PhD in Animal Behaviour: Can Zebrafish Personality Help Predict Resilience and Welfare?

PhD in Animal Behaviour: Can Zebrafish Personality Help Predict Resilience and Welfare?

Quick Decision

The project describes a zebrafish study of whether stable behavioural differences, plasticity and predictability help explain resilience or vulnerability during a welfare-relevant challenge. Planned methods include repeated open-field and mirror trials, followed by computer-vision identification, tracking and behaviour measurement. The project information gives an extended deadline of 30 November 2026 at 12:00 noon, but does not state a time zone. It says international applicants may apply, with tuition funded only at the UK fee rate plus a stipend; the UKRI international-student award share is capped at 30%, while any overseas fee difference and the exact stipend remain unconfirmed. The supervisor or contact, formal entry requirements, required application documents and precise campus have not been confirmed. Confirm those essentials with the doctoral college before submitting. SRUC postgraduate research guidance · EASTBIO recruitment FAQs

Recommendation: Needs careful verification. The scientific theme and methods are specific enough to assess broadly, but the missing project-level contact, eligibility and fee details are material. A separate official project-detail page has not been confirmed. Adjacent SRUC animal-welfare staff profiles and field papers are contextual evidence, not confirmation of who supervises this project.

Research Problem and Doctoral Work

The project asks whether behaviour measured repeatedly can reveal fish “personality” in a useful predictive sense, and whether those behavioural traits relate to resilience or welfare under challenge. It focuses on zebrafish, behavioural plasticity and predictability, repeated open-field and mirror trials, a welfare-relevant challenge, and computer-vision methods for individual identification, tracking and behaviour quantification. The project description identifies these tasks; the challenge type, sample size, testing schedule, image-analysis platform and precise outcome measures are not specified in the available record.

The key scientific difficulty is distinguishing stable individual differences from temporary state, testing context, social effects, learning or measurement noise. A high repeatability score alone would not establish welfare relevance or predictive value. The doctoral work may therefore need to test reliability across trials and settings, define challenge outcomes independently, and validate automated tracking against manual or known-reference measurements. These are evidence-based analytical questions suggested by the advertised methods, not additional promised tasks.

Recent zebrafish work illustrates why these distinctions matter. A 2024 mirror-test study uses automated video tracking to characterize behavioural responses, while another 2024 study tests whether machine-learning-derived behaviour profiles persist across repeated contexts. A 2025 review of adult zebrafish cognitive-bias research and a 2024 review of fish personality and stress-coping highlight measurement and interpretation challenges. A 2025 aquaculture review extends the resilience question to predictable stressors and welfare, but its production-fish setting is broader than this laboratory zebrafish project. Mirror-test and tracking study · behavioural-profile repeatability · zebrafish cognitive-bias review · fish personality/stress review · aquaculture resilience review

School, Programme and Field Context

SRUC’s official postgraduate-research page says its Doctoral College administers and supports postgraduate research, and that applicants to SRUC EastBio-funded projects are considered for the SRUC PhD in Agriculture, Rural and Environmental Studies. The programme page describes an interdisciplinary doctorate spanning agriculture, environment, animal and biological sciences. However, the project information does not confirm the specific degree-awarding/registration arrangement, host unit, laboratory, campus or formal co-supervisors; confirm these rather than inferring a partnership or joint degree. SRUC PGR and Doctoral College · SRUC PhD programme

SRUC’s own published rankings page reports sector-specific standing and research assessment context in agriculture and animal-related fields. Those institutional indicators do not rank the particular zebrafish project or its unknown supervisor group. The university’s animal-welfare research profiles show relevant adjacent expertise, but none of the cited staff pages establishes a role in this project. The training environment may include Doctoral College research-skills support and an annual PGR conference; exact methods training, animal facilities and access to computer-vision infrastructure are unconfirmed. SRUC rankings and awards · Doctoral College support

Supervisor and Lab Assessment

The project supervisor and contact are not named in the available information. SRUC’s public profiles document relevant adjacent expertise: Cathy Dwyer in animal behaviour and welfare research; Simon Turner in applied ethology and individual differences; Marie Haskell in behaviour-based welfare assessment, including work on salmon welfare; and Vincent Bombail in welfare and stress-resilience themes. These profiles help identify possible scientific expertise at the institution, but they do not establish that any of these researchers leads or supervises this zebrafish project. The student should request confirmed names, project roles, team composition, lab location, aquatic facilities and routine supervision arrangements before applying. Cathy Dwyer profile · Simon Turner profile · Marie Haskell profile · Vincent Bombail profile

Because the supervisor is unconfirmed, three recent supervisor/lab papers cannot be attributed responsibly. The publications cited above and below are field-level comparators, not a proxy for the project team’s publication record. This is a material evidence gap, not evidence that the group lacks relevant experience.

Research Direction and Field Outlook

The field is moving toward repeated, context-aware behavioural measurement and automated individual tracking. Computer vision can increase throughput, but model validity depends on lighting, tank geometry, occlusion, fish identity persistence and the definition of behaviours. A 2024 fish social-buffering paper also illustrates that social context may alter open-field responses, while work on coping styles across species and life histories warns that behavioural consistency is conditional rather than universal. These are design considerations to raise with the eventual supervisor, not claims about the advertised protocol. Open-field social context · coping styles across contexts · zebrafish life-history/stress context

The research has potential relevance to experimental animal welfare, aquaculture practice and behavioural measurement, particularly if individual-level measures predict welfare outcomes that group averages hide. Scottish aquaculture policy and international aquatic-animal standards emphasize sector welfare and management context. They do not establish a direct job pipeline. Graduates could develop transferable skills in behavioural science, experimental design, video analytics and welfare assessment for academic, animal-welfare, aquaculture or data-oriented roles; the actual project’s industry links and placement support are unknown. Scottish aquaculture vision · aquatic animal health and welfare code

Funding, Application and Living Cost

The project is described as an EASTBIO competition-funded SRUC PhD open to international applicants. It says tuition is funded at the UK fee rate plus a stipend and that the UKRI-funded international student share is limited to 30%. It does not confirm this project’s exact stipend, award duration, international tuition differential, visa/IHS coverage or any separate fee waiver. UKRI’s published 2026/27 minimum stipend of £21,805 is a national planning benchmark, not confirmation of the actual project award. General programme FAQs must not be treated as proof that the international fee gap for this particular studentship is paid. EASTBIO recruitment FAQs · UKRI studentship guidance

SRUC’s fee page lists a full-time PhD fee of £5,238 per year for Scottish and Rest-of-UK classifications in 2026/27. That is not an international fee quote and does not resolve the award’s overseas-fee gap. SRUC’s cost page gives city-specific shared-room ranges—about £400–600 in Edinburgh, £350–500 in Glasgow and £350–450 in Aberdeen—plus food around £150–250/month and private utilities around £100–150/month. Because the project campus is unknown, these are alternatives, not a single budget; the stipend-to-cost comparison cannot yet be calculated. SRUC fee schedule · SRUC living-cost guidance

The project information lists the deadline as 30 November 2026, 12:00 noon and states that the time zone is not stated. A current public listing may show the same calendar date without the noon time, so confirm the exact cutoff and application route with SRUC. The required documents, eligibility criteria, named contact and application checklist remain unconfirmed. Do not submit on assumptions about those items.

Applicant Fit and Preparation

The project-specific record does not provide formal degree, grade, language or prior-experience requirements. Do not treat the following as official criteria: a relevant preparation profile would include animal behaviour or biology, experimental design, repeated-measures statistics, image/video analysis, programming or computer vision, and welfare-science literacy. A candidate should be comfortable separating observable behaviour from interpretations about internal state and validating automated measurements. Ask which of these skills are essential at entry and which can be learned during the doctorate.

Suggested application preparation: prepare examples of reproducible behavioural measurement, longitudinal data handling, welfare/ethics awareness and analysis of individual variation; outline how you would test repeatability and validate tracking without presuming the project’s final protocol. Obtain the formal admissions and English-language checklist, materials and referee requirements from SRUC before preparing a final submission.

Next Actions and Questions to Verify

Before applying: contact SRUC’s Doctoral College through its official PGR page and request the active project notice, named supervisor and email, campus, full eligibility checklist, application documents, exact noon-deadline timezone, and the funding letter’s duration/stipend/international-fee wording.

At interview: ask what challenge model and welfare endpoints are planned; how repeated mirror/open-field trials will be scheduled; what computer-vision system is available; how behaviour labels will be validated; and whether the fish are tested individually or with social partners.

Before accepting: obtain written confirmation of fee classification and any international top-up, stipend amount and annual uplift, UKRI cap eligibility, visa/IHS treatment, registration/degree-awarding body, campus and facilities, supervisor roles, and support after the funded period.

Evidence and Sources

Project and doctoral context

• The project information describes the methods, deadline and fee terms; a separate official project-detail page has not been confirmed.
• SRUC postgraduate-research opportunities and Doctoral College
• SRUC PhD programme overview
• Institutional research overview

Funding and costs

• EASTBIO international-student and recruitment FAQs
• UKRI studentship and stipend guidance
• SRUC 2026/27 fee schedule
• SRUC city cost-of-living guidance

Research environment and related expertise

• SRUC rankings and awards
• Cathy Dwyer profile
• Simon Turner profile
• Marie Haskell profile
• Vincent Bombail profile

Field evidence and sector context

• 2025 aquaculture resilience scoping review
• Zebrafish mirror-test tracking study
• Repeated behavioural-profile study
• Adult zebrafish cognitive-bias systematic review
• Fish personality and stress-coping review
• Coping-style study across contexts
• Social buffering in fish open-field behaviour
• Zebrafish life-history and stress study
• Scottish aquaculture sector vision
• Aquatic animal health and welfare code