on the seagrass itself, to fish and crabs that live amongst the seagrass, right up to birds, otters and seals that visit seagrass to find food. She's doing this mostly using video footage, but is also trialling a new method of understanding underwater biodiversity - listening to the 'soundscape', i.e. the fish-grunts and crab-scrapes that can be heard underwater. Come along to this FREE talk to hear more about Issy and her colleagues splashing around in the water to collect all this data, and what she's found out so far!
About Issy
Issy Key is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh - her life now revolves around seagrass, but she has previously worked with seabirds on Skomer Island and nature-based solutions to climate change at the University of Oxford. In her free time she likes to paint and spend time immersed in nature.
This event is FREE, but numbers are limited.
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No former knowledge required.
This is a 1 hour online session.
A Zoom link, full joining instructions and information about the event will be shared via email the day before the event.