Nutrient Analyser

Background: The University of Bristol's ERC REFRESH project, funded under the UKRI Horizon Guarantee, is Researching the role of dissolved organic matter as a nutrient resource in freshwater ecosystems over a 5-year period, from 1 August 2024 to 30 September 2029.

Transformational research is needed to update current nutrient cycling theory for stream ecosystems, shifting from research explaining how part of the ecosystem responds to a limited range of stressors, to fundamental, holistic theory explaining how whole ecosystems respond to a broad palette of stressors.

The project, led by Professor Penny Johnes in the School of Geographical Sciences, in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team, will be applying innovative techniques in molecular scale analysis, stable isotope probing and environmental genomics, to meet this challenge.

Collaborators include staff in the School of Biological Sciences, School of Chemistry, Bangor University and UKCEH.

The outcomes from the programme will advance current theory and transform our understanding of the impacts of the full nutrient portfolio on freshwater ecosystems, revealing the specific role of DOM as this varies according to the composition of the DOM pool, species composition of the ecosystem, stream stoichoimetry and environmental character.

Requirement: A replacement instrument is required for high resolution analysis of water samples and liquid media to determine the concentrations of inorganic N species (nitrate-N, nitrite-N, total ammoniacal-N) P fractions (orthophosphate-P) and urea-N on raw environmental water samples as well as sample digests with a pH of <2.