 We know that human actions such as climate change, pollution and overfishing are having a huge effect on the blue parts of our blue planet, the oceans. But at a more local level and among certain species, the outlook is more mixed than you might first expect. At the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Dr Helen Findlay is studying the ways in which marine species respond to changing ocean conditions such as increased acidity. She's found that while some species may decline or become extinct in the future, new niches could open up, allowing others to become more competitive. This would result in a very different ocean and one that is vital that we try to understand. I research the impacts of ocean acidification and climate change on marine organisms. I'm interested in finding out how they change as the chemistry of the ocean is changing and what that means for the ecosystems and organisms that live in the oceans. We know that ocean acidification is happening on a global level, that's because of the carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, going into the ocean. But we don't understand very well yet how locally different factors can affect that chemistry. We're starting to realise there's lots of local variability, especially as you get near coasts, you get things like fresh water runoff which can dilute the chemistry and affect the processes. You also have things like biological processes which can interact with the chemistry. And what we're finding is that especially near shore, we actually get much more rapid acidification in some of these locations. And that's quite concerning for the organisms and the creatures that are living there. So what we can do is we take the organisms that we're interested in, fish, shellfish, things like that and we can put them in the laboratory and send them into the future and find out exactly how they're going to respond in the future to these potentially acidified conditions. We don't really have prior expectations of how they might behave or respond. Some are going to be negatively impacted, so things like with calcified shells we expect will be negatively impacted. But we also know that there's a balance with some organisms actually benefiting. It's a very complex world when we get out there and look at ecology. Some species might die off and that might open up some space for a new species to come in and have a competitive advantage. So we've done some really nice work with mussels that live in intertidal zones. They experience a very variable environment. If they experience that high level of variability in pH in acidification kind of conditions, then actually they're more likely to survive changes in acidity that we would expect for the future. So they have a physiological competitive advantage over some species which perhaps have a much narrower range of conditions that they would experience in the future. The research has many different real world applications for the future. One of the things that we like to do in understanding the local environment is be able to then use that local knowledge to put in place practices that will help to mitigate against those impacts. So that we can make changes at industrial level, at management level that will allow people to continue to sustainably use the environment so that we can get the best of the oceans. We want to be able to protect the species as much as possible but actually be able to still use them sustainably. A variety of skills are important for this field of study. I think anyone that's passionate about the ocean or just understanding the world would be really great to come and do marine science or science in general. I think marine biology isn't just about going out and getting a bucket and getting your wellies on and taking that and getting wet. But more and more these days we're interested in using new technologies, autonomous vehicles, new designs of ships, new sampling sensors to really be able to look at how the ocean is changing alongside those traditional techniques. We need people with different skills coming in to really help this holistic understanding of what's going on in the oceans and we can come from that at different angles. You don't have to have come from a kind of traditional biology background. You could come into marine biology from a digital background and be able to use those digital skills to help visualize what's changing, to develop models, to use sensors technology. What subjects should you be studying at school? If people are interested in studying marine biology I would suggest doing biology in at least one other science as well as maybe maths if they're happy to do that would be the best subjects to cover. Also things like geography are really useful but again you can come from different backgrounds. So if biology is not necessarily your strong point but you were to do chemistry or physics then there's room to really bring that into the understanding of marine biology and marine science more generally as well. We've found here at Plymouth Marine Laboratory that in the last five to ten years we've had some really great apprenticeships come up straight after school or straight after college where they've joined as members of staff and they've been able to develop on the job to become really good technicians, really good marine scientists in their own right. What does your research tell us about the migratory patterns of marine species? We're interested in how ocean acidification is impacting species and we know that temperature is a big driver for migration but we're not quite sure how acidification impacts that. So we're looking at whether the early life stages which drift along in the ocean currents whether they're being impacted by acidification and what we're finding is that they're very vulnerable of those early life stages. Are there any species that will benefit from these changes? We think there will be winners and losers. Lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is really good for plants. Everything from the microscopic phytoplankton through to the kelp, big kelp forests that we have, sea grass beds. So they're probably going to be the winners but there's also potential consequences from just having that one species grow and maybe take over a system and so you might see system dynamic changes there. Of all the habitats across the world that you're looking at, are there any examples now of habitats that are changing very rapidly? Yeah, we see a lot of regional variability. So one of the places that's a really classic example of ocean acidification actually being attributable to a change in a socio-economically valuable resource. On the west coast of the US, the United States we have upwelling of deep waters and they're much more acidified than the surface waters. Then what we're starting to see is that there's acidic waters encroaching on the oyster shell fisheries and the hatcheries are not able to grow the oysters the way that they used to. So now they're actually either having to move the hatcheries to new locations or monitor the water that's coming in so that they actually only provide sea water from those sites at certain times when they know that the pH is the right pH to be able to allow the larvae to survive. Well thank you Helen. You're welcome.