PhD project: The Influence of Marine Heat Waves on Marine Pathogen Outbreaks

The increasing regularity of marine heat waves represents a devastating impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. An emerging, yet largely over-looked implication of these events, is the potential for outbreaks of marine pathogens from the Vibrio genus, which includes dangerous human pathogens that cause severe gastrointestinal and skin infections in swimmers, fisherman and consumers of seafood, and are responsible for a global health burden exceeding $1 billion/year. Other Vibrio species cause disease in habitat-forming marine organisms, that reduce the resilience of critical marine ecosystems including coral reefs, while several species cause disease within aquaculture industries, threatening global food security. The proposed research will use cutting-edge genomic approaches to deliver critical new mechanistic knowledge on the dynamics of marine pathogens in coastal environments to provide a strong foundation for the development of strategies to monitor, predict and manage the threat of increased marine pathogen outbreaks within marine ecosystems.