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Charlie Ellis (PhD, BSc)

I am a marine biologist and fisheries scientist with a broad and diverse experience in applied ecological research, education and stakeholder engagement. I specialise in areas of crustacean biology, marine conservation, fisheries management, sustainable aquaculture, genetics and interdisciplinary research. I also have a strong history of project conception and development, attracting funding for novel ecological research, in publishing my scientific findings in peer-reviewed literature, and in engaging both the general public and industry stakeholders with my work to create real-world impact. See Latest Research, below.

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MY LATEST RESEARCH

2020: Supporting a sustainable UK spiny lobster fishery through genetics

2020 promises to be an exciting year for me; not only am I now working on a new research project with MEEG, but for the first time in over a decade in industry and research, my focus is not on lobsters… well, not ones with claws, anyway! It may not make me quite the taxonomic generalist just yet, but my new research will be working on a different species of decapod, the European spiny lobster (Palinurus elephas, or crawfish, as most fishers know them). Crawfish are incredibly valuable, sometimes fetching over £100 each at market, but the stocks around southwestern Britain were decimated by overfishing in the 1970s and 80s. Spiny lobsters had been largely absent from the coastal waters of the southwest since then, but have mounted a noticeable recovery in recent years, such that inshore fishers are now starting to target them again. Since there were hardly any local adults to descend from, it seems probable that these juveniles have drifted in as larvae from established populations elsewhere, but we intend to investigate this using SNP markers, population structure and genetic assignment techniques to discern the spatial boundaries of the species' populations, and identify larval dispersal patterns and stock connectivity. If we can show where greater cooperation between management organisations in different areas and countries is required to maintain the recruitment of spiny lobster juveniles, then this project can make an important contribution towards safeguarding all stocks of the charismatic crawfish.     

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2019: Developing Genomic Resources for Lobster Traceability, Monitoring and Conservation 

I am delighted to have the opportunity to carry out a new project funded by AgriTech Cornwall to develop new genomic resources for the advancement of fisheries conservation, seafood traceability and aquaculture in lobsters with the University of Exeter's Molecular Ecology and Evolution research group. Through the development of novel genetic tools and analyses, the project will be aiming to provide methods which industry can present to offer the identification of ecologically damaging American lobsters introduced into European habitats, refine stock structure to discern capture origins within abundant lobster fisheries of the Atlantic, and develop next-generation markers to discern hatchery-reared individuals from natural equivalents among the wild stock. More to come soon... 

Reproductive and molecular ecology of the European lobster: implications for conservation management. The European lobster (Homarus gammarus) is an ecologically important benthic decapod which supports fisheries that are critical to the economic prosperity of coastal communities. However, populations across its range are pressured by rising exploitation, from which management has failed to prevent stock collapses in the recent past. Conservation and sustainable management of the species is significantly hindered by deficiencies in our knowledge of fundamental characteristics of population biology, including the connectivity and genetic diversity of stocks. In 2016, I completed my doctoral thesis which focused on elucidating aspects of reproductive and molecular ecology in H. gammarus that can be used to inform and appraise conservation initiatives, currently applied via both capture regulations and the wild release of hatchery-reared juveniles. The size-specific fecundity of reproducing females was defined around southwestern UK, and spatial variation in clutch size between populations was linked to a longitudinal gradient in oceanic temperature range across Northern Europe. The reconstruction of paternal genotypes showed that single males fertilise individual clutches within a productive Atlantic fishery, suggesting demographic stability. Fine-scale population genetic structure in the same region evidenced high connectivity and suggests that the localised interventions of an active hatchery do not lead to juveniles being released beyond areas they might naturally recruit via planktonic dispersal. However, genetic differentiation and isolation-by-distance at a broad geographic scale indicate that direct gene flow between remote populations is limited, so that (i) a failure to maintain spawning stock biomass may negatively affect local recruitment, (ii) the utilisation of non-resident broodstock for hatchery stocking may cause a loss of adaptive potential, and (iii) the recovery of depleted stocks is likely to be problematic. Finally, simulations indicated that genetic parentage assignment will prove accurate in distinguishing cultured individuals from natural stock among admixed populations in the wild, an important development that should facilitate the optimisation of hatchery stocking and lead to rigorous assessments of the conservation value of releasing cultured lobsters.

Finding Larry. Read my latest blog for info on my proposed project, Finding Larry, in which I aim to monitor the benefits of enhancing fisheries by releasing lobsters. This project would take advantage of the unique availability of thousands of sub-adult lobsters of various ages and wild-conditioning durations (coming out of our completed Lobster Grower 2 project) to not only gauge the survival of released lobsters in the wild, but would provide the growing number of lobster hatchery operations with evidence as to which rearing strategies yield the most effective impact on the productivity and sustainability of lobster fisheries. This project urgently needs support, so please get in touch if you feel you could help!  

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Lobster Grower 2. Lobster Grower 2 (LG2) was a multi-faceted, collaborative project assessing the potential for sea-ranching of European lobsters reared in containers situated in the wild environment. The LG2 project provided a fantastic opportunity to develop a cheap, effective and natural way of on-growing hatchery-reared lobsters before their wild release, and even showed promise for delivering a novel, ethical and sustainable component of the UK's growing aquaculture sector. Whether via the improvement of hatchery stocking's effectiveness or the realisation of commercially viable mariculture, LG2 provided a large step towards the solutions required to address concerns about food security and wildlife conservation which currently surround European lobster capture fisheries. The potential of sea-based container culture was clear to the National Lobster Hatchery when we first saw the striking development of hatchery juveniles on-grown in Ireland 6-7 years ago, and the Hatchery went on to front a highly skilled collaborative consortium during LG2, with partners including the University of Exeter, CEFAS, Westcountry Mussels and Falmouth University. I really enjoyed working alongside these organisations over the last few years as we advanced methods and understanding of rearing lobsters at sea. LG2 not only yielded outcomes of considerable promise for the development of commercial aquaculture, but it demonstrated the enormous scope to improve the ecological conditioning of lobster juveniles destined for release as part of fisheries stocking initiatives.

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