James Bell
James Bell
Deep-Sea Ecologist
Deep-Sea Ecologist
About Me
I'm James. I'm a third-year PhD student at the University of Leeds and The Natural History Museum, London. I'm currently studying faunal assemblage and trophic structure in Southern Ocean deep-sea ecosystems.
Passionate about deep-sea biology, my kids and pizza
Community Ecology
How do habitats determine faunal distribution and assemblage structure in the deep-sea?
Trophodynamics & Stable Isotopes
Bulk and compound-specific stable isotope analyses to study deep-sea food webs
Science Engagement
Comedy or Serious?
Young or Old?
I love it!
Publications
Recent and ongoing work
Biogeosciences (open review phase)
Microbial and faunal trophodynamics at a sedimented vent. Limited by widespread use of chemosynthetic OM. Isotopic niche diversity trends similar to abundance and species diversity. Evidence of indirect dependence upon hydrothermal activity as much as 150km from vent site!
Bell et al. 2016. Frontiers in Marine Science
Faunal assemblages in and around sedimented hydrothermal vents. These types of vents are really fascinating places to study ecology because they combine the dynamic geochemical conditions of hydrothermal vents with the physical habitat structure of the majority of the deep-sea.
Benthic megafauna on steep slopes at the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Bell et al. in press. Marine Ecology
Megafaunal assemblage composition on steep slopes of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Lots of lovely sponges and soft corals to see here!
Royal Society Open Science (in press.)
Peripheral seep sediments - how do they influence sediment geochemistry, faunal assemblage structure and trophodynamics?
Georgieva et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology
Distribution and ecology of a globally distributed chemosynthetic endemic species, found at sedimented vents, mud volcanoes and more!
Bell et al. 2013. Deep-Sea Research II
Megafaunal bioturbation around the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Remarkably similar compositional trends in megafauna and lebensspuren types.
Also.... 20,484 images analysed!!
Bell. 2014. Geology Today
Short piece for the natural hazards section of Geology Today, highlighting the threats posed by submarine methane hydrates
Ongoing Work
Planned publications
Bell et al. (in prep.) Benthic food web modelling at Sedimented Hydrothermal Vents in the Bransfield Strait
Reid et al. (in prep.) Elucidating trophodynamics at hydrothermal vents using stable isotope analysis
...and more
Public Engagement
Some times I've talked about science. More on the way!
Bright Club
A really cool initiative. In brief, scientists are helped to write a ~10min set that tells the funny side of their research.
Done it a couple of times now, great fun!! Thanks to the Bright Club Leeds organisers
Second attempt here - definitely still need practice (in this set, I actually forgot a third of what I'd planned to say, all new material of course)
I'm a Scientist: Get me out of here!
An awesome platform for scientists to engage with primary and secondary school age children. Popular questions included: "What's the fastest fish in the sea?"; "Why did you want to be a marine biologist?" and "what's it like being a scientist". We also had some more left field questions like our opinions on eugenics
Thoroughly enjoyed it, would recommend to anybody!
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