My main area of research is optimising resource allocation decisions for biodiversity protection under multiple threats. I am interested in understanding the interactions between threats, species, and responses, in marine and terrestrial systems. The ecology, conservation and management of marine megafauna and how they interact within complex dynamic systems are of particular interest to me.
My PhD was focused on managing the direct and indirect impacts of human-associated pressures including climate change upon marine environments and biodiversity, as well as integrated natural resource management (fisheries and forestry) across land-sea systems. In my PhD I used a combination of systematic conservation planning, ecosystem-based fisheries modelling, and land-sea impact models to answer questions about optimal management of multiple threats in rapidly transforming landscapes and dynamic systems. The two case studies were managing the diffuse impacts of oil palm expansion on coral reefs in Papua New Guinea in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society Papua New Guinea, and managing indirect effects of climate change on krill and their predators, baleen whales, in the Southern Hemisphere, with CSIRO Australia.
It is important to me that my research is applicable and accessible to agencies and stakeholders involved in making conservation decisions, and I endeavour to collaborate with government agencies and non-government organisations as much as possible. I have worked on projects around the world together with NGOs including the World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society, The Nature Conservancy, Birdlife, and the Pacific Salmon Foundation.
Skills
Systematic Conservation Planning
Marxan trainer, with specialties in teaching Marxan with Probability
Gap Analyses and Spatial Planning
Ridge-to-Reef Planning
Cost-effectiveness Analyses
Conservation Biology
setting conservation priorities, reserve system design/prioritsation (especially marine), using decision theory ideas and economics to solve conservation problems, threatened species management, cumulative threat maps, population viability analysis, biodiversity and climate change, species distribution models
Other applied ecology
fisheries stock assessment and management, multi-species population models, ecosystem models
watershed erosion and runoff models
management strategy evaluation
marine megafauna management and conservation, impacts of fisheries bycatch
Basic ecological theory
ecosystem modelling, stochastic population modelling, population dynamics of marine organisms, marine mammal ecology, connectivity.