Population ecology with applications to fisheries, aquaculture, epidemiology, and conservation

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The view that species exist in stable balance with their environment is rarely true. Instead, scientists have long been mystified by the fluctuations of populations that occur throughout nature. This is more than just an intellectual footnote. It applies to situations important to people, including disease outbreaks, fisheries collapse, or the loss of iconic species. My research program focuses on understanding the factors that cause fluctuations in populations, and in particular how that affects outbreaks of disease, food security, fisheries sustainability, and biodiversity conservation. A particular focus is on coastal seas, and achieving sustainable ecosystems and economies. In many coastal ecosystems, domesticated populations in aquaculture are growing. This implies that diseases can now persist and spread more easily in coastal seas. In British Columbia, this is a controversial issue, because some wild salmon have declined and these are sometimes linked to disease or salmon aquaculture. My research program seeks to understand these dynamics and offer solutions for disease management that may help find solutions to achieving sustainable aquaculture, fisheries, and ecoystems. My group also works on understanding how ecosystems affect the fluctuations of individual species. Are populations from less disturbed ecosystems more stable? A key feature of ecosystems is that populations can respond in sudden and in unanticipated ways - such as the outbreak of disease or the collapse of a fishery. My group seeks to understand whether it possible to anticipate these major changes, before they occur. Such "early warning signals" of sudden changes have become of great interest, not just for ecosystems and fisheries, but also for the economy, climate, and physiology.