Back to The Brief The Brief · Seagrass research

Aberystwyth researcher wins £1.8m-plus seagrass clock fellowship

Dr Hannah Rees will investigate whether seagrasses have biological clocks that anticipate the tides, with Royal Society funding for eight years of research.

Christine Jones · Thu 15 Oct, 11:02

Archive view of buildings and trees at Aberystwyth University’s Penglais campus. Photo: PKwicipics, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Archive: Aberystwyth University’s Penglais campus. Contextual university photograph, not the research site or fellowship ceremony. PKwicipics / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; cropped.

Original photograph CC BY-SA 3.0

An Aberystwyth researcher has secured more than £1.8m for an eight-year project investigating whether seagrasses can anticipate the tides through an internal biological clock. Dr Hannah Rees, of the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, has received a 2026 Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship from the Royal Society, the university announced on 15 October.

The question the funding will support

Rees plans to examine whether seagrasses have evolved circatidal clocks: timing mechanisms that allow behaviour to change in anticipation of changing tides. The university says understanding those clocks could help efforts to restore seagrass habitats. The project will investigate whether the mechanism exists; the fellowship announcement is not a published finding that it has been discovered.

Long-term research support

The award funds research over eight years, giving Rees time to examine the biological question and its potential use in restoration. The university identifies the fellowship as support for early-career scientists. The announcement does not set out a completed restoration programme or quantify a carbon benefit from the proposed work.

ShareWhatsApp X