Updates
10 June 2021
A new paper from Mike Williamson came out this week, which investigates the utility of cetacean stranding data for informing climate change policy in the UK. This work was undertaken using data from the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Program (CSIP) at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) as part of an internship during his PhD studies. Find the paper here.
01 March 2021
The NETLab welcomes our newest member, Lucy Mead, who joins us through the London NERC Doctoral Training Programme (DTP). Lucy has a wealth of experience in marine and turtle conservation, earth observation and policy and will be conducting her PhD on the spatial ecology of Critically Endangered Angelsharks (Squatina squatina) and its implications for conservation. This is an exciting project that partners with the Angel Shark Project: Canary Islands. Looking forward to kicking this off at the end of the month.
10 February 2021
Mike Williamson's paper on a new method to analyse detection gaps for movement studies using acoustic telemetry came out today. Congratulations Mike and another fine paper from your PhD! You can read about his paper in this recent blog post for ZSL Science. You can find his Open Access paper here.
08 February 2021
Papers starting to come in for our Frontiers in Marine Science Research Topic on Sociality in the Marine Environment. Very cool diversity of abstracts submitted and huge thanks to Profs Darren Croft, Janet Mann, Culum Brown and Dr Johann Mourier for agreeing to co-edit this with me. Link to the online eBook can be found here.
Long-term, stable social communities with the Palmyra grey reef shark population over four years
12 August 2020
Our paper measuring the social stability of grey reef sharks at Palmyra Atoll, Central Pacific Ocean comes out today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Working with long-term collaborator Dr Yannis Papastamatiou, we put forward a case that social groups operate as 'information centres' where sharks can gather information about foraging locations. It's been great working on this together! Link to the paper can be found here.
15 July 2020
Mike Williamson was asked by Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada to aid them with their research on North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in the Gulf of St Lawrence this summer. His role during the two week trip was to attach digital acoustic recording tags (DTAGs) to record fine-scale movement behaviours of these critically endangered species, on a project that is also investigating the acoustic behaviour, body condition and hormones of these animals. With only approximately 400 animals left (NARWC) this research is important for assessing the factors impacting mortality and reproductive success which will aid the conservation and recovery of these species. At least some of us were able to get out into the field this year...
Andrew Wright, Fisheries and Oceans, Canada, all taken under relevant permits
08 April 2019
Huge congratulations to Mike Williamson for publishing the first paper from his PhD. Mike reviews all the recent developments in satellite remote sensing and its utility in elasmobranch ecology, conservation and management. The review is summarised nicely in this BBC article or you can hear it in his own words in this blog by clicking the image below.