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Andy Vowles

@dravowles

Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research (University of Southampton, UK) | River restoration | Animal behaviour | Fish passage | Ecology | Light pollution | Fish welfare

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08.12.2023
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Latest posts by Andy Vowles @dravowles

πŸ“’ Join us for the @thefsbi.bsky.social annual symposium in Southampton! Celebrating all the good that can be done for fish biology and conservation when we work outside our traditional siloes.
#FSBI2026 #FishSci #FishBiology #FishMigration

ABSTRACT DEADLINE SOON 🐠🐟🦈😁

share.google/vA9r1qi9k21L...

26.01.2026 19:13 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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#ASABWinter2025 was awesome! Loads of really cool animal behaviour research and great to be there with Ben Bluck (PhD in our group) and @helenalcurrie.bsky.social. Enjoyed being able to share some of our work on light pollution and fish with a great audience πŸŒ†πŸŸ

17.12.2025 16:28 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Freshwater fish behaviour in our illuminated world: Insights from the laboratory
ASAB Winter Conference (Edinburgh, December 2025)
Andy Vowles (Senior Research Fellow;
Matthew Hatfield (PhD Researcher)
Prof. Paul Kemp
International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
University of Southampton, UK

Freshwater fish behaviour in our illuminated world: Insights from the laboratory ASAB Winter Conference (Edinburgh, December 2025) Andy Vowles (Senior Research Fellow; Matthew Hatfield (PhD Researcher) Prof. Paul Kemp International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences University of Southampton, UK

Artificial light at night is increasing in extent and brightness. It appears that such light can affect things like route choice and daytime activity in freshwater fish 🐠 πŸ’‘ #ASABWinter2025

16.12.2025 16:27 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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ShoalBase | Join, Explore, Contribute Now ShoalBase offers a global database on fish social behaviour, supporting research, conservation, and ecology through community contributions and visual data mapping.

🧡1/9 There are 35,000+ fish species, but we have formal social-behaviour classifications for a tiny fraction. Most knowledge lives in the experience of researchers, fishers, divers, aquarists, naturalists, and Indigenous communities, but almost none of it is centralised. So we built ShoalBase.org.

25.11.2025 13:10 πŸ‘ 50 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 4

πŸ“£Fully Funded PhD Opportunity at the University of PortsmouthπŸ’§

Explore how early childhood routines shape lifelong water habits, and how that understanding can help tackle water scarcity and protect ecologically sensitive and globally unique freshwater environments 🌍

20.10.2025 09:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Listening to Life: Acoustic and AI Technologies for Tracking Freshwater Biodiversity Recovery | TREES DLA Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened habitats on Earth due to multiple anthropogenic pressures. Protecting them requires novel monitoring solutions that are both low-cost and highly sen...

🎧 #PhDOpportunity🌿🐟

Fully funded PhD using AI and acoustic technologies to track freshwater biodiversity recovery β€” from chalk stream restoration in Hampshire to ghost pond resurrection in Norfolk. πŸ’§

Apply now πŸ‘‰ www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/lis...

πŸ“… Deadline: 5pm (UK time), 17th December 2025

27.10.2025 11:28 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Wessex Rivers Trust is seeking a passionate & experienced Chair to guide their Board in their mission to restore & protect the amazing rivers of Wessex

See WRT website lnkd.in/ej3vdmEy

Nurole lnkd.in/eUhwjpEu

#CharityLeadership #charitygovernance #Trustees #EnvironmentalLeadership #Loveyourrivers

01.11.2025 10:06 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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31.10.2025 12:03 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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βœ…Home tanks setup for simulating light pollution
βœ…Fish settled in
βœ…Model predator (kingfisher) constructed
βœ…Experimental tanks setup

My @asab.org funded project investigating the impact of #lightpollution on collective anti-predator response in fish is finally in full swing πŸ˜πŸŒ†πŸŸ

31.10.2025 11:55 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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Interesting first day of talks at the #FSBI2025 conference. Great talk by Ben (Bluck) from our research group on European eel response to light within a "passage" context.

08.07.2025 14:41 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Really enjoyed day 2 of the #UFAW2025 conference, especially presenting my (@ufaw.bsky.social funded) work on how environmental enrichment in husbandry tanks can influence fish passage performance at river infrastructure (in the lab) #AnimalWelfare #AnimalWelfareScience

25.06.2025 15:26 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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🐟 At the #UFAW2025 conference today, Andrew Vowles @unisouthampton.bsky.social‬ shared a fascinating fish study revealing that being housed with enrichment (shelters, substrate) affected their later exploration of novel objects and willingness to swim upstream and cross barriers. #animalwelfare

25.06.2025 12:39 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Glad you found it interesting πŸ™‚

25.06.2025 13:05 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Consultation: Perceptions of human-generated noise and light in marine and freshwater environments - AquaPLAN Funded by the EU Horizon Europe Programme (along with UKRI), AquaPLAN is a €2.6 million, 4-year project that aims to quantify the combined impacts of Light and Noise Pollution (LNP) on aquatic biodive...

Can you help? Could you spare time to take part in this survey, which aims to investigate perceptions on human-generated noise and light pollution in marine and freshwater environments. Take part here: aquaplan-project.eu/aquaplan-sur...

25.03.2025 11:55 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Hydraulic conditions created by a β€˜large’ diameter Cylindrical Bristle Cluster fish pass Cylindrical Bristle Clusters (CBCs) provide a multi-species fish passage solution at sloped weirs. Configurations trialled to date (min. diagonal spac…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

20.02.2025 13:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Back in the warm office after measuring water velocities for a student project at a cylindrical bristle cluster (CBC) #fishpass - a fish passage solution for sloped weirs. We've tested mostly in the lab (see link in 🧡) so nice to get some field data πŸ™‚πŸŸ

20.02.2025 13:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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The impact of reintroduced Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) dams on the upstream movement of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in upland areas of Great Britain The return of Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) to large areas of Europe represents a conservation success with the current population estimated to be around 1.2 million individuals. Their reintroduction...

The impact of reintroduced Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) dams on the upstream movement of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in upland areas of Great Britain
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

17.02.2025 09:23 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Britain’s favourite fish at risk of wipeout within decades, predicts report Brown trout unlikely to survive in most rivers at height of summer by 2080, says Environment Agency

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

31.01.2025 21:05 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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24% of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction !

πŸ‘‰ By Sayer et al. Jan 2025 in Nature
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

πŸ”‘ Multi-taxon global IUCN red list freshwater fauna (23,496 species) assessment shows that pollution, dams, water extraction, agriculture and invasion are the main threats.

🌐🌍

09.01.2025 08:07 πŸ‘ 46 πŸ” 26 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
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Right, back to it! Things to get stuck into this week: #dataanalysis, #fieldwork, #bidwriting... Let's see how long this new year motivation lasts πŸ˜‰

06.01.2025 13:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Scientists mapped the world’s rivers over 35 years. They found shocking changes | CNN The flow of water through the planet’s nearly 3 million rivers is changing rapidly, with potentially drastic implications for everything from drinking water supplies to flood risks, according to a new...

Major new research finds β€œshockingly” fast changes to flows of Earth’s c. 3 million rivers, mapped across 35 years.

β€œRivers are dynamic and beautiful beasts & humans should never take them for granted or squander the resources they provide us with.” (Hannah Cloke)
www.cnn.com/2024/12/12/c...

13.12.2024 20:42 πŸ‘ 190 πŸ” 69 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1
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Removing institutional barriers to long-term fieldwork is critical for advancing ecology Long-term fieldwork is essential for ecology and conservation, but is hindered by institutional barriers, such as the publish-or-perish culture of aca…

Long-term data is critical for understanding how ecosystems work and how they might look in the future. But it's getting harder and harder to do due to funding limitations. We need to prioritise this sort of research and to stop cutting funding for it.

03.12.2024 20:23 πŸ‘ 62 πŸ” 20 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1
A drone shot shows numerous barges off-loading river sand to the shore of the Bassac River, with Phnom Penh's skyline in the background. Photo credit: Andy Ball

A drone shot shows numerous barges off-loading river sand to the shore of the Bassac River, with Phnom Penh's skyline in the background. Photo credit: Andy Ball

🚨Fully-Funded PhD Alert! 🚨 Want to join the @unisouthampton.bsky.social Leverhulme Resilience Centre? This project, supervised by me, @profjulianleyland.bsky.social and Dr Nick Dorward, explores links between sand mining, urbanisation and river-related risks: www.southampton.ac.uk/study/postgr...

29.11.2024 10:00 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
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Two unique opportunities for fully funded interdisciplinary PhD research on #biodiversity #conservation
@Uni_of_Essex, blending #ecology with #sociology and #business as part of the @leverhulme.bsky.social Sustainable Transitions programme

jobs.ac.uk/job/DKT611/p...

jobs.ac.uk/job/DKT503/p...

25.11.2024 10:26 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Data analysis day - trout response to novel object (πŸ–). Some fish not bothered. Others really don't like the pig. Is this related to the different husbandry / enrichment environment the fish were held under πŸ€”. Time will tell. #fishwelfare

@animalta.bsky.social working well for the tracking πŸ™‚

19.11.2024 16:26 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Was hoping for a blue sky for my first post, but alas, it's fieldwork in November, in England. So grey sky and rain it is. Scouting potential salmon spawning sites for a project this winter with @helenalcurrie.bsky.social 🐟

18.11.2024 15:45 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Could I be added as well please?

08.11.2024 16:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0