Michael Bevins Cameron
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Email
michael.bevinscameron@essex.ac.uk -
Location
Colchester Campus
Profile
- Atlantic salmon
Biography
I graduated from the University of Essex in 2023 with a first-class BSc in Marine Biology. During my degree I gained valuable experience working in a laboratory via a work placement as a research assistant, performing fish dissections, tissue isotope chemistry and data analysis. I became increasingly interested in fish ecology and behaviour, and continued this work into my final year project. For my honours thesis, I focused on Atlantic salmon movements and provenance assignments, analysing otolith (earstone) elemental concentrations using laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry. I worked on multiple populations around the British Isles to track their lifetime movement patterns, size at emigration, and trace their natal origins.
Qualifications
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BSc Marine Biology University of Essex (2023)
Research and professional activities
Thesis
Developing novel chemical tools to assign salmon origin and assess potential impacts of Scottish offshore windfarms along migratory corridors
Atlantic salmon is an important species ecologically, economically, and culturally, yet they are in widespread decline, with Scottish populations decreasing by around 40% over the past 40 years. Shifts in food webs, warming, predation, phenological prey mismatch, and contaminants are all stressors, while renewable energy developments are also transforming areas that salmon migrate through. Tagging and trawling studies suggest planned developments intercept primary migratory pathways of emigratin
Supervisor: Dr Anna Sturrock
