What's in your public aquarium?

Zoos and public aquariums are a corner stone of efforts to conserve and protect species and also educate the public about the amazing biodiversity across the globe. Yet, there is no definitive list of the aquatic biodiversity that is displayed. The student in this project will use data reported as part of the UK zoo licensing system to investigate the diversity of species kept in public aquaria/zoos, for example invertebrate v. vertebrate, marine v. freshwater and temperate v. tropical. Using additional datasets the student will then explore the link between the biodiversity and the type of organisation. Finally, they will investigate the link between the species kept and IUCN red-list status (e.g. threatened with extinction or critically endangered). This work will use existing databases, but also require novel data sources from local holders (e.g. councils) of zoo licence records to be explored that are both qualitative and quantitative. Outputs will support the industry by identifying common themes in biodiversity and inform best practice in husbandry methods that can be shared across institutions. In the wider conservation context, we expect outputs from the IUCN-focussed analysis will identify those aquatic species that should be targeted for coordinated management (e.g. refine UK-wide breeding programmes using best practice). In addition, data can be transcribed into a welfare context to support optimisation in the context of any future legislative changes.