Newcastle University

Background

Dr Christopher Sweeting is a marine ecologist who explores the structure and function of marine systems at community or ecosystem scales. He is particularly interested in who eats who and why they do so. His research includes feeding as a structuring process in marine communities, the interaction between the biological and non-biological elements of marine systems and how human activities, particularly fishing impact marine systems. Research is primarily based on stable isotope techniques and he has worked in places as diverse settings as tropical coral reefs and deep polar seas. Much of his research is focused towards application of ecosystem based management and understanding large scale patterns in ecology.

Roles

Marine Ecosystem Dynamics Laboratory Manager

Research Interests:

• Marine Trophodynamics
• Stable Isotope Ecology
• Fishing Impacts and Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management
• Fish Ecophysiology

Current Work

My core activties are as post-doctoral RA on a NERC consortium project exploring new and novel chemosynthetic habitats in the deep seas around the Antarctic south of the Polar Front.

Project: CHESSO - Chemosynthetically-driven ecosystems south of the Polar Front (2009-12) Natural Environment Research Council
Project Leader(s): Professor Nick Polunin

Recent Work

Project: Science-Industry Partnership in assesseing Marine Biodiversity
Project Leader(s): Dr. Chris Sweeting

Fish effects of prohibited trawl areas
Project Leader(s): Professor Nick Polunin

Impacts of MPA networks in continental shelf ecosystems
Project Leader(s): Professor Nick Polunin

Projects

• CHESSO - Chemosynthetic communities in the Southern Ocean
  Project Leader(s): Professor Nicholas Polunin
  Keywords: Hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, deep sea, Antarctic, polar front

I supervise MSc projects in both IMEC and TCM cources in the School of Marine Science and Technology and occassionally support appropriate projects in School of Biology. This years projects include

International Marine and Environmental Consultancy (IMEC)

• Mr Martin Bowes: Nickel and Chromium contamination of sediments and dominant fish species off the Northumberland Coastline (with National Renewable Energy Centre)
• Mr Fabrice Stevenson: Fishing gear and sampling protocol bias in describing fish communities for Environmental Impact Assessment (with National Renewable Energy Centre)

Tropical Coastal Management (TCM)

• Mr Alex Kent: Characterising ontogenetic dietary preferences of the endangered White-clawed crayfish (with Bristol Zoo)
• Ms Sharron Bosley: Considering spatial heterogeneity and ecological scale when describing marine trophodyamic using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes.

Recent Project Supervision 

2010/11 

• Ms Olivia Robertson (Environmental Consultancy - School of Biology) Characterising the economic effects of renewable energy developments on the Northumberland lobster fisheries. Employed into Intertek Oil and Gas

• Caveen AJ, Sweeting CJ, Willis TJ, Polunin NVC. Are the scientific foundations of temperate marine reserves too warm and hard?. Evnironmetal Conservation 2012. In Press.
• Galvan DE, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. Methodological uncertainty in resource mixing models for generalist fishes. Oecologia 2012. In Press.
• Bloomfield HJ, Sweeting CJ, Mill AC, Stead SM, Polunin NVC. No-trawl area impacts: fishers' perceptions, compliance and fish abundances. Environmental Conservation 2012. In Press.
• Rogers AD, Tyler PA, Connelly DP, Copley JT, James R, Larter RD, Linse K, Mills RA, Garabato AN, Pancost RD, Pearce DA, Polunin NVC, German CR, Shank T, Boersch-Supan PH, Alker BJ, Aquilina A, Bennett SA, Clarke A, Dinley RJJ, Graham AGC, Green DRH, Hawkes JA, Hepburn L, Hilario A, Huvenne VAI, Marsh L, Ramirez-Llodra E, Reid WDK, Roterman CN, Sweeting CJ, Thatje S, Zwirglmaier K. The Discovery of New Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Communities in the Southern Ocean and Implications for Biogeography. PLoS Biology 2012, 10(1), e1001234.
• Sweeting CJ, Armstrong I, Berney P, Armstrong N, Hardy MH. Science-Fishing Industry Partnership For Assessing Marine Biodiversity. A report to the Marine Management Organisation. 45pp. 2011.
• Greenwood NDW, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. Elucidating the trophodynamics of four coral reef fishes of the Solomon Islands using delta N-15 and delta C-13. Coral Reefs 2010, 29(3), 785-792.
• Galvan DE, Sweeting CJ, Reid WDK. Power of stable isotope techniques to detect size-based feeding in marine fishes. Marine Ecology Progress Series 2010, 407, 271-278.
• Sweeting CJ, Badalamenti F, D'Anna G, Pipitone C, Polunin NVC. Steeper biomass spectra of demersal fish communities after trawler exclusion in Sicily. ICES Journal of Marine Science 2009, 66(1), 195-202.
• Ding H, Xu H, Wu J, Le Quesne WJF, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. An Overview of Spatial Management and Marine Protected Areas in the East China Sea. Coastal Management 2008, 36(5), 443-457.
• Jennings S, Barnes C, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. Application of nitrogen stable isotope analysis in size-based marine food web and macroecological research. In: Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry: Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometry Users' Group (SIMSUG) Meeting. 2008, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• Al-Habsi SH, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC, Graham NAJ. δ15N and δ13C elucidation of size-structured food webs in a Western Arabian Sea demersal trawl assemblage. Marine Ecology Progress Series 2008, 353, 55-63.
• Badalamenti F, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC, Pinnegar J, D'Anna G, Pipitone C. Limited trophodynamics effects of trawling on three Mediterranean fishes. Marine Biology 2008, 154(5), 765-773.
• Mill AC, Sweeting CJ, Barnes C, Al-Habsi SH, MacNeil MA. Mass-spectrometer bias in stable isotope ecology. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods 2008, 6, 34-39.
• Polunin NVC, Bythell JC, Sweeting CJ, Hallam D. An environmental impact assessment of the Bao Fu Men grounding on Falahiyat Reef, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Jeddah: Al-Mushtaraka Marine Services Ltd, 2007.
• Barnes C, Sweeting CJ, Jennings S, Barry JT, Polunin NVC. Effect of temperature and ration size on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope trophic fractionation. Functional Ecology 2007, 21(2), 356-362.
• Sweeting CJ, Barry JT, Polunin NVC, Jennings S. Effects of body size and environment on diet-tissue δ13C fractionation in fishes. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 2007, 352(1), 165-176.
• Sweeting CJ, Barry J, Barnes C, Polunin NVC, Jennings S. Effects of body size and environment on diet-tissue δ15N fractionation in fishes. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 2007, 340(1), 1-10.
• Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC, Jennings S. Effects of chemical lipid extraction and arithmetic lipid correction on stable isotope ratios of fish tissues. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 2006, 20(4), 595-601.
• Sweeting CJ, Jennings S, Polunin NVC. Variance in isotopic signatures as a descriptor of tissue turnover and degree of omnivory. Functional Ecology 2005, 19(5), 777-784.
• Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC, Jennings S. Tissue and fixative dependent shifts of δ13C and δ15N in preserved ecological material. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 2004, 18(21), 2587-2592.
• Dulvy NK, Mitchell RE, Watson D, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. Erratum: Scale-dependant control of motile epifaunal community structure along a coral reef fishing gradient (Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology (2002) 278 (1-29) PII: S0022098102003271). Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 2002, 280(1-2), 137-139.
• Dulvy NK, Mitchell RE, Watson D, Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. Scale-dependant control of motile epifaunal community structure along a coral reef fishing gradient. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 2002, 278(1), 1-29.
• Sweeting CJ, Jennings S, Polunin NVC. Why we aren’t what we eat isotopically speaking. MSCM Postgraduate Conference 2002.
• Sweeting CJ. C and N stable isotope investigation of food webs. Invited speaker, CEFAS 2001.
• Sweeting CJ, Polunin NVC. Drilling for gold in seal teeth. In: Biomedical Mass Spectrometry Users Group Conference 2001. 2001.