Patrick Sykes

I am a PhD candidate in the School of Mathematics and Physics, working in Professor Anthony Richardson’s Mathematical Marine Ecology Lab. My work uses mathematical models to better understand ocean food webs, spanning from bacteria to whales. I am interested in how ecosystems change under changing ocean conditions and the implications for fisheries and carbon sequestration.

My PhD project is focused on the role played by different groups of zooplankton in the structure and efficiency of food webs in the open ocean. Zooplankton are the intermediate links in food chains connecting primary producers (phytoplankton) to fish, and are an important part of the ocean carbon cycle. Zooplankton are remarkably diverse, representing all the major invertebrate phyla, but are typically represented very simply in models. Better understanding the roles played by different types of zooplankton in the ocean’s food webs will be key to predicting how marine ecosystems will change in the future under the pressures of climate change and changing fishing effort.