Nicholai is a Colgan Foundation Doctoral Scholar who joined CERG as a PhD candidate in April 2025 to pursue his study of nutritional ecology in common dolphin (Delphinus delphis). Nicholai’s academic journey began at the University of Malta, where he completed a B.Sc. (Honours) in Earth Systems with a specialisation in habitat conservation. He then went on to the University of Iceland for an M.Sc. in Biology where he narrowed his scope into marine mammalogy, specifically toxicology and endocrinology. From his master’s thesis, Nicholai published a paper on persistent organic pollutants in stranded long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) in Iceland. Here, he also spent a considerable amount of time in the field assisting the University of Iceland research centre in Húsavík, Icelandic Winter Whales project, and the Icelandic Orca Project with data collection and processing.

 

PhD Project:

Nicholai’s PhD aims to investigate emerging evidence of nutritional stress in New Zealand common dolphins. Leveraging a 25-year tissue archive of blubber, skin, muscle, bone stomach contents and fixed tissues, Nicholai will employ a holistic approach diet, body condition, nutrition and disease to explore how prey availability, climate change, and environmental contaminants shape the nutritional and feeding ecology of common dolphins in New Zealand.

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Supervisors: Prof Karen Stockin, Dr Katharina J Peters and Dr Amandine Sabadel