I am a marine biologist and academic based at Bournemouth University. My research is currently focussed on understanding and protecting the marine environment in a holistic manner.

This involves understanding the role of multiple stresses which act on marine organisms, and the interactions between the organisms (which can form part of the stress). Currently, work involves overfishing, and how marine protected areas can be effective. Large scale ecosystem effects of overfishing - including the potential for overfished environments to contribute to climate change, and the adaptive potential of organisms to multiple stresses, including climate.

While most of my work is in marine ecology, I have worked in many different environments and on many different species, and in several disciplines, including economics, neuroscience and robotics.

I use a range of tools and techniques to conduct my work, but I am especially experienced in computer simulations and quantitative methods.

I am also interested in how people learn about complex topics. How we can best teach what are often thought of as difficult subjects, such as mathematics and statistics, and how we can effectively communicate science and conservation to the general public.

Research

My current research is focussed on 1) the development of simple, user friendly community-level models to predict changes in ecological communities, based on limited and diverse data types. 2) understanding localised adaption to ecological niches (from both physical and biological factors) and the implications of this for climate change and associated species movement 3) finding suitable and novel biomarkers for organism 'stress', which may predict their future vulnerability to climate change or other environmental pressures

Publications

Grants

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