Lucie Michel

Room: M003

Fields of interest / focus of work

My research is dedicated to seabirds and their role as indicators of bioaccumulated persistent pollutants in the marine environment. In my PhD project I study the pollutant contamination of a top predator in the Mediterranean, the Scopoli´s shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) and connect it to foraging ecology, plastic waste ingestion and its impact on breeding behaviour. I am interested in the spatiotemporal variation of pollutant concentrations, their relation to diet and, the uptake of plastic particles as a potential accumulation pathway of toxic compounds into the organism. To determine a non-invasive sample matrix, suitable for long-term and up-scaled contaminant monitoring I am studying the deposition of pollutants into different body compartments. Marine environmental pollution is a topic of global concern and the Mediterranean has an increased content of pollutants and plastic waste compared to global oceans. Quantifying current degree of pollution as well as understanding its effects on marine ecosystems are headstones to develop effective regulation. My project aims to consolidate these headstones by giving insight into the connection between the behavioural ecology, physiology and pollutant concentrations in a model species that is a common seabird and whose genus has global distribution.