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I am based in the Centre for Research in Ecological Impacts of Coastal
Cities. My personal research interests could be summarised as the
ecology of defence, particularly inducible defences which are mobilised
by the threat of an attack or the attack itself. Predator-prey relationships
are often considered a key part of ecosystem processes. I am interested
in fundamental questions such as what constitutes a signal between
a predator and its food items and how the signal receiver, as well
as the emitter, should respond to these signals. As many induced defences
incur a cost in either energy expended or lost feeding opportunities,
a prey/food organism should only activate defences when needed. It
is important to identify these, as yet unknown, signals in an ecological
setting before trying to establish general patterns. Responses to
these signals can be behavioural, such as hiding from predators; physiological,
such as increasing the level of noxious chemicals in the tissues of
potential food/prey organisms; or they can be structural such as growing
a thicker shell. The organisms I have used in developing experimental
tests of hypotheses developed from these ideas include barnacles,
limpets and seaweeds.
My other interests are marine conservation and human impacts on the
intertidal. Sarah Carless, my PhD student at Plymouth, has discovered
that recreational use of rocky shores does indeed reduce feeding by
an ecologically important predator (the oystercatcher Haematopus
ostralegus), but these birds recover very quickly. So less frequent
human activities on the shore are unlikely to mean these birds are
deprived of food. Recreational fishing may also have an indirect effect
on the marine environment. In the UK, there is a recently developed
informal fishery for moulting Carcinus maenas (an intertidal
crab which is invasive here in Australia) for use as bait by anglers.
Emma Sheehan (another of my PhD students at Plymouth) is currently
trying to understand the impact of this fishery on crab populations,
the benthic infauna of estuaries and on feeding birds. Initial results
show that estuaries which are fished for C. maenas seem to
have higher densities of these crabs. Closing marine fisheries is
a well established tool for marine conservation all over the world,
but the success or otherwise of these closures is often justified
in terms of fishery benefits or in terms of conservation value, a
less tangible output. It is often difficult to persuade legislators
and the general public of the need to conserve an environment they
haven't seen or can fully engage in. With colleagues in Plymouth,
I am attempting to put conservation of marine habitats such as seagrass
beds and rocky subtidal reefs into a socio-economic framework by developing
costed ecological goods and services (as well as fisheries benefits,
the economic benefits derived from no-take angling, divers and the
tourism infrastructure which that support them can be fully costed)
in monetary terms. This will better inform stakeholders and enable
less contentious decision making.
For full information about the Centre, please click
here
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