Research

How should dispersal connections between marine ecosystem patches influence conservation planning?

In the ocean, many organisms may disperse for 1000s of miles through passive transport by ocean currents or through active dispersal through swimming behaviours. Other organisms may disperse much shorter distances. Ocean currents control/influence both active and passive dispersal and are currently changing due to anthropogenic stressors. Understanding (1) which ecosystem patches are connected to which other ones, (2) how that might influence the dynamics of those ecosystems and (3) whether connected patches should be managed together; are all key questions that are relevant to the design of conservation management.

Are there feasible alternative income sources for funding conservation initiatives?

Marine ecosystem conservation initiatives are expensive, because they cost money to enforce, act or because they come with an opportunity cost for those that would otherwise be benefitting from exploiting those ecosystems. However, some of the industries that rely on these ecosystems require these ecosystems to be healthy to make a profit. Thus, they have an economic incentive to protect these ecosystems and may be willing to pay money to ensure they remain healthy. However, what if the incentive structures do not line up, now or into the future?

Quantitative Methods Development for Advancing Ecosystem Management

As ecological monitoring initiatives mature, the amount of existing ecological data increases. With increased data, increasingly sophisticated quantitative tools can be developed and used for predicting how ecosystems might shift into the future (and, following from that, assessing management method effectiveness). Many such tools exist in other disciplines which have historically had access to larger datasets (e.g. meteorological data) but these need to be altered to best fit ecological data and questions.

Finding Synergies: Informing management of other systems using what we have learned from marine ecosystem management (+ vice versa)

Many different systems have similar characteristics, especially when we zoom out (in space or time). For example, many large systems can be thought of as networks of patches and many systems may exhibit non-linear responses to changes in stressors. Looking at how other systems are managed or looking at how other systems are similar to the study systems we focus on can be broadly beneficial to advancing marine ecosystem management and the management of other complex systems in general. In particular, many ecosystems are modelled through the use of compartment models which are similar to the SIR models used in epidemiology.

Study Systems

Methods

Coral Reefs
Seagrass Beds
Kelp Forests