This fully funded three-year PhD studentship will be based at Te Aka Mātuatua – School of Science, Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand. As part of a Marsden Fund fast-start research project, the successful candidate will be an integral part of at least one field work campaign in Antarctica. A late 2021 start is anticipated (Sept-Oct); with flexibility in responding to e.g. COVID-19 related travel restrictions.

This project aims to determine if Adélie penguins, through their foraging and nesting activities, transfer and preserve the contaminants from global-scale anthropogenic events (e.g. the Industrial Revolution, Great Acceleration, peak DDT, and microplastic incursion) in terrestrial Antarctica. We will also investigate if we can identify a chronology of hemispheric-scale pollution and local-scale Antarctic events, as well as the effects of pollutant moratoria and/or abatement technologies on contaminant concentrations. This project will be the first to construct a history of contaminant transfer and accumulation in ice-free terrestrial Antarctica, using penguin mounds as a natural archive. Complementary work will be carried out in a New Zealand seabird colony setting.

Specific objectives will include: (i) radiocarbon- date organic samples from penguin mounds and known-age remains to obtain a robust chronology of contaminant accumulation; (ii) measure the concentration of anthropogenic contaminants (e.g. lead, mercury, DDT, microplastics) in soil, bone, feather, and eggshell samples from active and abandoned mounds, and non-penguininfluenced control sites, using a range of spectroscopic analytical techniques; (iii) determine the provenance of lead contamination using isotopic ratios; and (iv) assess the temporal resolution at which we can pinpoint geochemical signatures of global-scale (e.g. Industrial Revolution, peak DDT use), hemispheric-scale (e.g. commissioning of Australia’s Port Pirie smelter), and localscale (e.g. commissioning of Hallett Station) events in penguin mound records at Cape Bird and Cape Hallett.

The project will involve one or two, up to 4-week Antarctic field campaigns in December or January of 2022 and/or 2023 (camping in a team of two or three experienced individuals). Soil, guano and organic samples will be taken and the student will undertake a range of complementary techniques including geochemical analyses, spectroscopic identification, and radiometric geochronology methods, to address our objectives. The research will make a significant contribution to understanding the magnitude of transport and cycling of contaminants via penguins as biovectors in the Antarctic environment. Through a combination of elemental and isotopic analysis, and 14C-dating of in-situ remains, this research will provide a chronology of contaminant transfer and accumulation in Antarctica, as well as insight into the dynamicity of the marine reservoir correction for the Ross Sea region.