Bridging Philosophy and Ecology: Ethical Decision-Making in Wild Salmonid Conservation

Supervisors:

• Fergus Chadwick (University of St Andrews)
• Gerard Hough (University of Aberdeen)
• Colin Bean (NatureScot)
• Thomas Cornulier (Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland)
• Fiona Seaton (UKCEH)

Project Summary:

Wild salmonids, including Atlantic salmon, brown trout, and sea trout, are vital components of Scotland’s natural capital. They provide key ecosystem services, including marine-to-freshwater nutrient cycling and food-web regulation, and contribute an estimated £80m/year to the Scottish economy. Their populations are declining from the pressures of habitat degradation, disease, climate change, pollution, and overfishing. They are also expected to come under increased threat from the invasive Pink Salmon. The diverse benefits and threats to our wild salmonids correspond to a diverse set of stakeholders, from anglers and the tourism trade to the Scottish Government and conservation charities. For all these groups, understanding salmonid abundance at the local and national level can facilitate better interventions to protect and develop their value in nature markets. While these groups have ostensibly shared goals to protect salmonids, their aims can be distinct and contradictory leading to ethical dilemmas about which to prioritise. For example, some angling groups may favour large-scale stocking programs and welcome the invasive Pink Salmon, while some conservation groups may prioritise the genetic purity of wild populations and wish to eradicate invasive species.

In this project, the student will 1) explore these ethical trade-offs using systematic approaches from analytic philosophy, 2) develop statistical models of salmonid abundance that integrate the data available, and 3) propose an integrated framework for combining the two to navigate intervention decisions.

To achieve these objectives, the student will:

1. Objective 1: use philosophical tools, such as consequentialism and virtue ethics, to analyze ethical dilemmas in salmonid conservation. Candidate interventions like invasive Pink Salmon eradication and stocking programs will highlight conflicts between economic and ecological priorities. Stakeholder values, gathered through interviews and literature review, will inform decision matrices, clarifying trade-offs and guiding integrated ethical analyses.
2. Objective 2: create statistical models combining high-quality but sparse monitoring data (e.g., fish counters, eDNA) with abundant yet biased opportunistic data (e.g., angler records). Bayesian hierarchical models will address uncertainties and leverage complementary strengths of data types, while incorporating state of the art modelling techniques such as lagged spatio-temporal effects. These models will be validated using structured prediction tasks.
3. Objective 3: use the fitted statistical models to generate realistic outcomes based on proposed interventions. These predictions will allow the ethical trade-offs to be quantified from data and decisions to be made with full uncertainty propagation. The student will then present these predictions to the key stakeholders for feedback.

To apply visit: https://netgain.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/phd-projects/

Student Profile:

We believe this project is an excellent opportunity for students with a strong ecological, mathematical or statistical background who are keen to apply their formal training to an important societal issue. In doing so, they will also be afforded the opportunity to reflect on the moral and social issues arising from the use of statistical data, and in doing so acquire a variety of skills from philosophical ethics and the social sciences.

Over the course of the PhD, the student will develop skills in/knowledge of: environmental and normative ethics, freshwater ecology, stakeholder engagement (including anglers, citizen scientists, environmental organisations and policymakers), Bayesian statistics, computer programming and spatial modelling. The successful applicant will have a strong background in some of these areas with an enthusiasm for learning the others.

They will also be embedded in several networks, including the Pink Salmon Task Force (through which they will be able to engage with diverse stakeholders), the supervisory teams host institutions (Universities of St Andrews and Aberdeen, NatureScot, Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, and UKCEH), and the NetGain program itself. Through these institutions, they will gain extensive training and develop a wide network of professional contacts.