Please see below details for a PhD project I'm involved with based at Swansea University and led by Prof. Carlos Garcia de Leaniz. It would be very much appreciated if you could forward this to anyone who might be interested; inquiries should be sent to Carlos at c.garciadeleaniz@swansea.ac.uk. The application closing date is 31st July 2023, with a start date of 1st September 2023.
Project description:
Ensuring good welfare is central for the sustainable growth of the aquaculture industry but because domestication of aquatic organisms is relatively recent compared to terrestrial plants and animals, knowledge and protocols for assessing welfare in aquaculture is limited. Stereotyped behaviours, phenotype divergence, and poor cognition are often associated with living in simplified and predictable environments typical of aquaculture setting but their importance for domestication and welfare are not clear.
In this collaborative PhD project the student will develop and test behaviour-based operational welfare indicators (OWIs) that can improve the welfare of selected farmed species. Using state-of-the art facilitires at the Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Research (CSAR, https://www.swansea.ac.uk/bioscience/csar/) we will assess the behavioural changes that occurr under artificial rearing in order to improve welfare and inform artificial selection progammes. A combination of behavioural assays, machine vision and deep-learning will be used.
The project is a collaboration between Swansea University, the University of Bristrol and a commercial sponsor (Visifish https://visi.fish/), and will be embedded in the IGNITION EU project, https://ignition-project.eu/. Susbtantiall networking opportunities and unique career skills are offered through the interaction with 18 leading research partners and commercial sponsors.
We are looking for an enthusiastic student interested in developing a research project at the interface between aquaculture, behavioural studies, and AI.