MSc (Res) in Biology: Marine Biology
The MSc(Res) in Biology degree in marine biology is a 12-month research-only degree in which you will undertake a supervised research project in the area of marine biology.
You will be based in the interdisciplinary Scottish Oceans Institute (SOI), based at East Sands in St Andrews. The SOI is home to the world-famous Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) and hosts a wide range of researchers with interests ranging from the deep oceans to the coasts, and from the people who use and interact with the sea, to the biological and physical processes that make the oceans function.
The MSc (Res) is examined by a 30,000-word research thesis.
Skills training
In addition to the project-specific training that you will receive during your degree, MSc (Res) students will also have access to a wide range of training in transferable skills through the University's GRADskills programme.
Specific postgraduate programmes run within the School of Biology may also offer additional training, for instance in statistical, bioinformatics or molecular techniques.
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You may apply for placement in advertised projects (see the list of current projects further on this page) or contact potential supervisors directly.
Potential candidates are recommended to contact a potential supervisor before applying. If you are self-funded and interested in working with a supervisor who does not currently have a project listed, please contact that person directly.
Biology has two dates for admission to this degree: September and January each year.
If you would like to make a formal application to study for an MSc (Res) at St Andrews, please complete an application using the online system.
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You should have an undergraduate Honours degree at 2.1 level or better in biological or environmental sciences. Students from backgrounds such as mathematics, physics or chemical sciences may be accepted under exceptional circumstances.
If you studied for your first degree outside of the UK, please see the international entry requirements.
For non-native English speakers, please see the English language requirements.
Applicants will be short-listed by the project supervisor. Short-listed applicants will be interviewed by members of the School of Biology Postgraduate Recruitment Committee and/or other academic staff, with successful performance at interview being a requirement for entry onto the degree.
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For postgraduate tuition fees for Biology MSc (Res) programmes, please see the University's research tuition fees page.
Scholarships, research council funding or other arrangements may be available for this programme. See the research scholarships page for more information.
Research projects
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Supervisor: Professor David Paterson
The candidate will use an experimental flume system to examine particle capture and retention by natural and synthetic biofilms. The dynamics of sediment transport are critical to understanding the ecology of coastal habitats and for the maintenance of navigable waterways.
The mediation of sediment dynamics through biological agents ranging from mangroves to bacteria and microphytobenthos is a central theme of the Sediment Ecology Research Group at the University of St Andrews, and this study is part of an ongoing NERC research programme and will employ flumes, PIV, ADV, MagPI and SEM methodologies.
Relevant references
- Chen, XD, Zhang, CK, Paterson, DM, Thompson, CEL, Townend, IH, Gong, Z, Zhou, Z and Feng, Q 2017, ‘Hindered erosion: the biological mediation of noncohesive sediment behavior’ Water Resources Research, vol Early View. DOI: 10.1002/2016WR020105
- Malarkey, J., Baas, J.H., Hope, J.A., Aspden, R.J., Parsons, D.R., Peakall, J., Paterson, D.M., Schindler, R.J., Ye, L., Lichtman, I.D., Bass, S.J., Davies, A.G., Manning, A.J. and Thorne, P.D., 2015. The pervasive role of biological cohesion in bedform development. Nature Communications, 6:6257 doi: 10.1038/ncomms7257.
- Van Colen, C., Underwood, G.J.C, Serodio, J, Paterson D.M. 2014. Ecology of intertidal microbial biofilms: Mechanisms, patterns and future research needs. Journal of Sea Research 92 (2014) 2–5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seares.2014.07.003
- Larson F, Lubarsky H, Gerbersdorf SU, Paterson DM, (2009) Surface adhesion measurements in aquatic biofilms using magnetic particle induction: MagPI. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods 7: 490-497
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Supervisor: Dr David Ferrier
Dr Ferrier's project seeks to understand how the diversity of animal forms have evolved via changes to their development, usually taking the homeobox genes of the Hox/ParaHox and related clusters as a starting point.
The project studies a variety of invertebrate species (including amphioxus, Ciona, annelids, arthropods, cnidarians and sponges), with the aim of focusing on major transitions in animal evolution, including the origins of the animal kingdom, the origin of the bilaterally symmetrical animals (bilaterians) and the origin of chordates and vertebrates.
Relevant references
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Supervisor: Dr Ildiko Somorjai
Have you ever wondered why some animals regenerate well, and humans do not? Are you interested in how new genes are born, and what generates diversity in animal body forms? The Somorjai Lab addresses these problems from evolutionary, developmental and cell biological perspectives.
The lab predominantly uses the marine invertebrate chordate “amphioxus” due to its genetic and anatomical similarly to simple vertebrates. They also work on flatworms, which have amazing regenerative powers and multipotent stem cells.
The project will depend on the student’s interests and background, but could include:
- gene expression analyses
- embryology
- immunohistochemistry
- confocal microscopy
- genomics
- phylogenetic analyses.
Find out more about the Somorjai Lab.
Relevant references
- Bertrand S, Escriva H. Evolutionary crossroads in developmental biology: amphioxus. Development. 2011 Nov;138(22):4819-30.
- Somorjai IM, Somorjai RL, Garcia-Fernàndez J, Escrivà H. Vertebrate-like regeneration in the invertebrate chordate amphioxus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 109(2):517-22.
- Dailey, SC, Planas, RF, Espier, AR, Garcia-Fernandez, J and Somorjai, IML Asymmetric distribution of pl10 and bruno2, new members of a conserved core of early germline determinants in cephalochordates. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 2016. 3, 156.
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Supervisor: Professor Oscar Gaggiotti
Understanding the responses of populations to past climate change can inform about the processes shaping population structure and can also help to predict their responses to future climate change. Many terrestrial species in the Northern Hemisphere underwent range shifts following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). However, the response of mobile marine species such as cetaceans to climate warming following the LGM are less well understood. Previous analyses have shown that coastal bottlenose dolphin populations in the North-East Atlantic (NEA) have been founded by pelagic individuals after the end of the LGM, when habitat became available after sea ice retreated. However, the colonisation patterns and the divergence history in several coastal populations have not yet been studied. The objective of this project is to reconstruct the colonisation history of bottlenose dolphins around the British Isles, which are at the Northern extreme of their coastal range. Several colonisation scenarios will be tested and will include, among others, (i) a single colonisation event of coastal habitat in the south followed by a stepping-stone northwards expansion, (ii) two colonisation events, iii) a single colonisation event involving all extant populations or (iv) as many colonisation events as there are coastal populations. Divergence times will also be estimated. To answer these questions, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) data generated from ddRAD-sequencing of around 90 coastal bottlenose dolphins from coastal populations around the British Isles and France and from whole genome re-sequencing of the pelagic population in the NEA will be used. The demographic history of the dolphin populations will be reconstructed by testing different scenarios using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) approaches. Therefore, the project will involve programming in R or Python and bio-informatics.
The MRes student will be based in the group of Prof. Oscar Gaggiotti in St Andrews but will collaborate with Dr. Marie Louis (University of Copenhagen/University of St Andrews) and Dr. Milaja Nykanen (University of Eastern Finland, University College Cork).
Relevant references
Csilléry K, Blum MGB, Gaggiotti OE, François O (2010) Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) in practice. Trends Ecol Evol 25:410–418.
Csilléry K, François O, Blum MGB (2012) abc: an R package for approximate Bayesian computation (ABC). Methods Ecol Evol 3:475–479.
Louis M, Fontaine MC, Spitz J, Schlund E, Dabin W, Deaville R, Caurant F, Cherel Y, Guinet C, Simon-Bouhet B (2014) Ecological opportunities and specializations shaped genetic divergence in a highly mobile marine top predator. Proc Biol Soc. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1558
Nykänen M, Louis M, Dillane E, Alfonsi E, Berrow S, O’Brien J, Brownlow A, Covelo P, Dabin W, Deaville R, Stephanis R, Gally F, Gauffier P, Ingram SN, Lucas T, Mirimin L, Penrose R, Rogan E, Silva MA, Simon‐Bouhet B, Gaggiotti OE (2019a) Fine‐scale population structure and connectivity of bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, in European waters and implications for conservation. Aquat Conserv 29:197–211.
Nykänen M, Kaschner K, Dabin W, Brownlow A, Davison NJ, Deaville R, Garilao C, Kesner-Reyes K, Gilbert MTP, Penrose R, Islas-Villanueva V, Wales N, Ingram SN, Rogan E, Louis M, Foote AD (2019b) Postglacial colonization of northern coastal habitat by bottlenose dolphins: a marine leading-edge expansion? J Hered 110:662–674.
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Supervisor: Professor Oscar Gaggiotti
Identifying the processes driving genetic divergence, in particular when there are no obvious geographic barriers to gene flow, is a central question in population biology. Large social mammals exhibit complex behaviours that could strongly influence genetic structure and the ability of a species to adapt to local environmental conditions. Despite high mobility, they can show fine-scale genetic structure that may be correlated with differences in ecology such as habitat use, feeding behaviour and prey preferences, or environmental factors. Bottlenose dolphins are highly social mammals, which form two ecotypes, coastal and pelagic across different regions of the world. Despite their high mobility, in coastal waters, they can form discrete populations in geographically adjacent regions. For example, coastal populations around the British Isles, i.e. in the Shannon Estuary, West Ireland, West Scotland, East Scotland and France (Normandy) are genetically differentiated and very low levels of migration are observed between them. Coastal populations may be resident, and can develop habitat specific foraging techniques, which may facilitate the evolution of local adaptation. In this project, local adaptation of coastal bottlenose dolphins to environmental conditions (seascapes) around the British Isles and France will be inferred using genome scan methods to test for associations between allele frequencies and environmental variables (such as salinity, temperature, depth). For this, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) data generated from ddRAD sequencing of around 90 coastal bottlenose dolphins from the populations around the British Isles and France will be used. The study will include bioinformatics and data analyses in R and use of different programs to test for gene-environment associations (BayeScEnv, LFMM). New methods based on information theory developed in the Gaggiotti group will also be applied.
There is also an opportunity to extend the work to whole genome resequencing data generated for coastal and pelagic ecotypes across different regions of the word.
The MRes student will be based in the group of Prof. Oscar Gaggiotti in St Andrews but will collaborate with Dr. Marie Louis (University of Copenhagen/University of St Andrews) and Dr. Milaja Nykanen (University of Eastern Finland, University College Cork).
Relevant references
Caye K, Jumentier B, Lepeule J, François O (2019) LFMM 2: Fast and accurate inference of gene-environment associations in genome-wide studies. Mol Biol Evol 36:852–860.
De Villemereuil P, Gaggiotti OE (2015) A new FST-based method to uncover local adaptation using environmental variables. Methods Ecol Evol 6:1248–1258.
Louis M, Fontaine MC, Spitz J, Schlund E, Dabin W, Deaville R, Caurant F, Cherel Y, Guinet C, Simon-Bouhet B (2014) Ecological opportunities and specializations shaped genetic divergence in a highly mobile marine top predator. Proc Biol Sci. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1558
Nykänen M, Louis M, Dillane E, Alfonsi E, Berrow S, O’Brien J, Brownlow A, Covelo P, Dabin W, Deaville R, Stephanis R, Gally F, Gauffier P, Ingram SN, Lucas T, Mirimin L, Penrose R, Rogan E, Silva MA, Simon‐Bouhet B, Gaggiotti OE (2019) Fine‐scale population structure and connectivity of bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, in European waters and implications for conservation. Aquat Conserv 29:197–211.