Cai Ladd is joining the CBESS community as a PhD student supervised by Dr Martin Skov (Bangor University) Dr Jaco Bas (Centre for Catchment and Coastal Research) and Dr Dei Huws (Bangor University).
Cai enrolled at Bangor University in 2009 to study for a Bachelors in Marine Biology/Oceanography. This was later extended an additional year to complete an Undergraduate Masters in Marine Science (M-Res equivalent). As a fourth year project,Cai examined how plant diversity affects soil stabilisation in the saltmarsh habitat. During this time he became involved in the CBESS project alongside his supervisors, Martin Skov and Hilary Ford. Samples collected from Essex marshes, forming the foundation for his work.
As part of a bursary scheme, Cai worked with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) who offered their knowledge and expertise in wetland conservation, providing a platform for collaborative work into the future. He was recently awarded a PhD position at Bangor University, which will begin as continuation of the Masters work, to examine both short- and long-term changes in saltmarsh resilience with changing hydrological condition. A large element of this work will incorporate samples collected for the CBESS project, to examine how services in soil stabilisation provided for by saltmarsh plants act over different spatial scales. A workshop later in the year between NRW and the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University will seek to identify key areas of saltmarsh conservation management that require targeted research efforts, and will form the remained of the PhD programme.
For more information on Dr Martin Skov, visit his staff profile.
For more information on Dr Jaco Bas, visit his staff profile.
For more information on Dr Dei Huws, visit his staff profile.