Natural Products and Environmental Resources, MRes

Natural Products and Environmental Resources

Advanced skills training and research project

Fungus

Course Overview

MRes Programme Director: Dr Nicole Esteban

Our Bioscience Department MRes programme gives you expert research training embedded in our world-class research groups. The first term is all about advanced skills training at postgraduate level with guidance for research project selection and refinement. Students start their 9 month research project phase at the end of January.

The formal teaching structure during the 1st semester ensures that students improve their skills in writing, analytical approaches and critical thinking to postgraduate level. Students also select two additional modules in line with research interests (e.g., GIS, biodiversity and health ecology, endangered species, biodiversity assessment). After module assessments, students are then ready to conduct an independent research project that is guided by a supervisory team in the department. We expect students to produce a research thesis that is of publication standard and many MRes projects are published after award of MRes.

Students do not need to have a pre-defined project to apply to the MRes course and we provide a list of potential projects to select during the first term. It is possible to switch from one programme to another during the first term because each of the four MRes courses in the Bioscience Department follows the same module pathway. The programme title reflects the nature of the research project: students can change the MRes Biosciences Department programme of study at any time during the first term once they have confirmed selection of a project.

  • MRes Marine and Freshwater Systems
  • MRes Behavioural Ecology and Evolution
  • MRes Biodiversity and Ecosystems
  • MRes Natural Products and Environmental Resources

Research theme overview:

Our research aims to maximise the benefits of natural resources while minimising disturbances to the environment. We address environmental and societal challenges through applied research, and in doing so, we champion healthy and sustainable ecosystems. Our focus is broad and ranges from harnessing microbial systems for novel product and process development (bioprospecting, bioremediation), to addressing aquatic and terrestrial food security (aquaculture, biocontrol, disease ecology), and environmental stewardship (invasive species control, human-environment interactions). Working collaboratively across disciplines with academics, businesses and policymakers are central to our research.

MRes research projects can be selected from any of these research groups

  • Algal research
  • Biocontrol and natural products
  • Comparative immunology and pathobiology
  • Fungal molecular ecology (fume)
  • Marine microbial ecology

Examples of recent MRes projects

  • Evolution and ecology of translocative cord-forming saprotrophic fungi (supervised by Prof Dan Eastwood)
  • Modelling the distribution of hyperoceanic bryophytes in Wales (supervised by Dr Penny Neyland and Dr Miguel Lurgi)
  • Loss of dynamic stability in a host-parasitoid system is related to the magnitude and temporal scale of trend in environmental change (supervised by Prof Mike Fowler and Dr Christopher Coates)
  • Socio-ecological experiment on the effects of organic fertilisers and biochar on plant yield and soil variables (supervised by Prof Laura Roberts and Dr Konstans Wells)