Marine Ecosystems Scientist 202573

The Marine Ecosystems Scientist position at JNCC in Aberdeen focuses on enhancing understanding of marine environments and biodiversity through data analysis, model development, and collaboration with international experts. The role involves creating indicators for marine protected areas, assessing ecosystem conditions, and supporting climate change mitigation efforts. The candidate will develop technical products for international initiatives and maintain best practices for marine habitat assessment.
Job summary

Post background

JNCC has been at the forefront of improving our understanding of how the marine environment functions for over 25 years. Our marine ecosystem R&D work and scientific advice work underpins the UK governments need to understand the effectiveness of marine nature conservation policies and the impact of human activities and environmental pressures to changes to marine ecosystem condition and in particular benthic habitats.

Our staff lead scientific expert groups at both national and international levels, developing innovative tools, indicators, and methodologies for monitoring, measuring, and assessing biodiversity across multiple scales. This ranges from creating indicators methods for marine protected areas in the UK Overseas Territories to modelling environmental changes at regional sea levels, such as in the Greater North Sea.

Our work involves collaborating with international experts to develop scientific guidance and advanced statistical approaches that promote actions to recover and conserve marine biodiversity within a sustainable blue economy. This includes considering climate change mitigation and adaptation needs and informing management decisions for biodiversity recovery and restoration, as well as implementing Nature-Based Solutions.

We are currently seeking a highly motivated Marine Ecosystems Scientist to support the UK Government in developing modelling tools, statistical methods, and indicators that enhance our understanding of the state of the marine environment and measuring the impacts of human pressures as well as the effects of climate change. This work will also inform the management and recovery of degraded marine ecosystems.

The successful candidate will contribute to an exciting and evolving area of work focused on operationalising benthic habitat indicators for a range of policy applications, and the development of evidence products to inform management and supporting mitigation and adaptation to climate change impacts. These include delivery of assessment products under the OSPAR Convention, methods for assessing the condition of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the UK Overseas Territories, and development of scientific guidance for the recovery of key priority benthic habitat internationally.

Job description

Post Duties
• Data analysis and method development for biodiversity indicators and targets to assess the status and trends of marine ecosystems and their associated ecosystem services, in line with government and funder priorities.
• Development and testing of models to analyse ecosystem functions and generate predictions to support comprehensive ecosystem assessments and evaluate trade-offs between management and environmental scenarios.
• Support the development of technical products for international initiatives, including contributions to regional action plans, and measuring the effects of climate change and ocean acidification in marine ecosystems.
• Engage with external organisations involved in marine environmental assessment to gather relevant information and collaborate on the development of evidence-based products.
• Maintain and promote common standards and best practice guidance for the assessment of marine habitats and ecosystems, both within the UK and internationally.
• Identify opportunities for external funding to support international research and development in marine ecosystem assessment.
• Support the teams administrative tasks critical to effective running of projects.
• Support the wider work of the Team and JNCC as appropriate, including providing technical input into projects and delivery of technical work, as required.

Person specification

Please use the STARR technique where applicable.
• Situation: Set the stage.
• Task: Explain where you fit in.
• Action: Describe each step.
• Results: Impress with your achievements.
• Reflection: what have you learned