Morad is a PhD candidate in the School of Natural Sciences, Botany discipline at Trinity College Dublin, focusing on plant ecophysiology, sustainable agriculture, and environmental science. His research explores how plant diversity in grassland ecosystems can enhance agricultural sustainability while contributing to climate change mitigation.

His project, “Assessing the role of multi-species swards in mitigating carbon and greenhouse gas emissions from intensively managed grasslands in Ireland,” investigates how increasing plant diversity in pasture systems influences ecosystem function. Specifically, the research evaluates how multi-species grasslands can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance soil carbon sequestration, and improve the resilience and sustainability of grassland-based livestock production systems.

This work is conducted under the supervision of Dr. Matthew Saunders (Discipline of Botany, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin), Dr. Rachael Murphy (Teagasc Environment, Soils and Land Use Department and Teagasc Climate Centre), and Dr. Karl Richards (Teagasc Climate Centre). Through this collaboration, the project integrates expertise across plant ecology and ecophysiology, soil science, and agricultural climate research.

The outcomes of this research contribute to national and international efforts to develop climate-resilient agricultural systems that balance food production with environmental sustainability. It also advances interdisciplinary research on grassland ecosystems, biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships, and climate mitigation in agricultural landscapes.

This research is supported by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland under Grant Number 13/RC/2092_P2 through the iCRAG Research Ireland Centre for Applied Geosciences.

Research project summary

Irish agriculture faces the dual challenge of maintaining high productivity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient losses to meet national and EU climate and water quality targets. Grass-based systems dominate Irish agriculture, with grasslands covering approximately 60% of the national land area and supporting the country’s globally significant beef and dairy sectors. These systems also represent the second-largest soil carbon reservoir after peatlands and wetlands.

However, around 95% of Irish grasslands are dominated by perennial ryegrass monocultures that rely heavily on nitrogen fertilizer inputs. While productive, such systems contribute significantly to agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, particularly nitrous oxide (N₂O) from livestock urine patches, as well as carbon dioxide (CO₂) exchanges between soils, vegetation, and the atmosphere. Intensive management can also increase risks of nutrient losses to water, biodiversity decline, and rising production costs.

Agriculture represents the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Ireland, accounting for a substantial proportion of national emissions. Within this sector, methane (CH₄) from enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock is the dominant contributor. However, pasture-based systems also influence other important components of the greenhouse gas balance, including carbon dioxide (CO₂) through soil carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide (N₂O) through nitrogen cycling processes. Maximising CO₂ uptake while minimising N₂O emissions is therefore critical for improving the overall greenhouse gas balance and climate mitigation potential of grazing systems.

Understanding and quantifying both N₂O emissions and ecosystem carbon dynamics is therefore essential to accurately evaluate the net greenhouse gas balance of pasture systems and to inform the development of sustainable management strategies. Current greenhouse gas inventories often rely on generalized emission factors derived largely from monoculture systems and simplified assumptions, which overlook the spatial and temporal variability characteristic of grazed landscapes. In particular, these approaches often fail to account for emission “hot spots”, such as urine deposition patches, and “hot moments”, short periods of elevated emissions following events such as rainfall or fertilizer application. These localized and episodic processes can contribute disproportionately to total N₂O emissions, and their omission introduces uncertainty into emission estimates and constrains the development of effective mitigation strategies.

This research investigates multispecies swards (MSS) pastures that combine grasses, legumes, and herbs as a nature-based solution for developing more climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable grazing systems. The study is based on field-scale experiments conducted under managed grazing conditions, integrating plot measurements with ecosystem-scale monitoring. The project combines static chamber measurements of N₂O fluxes, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mapping to characterise spatial vegetation patterns and urine patch distribution, and micrometeorological eddy covariance techniques to quantify ecosystem-level carbon exchange.

In addition, soil processes are assessed through measurements of nitrogen dynamics and microbial activity to better understand the biogeochemical drivers of N₂O emissions. By integrating these approaches across multiple spatial scales from localized urine patches to whole-field carbon fluxes the monitoring framework captures key components of real grazing system dynamics, including plant functional diversity, soil nitrogen transformations, and ecosystem-level greenhouse gas exchange.

The PhD is fully funded by the Trinity Research Doctorate Award scheme, which covers tuition and a stipend of €25,000 per year. Please click the below link for further information on the area of research, and instructions on how to apply.

The heritage of Trinity East is uniquely complex, a combination of tangible and intangible and of multiple historical and present actors, and requires an interdisciplinary study. Our research project will study the built, cultural, commercial, and natural heritage of the Trinity East site and the larger Grand Canal Dock area. Our aim is to understand how the historical complexity and legacy of human-environment interactions have shaped the unique challenges and possibilities of this site and how the globalisation of Dublin has affected local communities and their natural and built environments.

Trinity East - Commercial Heritage

Applications are invited for participation in the LERU Doctoral Summer School, to be held in KU Leuven from September 6th to 11th, 2026.

Trinity is delighted to be a member of LERU (the League of European Research Universities) and to offer this opportunity to two PhD researchers to meet with peers from other LERU universities and to expand their knowledge and their research networks.  The theme of this Doctoral Summer School will be  “Inter-, Multi- and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Health”.

Find more information about LERU Summer School 2026.

Who is eligible?

Applicants must be currently registered on the PhD/Doctoral register. Priority will be given to applicants who are in Years 3 or 4 of their degree.

How do I apply?

Applicants must submit an Application (see below), accompanied by a CV and a Supervisor Letter of Support.

Deadline

Applications must be received by January 12th, 17.00. Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted. Only two places are available and an internal review panel will be convened to select the final candidates. The decision of this panel is final.