A FORMER Royal Wootton Bassett student is making a difference to animals in the Arctic as she completes her PhD at Cardiff University.

Sophie Watson works with the parasites in polar bears and wolverines to help understand the wildlife living in extreme conditions better to help minimise the impact of climate change.

The 30-year-old is from west Swindon and went to Wootton Bassett Comprehensive School could save these animals from global warming.

“There’s this whole unknown and hidden world inside these animals – inside all of us – and it can tell us so much,” Sophie said.

“The gut is a mini-ecosystem of its own and the bacteria and parasites living here are fundamental to the health - both good and bad - of these animals. They can give us so much insight into their lives and the world around us.

“They’re so important and yet there’s so much we don’t yet know about these micro-environments.

“It might sound very strange – but I think it’s awesome.”

The Arctic is the northernmost region on Earth and includes parts of Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, Greenland, and Alaska.

Her previous research showed that loss of sea ice in the Arctic was associated with differences found in the gut bacteria of polar bears.

She found differences in the gut microbiota of polar bears that remain out on the sea ice compared to those who have altered their behaviour to come onshore because of their rapidly vanishing habitat.

And despite her looking at the organisms of these animals, she has never seen them in person.

“In this study, we investigated the parasites of wolverines from Nunavut, a region high in the Canadian Arctic. We detected a variety of different parasites, including Baylisascaris devosi, a type of roundworm, and Taenia twitchelli, a tapeworm, both of which haven't been recorded in wolverines since 1978.

“Our research extended the geographic distribution of these parasites in wolverines by 2,000km to the east and into the tundra ecosystem – the more inhospitable and barren landscapes of the Arctic.

“The diversity of parasite species we found may reflect the huge distances wolverines can travel and gives insight into the diverse range of prey items they consume.

"Monitoring wildlife, particularly in such extreme environments, plays an important role in identifying changes that will hopefully help us to come up with actions that might slow or minimise any impact. This is particularly important in areas like the Arctic where rates of climate change are so fast.”