Professional summary

Anna Belcher is a catchment biogeochemist working in the Freshwater restoration and sustainability team. She is an observational scientist, making field measurements to understand nutrient and carbon cycling in aquatic systems.

Anna completed her undergraduate masters degree in Oceanography at the University of Southampton, with a year at the University of Washington, Seattle. After 2 years working an an oceanographic surveyor, she returned to the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton where she completed a PhD on particulate organic carbon cycling in the Southern Ocean. Following this Anna worked as a post-doc with British Antarctic Survey for 5 years, looking at respiration of mesopelagic fish, carbon cycling in the ocean interior, and the role of krill in biogeochemical cycling.

In 2023, Anna worked in the greenhouse gas flux team at Forest Research, supporting eddy covariance, soil respiration and met station measurements, supporting the collection of data to investigate the role of UK managed forests on UK carbon inventories.

Anna moved to UKCEH in 2024 to work with the freshwater team and is currently involved in a number of projects including, BIOPOLE (BIOPOLE - Biopole), MERLIN (MERLIN | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (ceh.ac.uk)), GHG Aqua ()GHG Aqua | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (ceh.ac.uk) and a project with Scottish water looking at water quality with depth in reservoirs.

Selected publications

Belcher Anna et al. , (2020), Respiration of mesopelagic fish: a comparison of respiratory electron transport system (ETS) measurements and allometrically calculated rates in the Southern Ocean and Benguela Current. ICES Journal of Marine Sciences, 77, 1672-1684, https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/advance-article/doi/10.1093/icesjms/fsaa031/5805416

Belcher Anna et al. , (2019), Krill faecal pellets drive hidden pulses of particulate organic carbon in the marginal ice zone. Nature Communications, 10, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08847-1

Belcher Anna et al. , (2023), Seasonal cycles of biogeochemical fluxes in the Scotia Sea, Southern Ocean: A stable isotope approach. Biogeosciences, 20, 3573-3591, https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/20/3573/2023/bg-20-3573-2023.html

Cook Kathryn B. et al. , (2023), Carbon budgets of Scotia Sea mesopelagic zooplankton and micronekton communities during austral spring. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 210, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967064523000462

Belcher Anna et al. , (2023), Illuminating the Living Lanterns of Antarctica. Frontiers for Young Minds, 11, https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2023.926063

Belcher Anna et al. , (2021), Experimental determination of reflectance spectra of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in the Scotia Sea. Antarctic Science, 33, 402 -414, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/experimental-determination-of-reflectance-spectra-of-antarctic-krill-euphausia-superba-in-the-scotia-sea/1E1333686CE8B8CADC3B4F42CE8B8197

Belcher Anna et al. , (2017), Copepod faecal pellet transfer through the meso- and bathypelagic layers in the Southern Ocean in spring. Biogeosciences, 14, 1511-1525, http://www.biogeosciences.net/14/1511/2017/

Belcher Anna et al. , (2020), Why krill swarms are important to the global climate. Frontiers for Young Minds, 8, https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2020.518995

Belcher A. et al. , (2016), Depth-resolved particle associated microbial respiration in the northeast Atlantic. Biogeosciences, 13, 4927-4943, http://www.biogeosciences.net/13/4927/2016/

Other Publications

The importance of Antarctic krill in biogeochemical cycles

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12668-7