Scholars@Duke
Patrick N. Halpin

Patrick N. Halpin

Professor
Marine Science and Conservation
phalpin@duke.edu
Box 90328, Durham, NC 27708-0328
A324 Lev Sci Res Ctr, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

A global assessment of preferential access areas for small-scale fisheries

Journal Article NPJ Ocean Sustainability · December 1, 2024 We provide the first global assessment of the status of preferential access areas (PAAs), a relatively understudied policy tool to govern small-scale fisheries. We find 44 countries, most of them of low or low-middle income, have established a total of 63 ... Full text Cite

Role of low-impact-factor journals in conservation implementation.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · October 2024 Academic review, promotion, and tenure processes place a premium on frequent publication in high-impact factor (IF) journals. However, conservation often relies on species-specific information that is unlikely to have the broad appeal needed for high-IF jo ... Full text Cite

North Atlantic right whale density surface model for the US Atlantic evaluated with passive acoustic monitoring

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · March 20, 2024 The Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis entered a population decline around 2011. To save this species without closing the ocean to human activities requires detailed information about its intra-annual density patterns that ... Full text Cite

New framework reveals gaps in US ocean biodiversity protection

Journal Article One Earth · January 19, 2024 Human activities threaten Earth's biodiversity and its contributions to human well-being. In the ocean, our poor understanding of how biodiversity is distributed limits its management and protection, necessitating reliance on weak abiotic proxies. Here, we ... Full text Cite

Satellite mapping reveals extensive industrial activity at sea.

Journal Article Nature · January 2024 The world's population increasingly relies on the ocean for food, energy production and global trade1-3, yet human activities at sea are not well quantified4,5. We combine satellite imagery, vessel GPS data and deep-learning models to ... Full text Cite

High seas in the cloud: the role of big data and artificial intelligence in support of high seas governance – The Sargasso Sea pilot

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 1, 2024 This article examines the future governance of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) in the wake of the new 2023 United Nations Agreement using the work on the Sargasso Sea as a prototype. After discussing the legal framework and current challenges fac ... Full text Cite

Towards a global strategy for the conservation of deep-sea active hydrothermal vents

Journal Article NPJ Ocean Sustainability · December 1, 2023 Deep-sea active hydrothermal vents are globally diverse, vulnerable, rare, remote, and isolated habitats, yet they face increasing threats from human activities, including deep-sea mining. To address the conservation challenges surrounding these habitats, ... Full text Cite

Tight spatial coupling of a marine predator with soniferous fishes: Using joint modelling to aid in ecosystem approaches to management

Journal Article Diversity and Distributions · August 1, 2023 Aim: Understanding the distribution of marine organisms is essential for effective management of highly mobile marine predators that face a variety of anthropogenic threats. Recent work has largely focused on modelling the distribution and abundance of mar ... Full text Cite

Synthesizing connectivity information from migratory marine species for area-based management

Journal Article Biological Conservation · July 1, 2023 Understanding the areas used by migratory marine animals and their movements is critical in supporting management decisions that target their conservation. This is especially important for long-lived species with large geographic extents and are more vulne ... Full text Cite

Subseasonal forecasts provide a powerful tool for dynamic marine mammal management

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · April 1, 2023 Adaptive approaches are needed to effectively manage dynamic marine systems, and ecological forecasts can help managers anticipate when and where conservation issues are likely to arise in the future. The recent development of subseasonal global environmen ... Full text Cite

Biologically Important Areas II for cetaceans within U.S. and adjacent waters - Updates and the application of a new scoring system

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 1, 2023 Building on earlier work identifying Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) for cetaceans in U.S. waters (BIA I), we describe the methodology and structured expert elicitation principles used in the “BIA II” effort to update existing BIAs, identify and deline ... Full text Cite

Quantitative analysis of hillshed geomorphology and critical zone function: Raising the hillshed to watershed status

Journal Article Bulletin of the Geological Society of America · July 1, 2022 Landscapes are frequently delineated by nested watersheds and river networks ranked via stream orders. Landscapes have only recently been delineated by their interfluves and ridge networks, and ordered based on their ridge connectivity. There are, however, ... Full text Cite

Network analysis of sea turtle movements and connectivity: A tool for conservation prioritization

Journal Article Diversity and Distributions · April 1, 2022 Aim: Understanding the spatial ecology of animal movements is a critical element in conserving long-lived, highly mobile marine species. Analyzing networks developed from movements of six sea turtle species reveals marine connectivity and can help prioriti ... Full text Open Access Cite

Jointly modeling marine species to inform the effects of environmental change on an ecological community in the Northwest Atlantic.

Journal Article Scientific reports · January 2022 Single species distribution models (SSDMs) are typically used to understand and predict the distribution and abundance of marine fish by fitting distribution models for each species independently to a combination of abiotic environmental variables. However ... Full text Cite

Application of scientific criteria for identifying hydrothermal ecosystems in need of protection

Journal Article Marine Policy · October 1, 2021 Deep-sea hydrothermal vent fields are globally rare (abundant in numbers, but extremely small in area) and are rich in extraordinary life based on chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis. Vent fields are also sources of polymetallic sulfides rich in copp ... Full text Cite

Ecosystem-based management for military training, biodiversity, carbon storage and climate resiliency on a complex coastal land/water-scape.

Journal Article Journal of environmental management · February 2021 The Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program (DCERP) was a 10-year multi-investigator project funded by the Department of Defense to improve understanding of ecosystem processes and their interactions with natural and anthropogenic stressors at the Marin ... Full text Cite

Dataset on non-state actor participation in regional fisheries management organizations.

Journal Article Data in brief · February 2021 In this article, we present and describe a new dataset of non-state actor participation in seven regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). The dataset contains institutional, economic and ecological variables relevant for non-state actor partici ... Full text Cite

Who is the high seas fishing industry?

Journal Article One Earth · December 18, 2020 Seafood companies rarely disclose what or where they are fishing. To provide a first overview of the fishing industry in the high seas—the area beyond national jurisdiction—we linked fishing activity in the high seas to vessel owners and corporate actors. ... Full text Cite

Beyond static spatial management: Scientific and legal considerations for dynamic management in the high seas

Journal Article Marine Policy · December 1, 2020 Natural and human stressors in the high seas act across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. These include direct interaction such as fisheries bycatch or indirect interaction like warming oceans and plastic ingestion. Area-based management tools ( ... Full text Cite

Memorializing the Middle Passage on the Atlantic seabed in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Journal Article Marine Policy · December 1, 2020 More than 12.5 million Africans were held captive on 40,000+ voyages during the transatlantic slave trade. Many did not survive the voyage and the Atlantic seabed became their final resting place. Exploration for mineral resources on the international seab ... Full text Open Access Cite

Integrated ocean management for a sustainable ocean economy.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · November 2020 The rapidly evolving ocean economy, driven by human needs for food, energy, transportation and recreation, has led to unprecedented pressures on the ocean that are further amplified by climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution. The need for better ... Full text Cite

Empowering NGOs? Long-term effects of ecological and institutional change on regional fisheries management organizations

Journal Article Global Environmental Change · November 1, 2020 The participation of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in regional fisheries management organizations has inspired optimism among many observers and researchers about increasing the effectiveness of these regional organizations in managi ... Full text Cite

Substrate-dependent fish have shifted less in distribution under climate change.

Journal Article Communications biology · October 2020 Analyses of the impacts of climate change on fish species have primarily considered dynamic oceanographic variables that are the output of predictive models, yet fish species distributions are determined by much more than just variables such as ocean tempe ... Full text Cite

Geographical differences in habitat relationships of cetaceans across an ocean basin

Journal Article Ecography · August 1, 2020 The distributions of highly mobile marine species such as cetaceans are increasingly modeled at basin scale by combining data from multiple regions. However, these basin-wide models often overlook geographical variations in species habitat relationships be ... Full text Cite

Daily and seasonal movements of cape cod gray seals vary with predation risk

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · June 25, 2020 White sharks Carcharodon carcharias and gray seals Halichoerus grypus are reestablishing their ecological roles within the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean, presenting an opportunity to understand gray seal movement and at-sea behavior under predation risk. As ... Full text Cite

Blue carbon conservation in West Africa: a first assessment of feasibility

Journal Article Journal of Coastal Conservation · February 1, 2020 The loss of blue carbon ecosystems results in significant levels of carbon emissions and decreased supply of other ecosystem services. West Africa contains approximately 14% of the world’s mangrove area but despite 25% of coverage loss between 1980 and 200 ... Full text Cite

Automating offshore infrastructure extractions using synthetic aperture radar & Google Earth Engine

Journal Article Remote Sensing of Environment · November 1, 2019 Although Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change is primarily focused on the types, rates, causes, and consequences of land change, increased anthropogenic development on the ocean's surface, such as offshore oil extraction, offshore wind energy, aquaculture ... Full text Cite

Integrating climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation in the global ocean.

Journal Article Science advances · November 2019 The impacts of climate change and the socioecological challenges they present are ubiquitous and increasingly severe. Practical efforts to operationalize climate-responsive design and management in the global network of marine protected areas (MPAs) are re ... Full text Cite

The Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative: Promoting scientific support for global ocean governance

Journal Article Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems · October 1, 2019 Addressing the challenge of protecting biodiversity in the global ocean requires a sound knowledge and understanding of the complex marine environment. Since 2008 the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI) has been established as a voluntary dedicated ... Full text Cite

High-seas fish biodiversity is slipping through the governance net.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · September 2019 Full text Cite

The importance of migratory connectivity for global ocean policy.

Journal Article Proceedings. Biological sciences · September 2019 The distributions of migratory species in the ocean span local, national and international jurisdictions. Across these ecologically interconnected regions, migratory marine species interact with anthropogenic stressors throughout their lives. Migratory con ... Full text Cite

Ecological connectivity between the areas beyond national jurisdiction and coastal waters: Safeguarding interests of coastal communities in developing countries

Journal Article Marine Policy · June 1, 2019 The UN General Assembly has made a unanimous decision to start negotiations to establish an international, legally-binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity within Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). ... Full text Cite

Translating Marine Animal Tracking Data into Conservation Policy and Management.

Journal Article Trends in ecology & evolution · May 2019 There have been efforts around the globe to track individuals of many marine species and assess their movements and distribution, with the putative goal of supporting their conservation and management. Determining whether, and how, tracking data have been ... Full text Cite

Cyclical climate oscillation alters species statistical relationships with local habitat

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · April 4, 2019 As anthropogenic climate change increases the temperatures of the world’s oceans, the survival rates, spatial distributions, and phenology of marine species are affected. Additionally, cyclical climate oscillations, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation ( ... Full text Cite

What is the Sargasso Sea? The problem of fixing space in a fluid ocean

Journal Article Political Geography · January 1, 2019 The political boundaries used to territorialize ocean spaces are often negotiated as largely social relations, with little attention to material aspects. Material aspects of ocean spaces include physical forces, interacting life, and constant transformatio ... Full text Cite

Minimizing wildlife impacts for offshore wind energy development: Winning tradeoffs for seabirds in space and cetaceans in time.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2019 Although offshore wind energy development (OWED) offers a much-needed renewable energy alternative to fossil fuels, holistic and effective methods for evaluating environmental impacts on wildlife in both space and time have been lacking. The lengthy enviro ... Full text Cite

Incorporating the dynamic and connected nature of the open ocean into governance of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

Chapter · January 1, 2019 The conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) are dependent on governance that can account for the nature of the systems therein. Pelagic open ocean ecosystems in ABNJ are characterized by their dy ... Full text Cite

Understanding differential patterns in coral reef recovery: chronic hydrodynamic disturbance as a limiting mechanism for coral colonization

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · October 26, 2018 Coral reefs are subject to numerous physical disturbances, and post-disturbance coral recovery potential depends on subsequent re-colonization of impacted habitat. We examined divergent recovery trajectories at 2 proximal reefs disturbed by ship groundings ... Full text Cite

Outstanding Challenges in the Transferability of Ecological Models.

Journal Article Trends in ecology & evolution · October 2018 Predictive models are central to many scientific disciplines and vital for informing management in a rapidly changing world. However, limited understanding of the accuracy and precision of models transferred to novel conditions (their 'transferability') un ... Full text Cite

The environmental niche of the global high seas pelagic longline fleet.

Journal Article Science advances · August 2018 International interest in the protection and sustainable use of high seas biodiversity has grown in recent years. There is an opportunity for new technologies to enable improvements in management of these areas beyond national jurisdiction. We explore the ... Full text Cite

Empowering high seas governance with satellite vessel tracking data

Journal Article Fish and Fisheries · July 1, 2018 Between 1950 and 1989, marine fisheries catch in the open-ocean and deep-sea beyond 200 nautical miles from shore increased by a factor of more than 10. While high seas catches have since plateaued, fishing effort continues to increase linearly. The combin ... Full text Cite

A strategy for the conservation of biodiversity on mid-ocean ridges from deep-sea mining.

Journal Article Science advances · July 2018 Mineral exploitation has spread from land to shallow coastal waters and is now planned for the offshore, deep seabed. Large seafloor areas are being approved for exploration for seafloor mineral deposits, creating an urgent need for regional environmental ... Full text Open Access Cite

Advancing marine biological observations and data requirements of the complementary Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) frameworks

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · June 27, 2018 Measurements of the status and trends of key indicators for the ocean and marine life are required to inform policy and management in the context of growing human uses of marine resources, coastal development, and climate change. Two synergistic efforts id ... Full text Cite

Reviewing the EBSA process: Improving on success

Journal Article Marine Policy · February 1, 2018 This paper reviews key aspects of the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity's Ecologically or Biologically Significant Area (EBSA) process to date, anticipating global marine coverage of that process in so far as is possible by the end o ... Full text Cite

Assessing cetacean surveys throughout the Mediterranean Sea: a gap analysis in environmental space.

Journal Article Scientific reports · February 2018 Heterogeneous data collection in the marine environment has led to large gaps in our knowledge of marine species distributions. To fill these gaps, models calibrated on existing data may be used to predict species distributions in unsampled areas, given th ... Full text Cite

Temporal resolutions in species distribution models of highly mobile marine animals: Recommendations for ecologists and managers

Journal Article Diversity and Distributions · October 1, 2017 While ecologists have long recognized the influence of spatial resolution on species distribution models (SDMs), they have given relatively little attention to the influence of temporal resolution. Considering temporal resolutions is critical in distributi ... Full text Cite

A global biogeographic classification of the mesopelagic zone

Journal Article Deep-Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers · August 1, 2017 We have developed a global biogeographic classification of the mesopelagic zone to reflect the regional scales over which the ocean interior varies in terms of biodiversity and function. An integrated approach was necessary, as global gaps in information a ... Full text Cite

Google Haul Out: Earth Observation Imagery and Digital Aerial Surveys in Coastal Wildlife Management and Abundance Estimation.

Journal Article Bioscience · August 2017 As the sampling frequency and resolution of Earth observation imagery increase, there are growing opportunities for novel applications in population monitoring. New methods are required to apply established analytical approaches to data collected from new ... Full text Cite

Extrapolating cetacean densities to quantitatively assess human impacts on populations in the high seas.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · June 2017 As human activities expand beyond national jurisdictions to the high seas, there is an increasing need to consider anthropogenic impacts to species inhabiting these waters. The current scarcity of scientific observations of cetaceans in the high seas imped ... Full text Cite

Integrating multiple technologies to understand the foraging behaviour of Hawaiian monk seals.

Journal Article Royal Society open science · March 2017 The objective of this research was to investigate and describe the foraging behaviour of monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. Specifically, our goal was to identify a metric to classify foraging behaviour from telemetry instruments. We deployed acceler ... Full text Cite

Automated detection and enumeration of marine wildlife using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and thermal imagery.

Journal Article Scientific reports · March 2017 Estimating animal populations is critical for wildlife management. Aerial surveys are used for generating population estimates, but can be hampered by cost, logistical complexity, and human risk. Additionally, human counts of organisms in aerial imagery ca ... Full text Cite

Year-round spatiotemporal distribution of harbour porpoises within and around the Maryland wind energy area.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2017 Offshore windfarms provide renewable energy, but activities during the construction phase can affect marine mammals. To understand how the construction of an offshore windfarm in the Maryland Wind Energy Area (WEA) off Maryland, USA, might impact harbour p ... Full text Cite

A three-dimensional mapping of the ocean based on environmental data

Journal Article Oceanography · January 1, 2017 The existence, sources, distribution, circulation, and physicochemical nature of macroscale oceanic water bodies have long been a focus of oceanographic inquiry. Building on that work, this paper describes an objectively derived and globally comprehensive ... Full text Cite

Making sure the blue economy is green.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · January 2017 Full text Cite

A perspective on the importance of oceanic fronts in promoting aggregation of visitors to seamounts

Journal Article Fish and Fisheries · December 1, 2016 Recent evidence has demonstrated that not all seamounts are areas where productivity, biomass and biodiversity of marine life thrive. Therefore, understanding the drivers and mechanisms underlying seamount productivity is a major challenge in today's seamo ... Full text Cite

Results of efforts by the Convention on Biological Diversity to describe ecologically or biologically significant marine areas.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · June 2016 In 2004, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) addressed a United Nations (UN) call for area-based planning, including for marine-protected areas that resulted in a global effort to describe ecologically or biologically significant marine ... Full text Cite

Multiple-stage decisions in a marine central-place forager.

Journal Article Royal Society open science · May 2016 Air-breathing marine animals face a complex set of physical challenges associated with diving that affect the decisions of how to optimize feeding. Baleen whales (Mysticeti) have evolved bulk-filter feeding mechanisms to efficiently feed on dense prey patc ... Full text Cite

Temperature-based targeting in a multispecies fishery under climate change

Journal Article Fisheries Oceanography · March 1, 2016 Temperature controls important physiological processes in fish and determines aspects of their niches. In an effort to inform selective fishing and spatiotemporal management in the U.S. Northeast Multispecies fishery, we used 16 years of data from the Nort ... Full text Cite

Habitat-based cetacean density models for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

Journal Article Scientific reports · March 2016 Cetaceans are protected worldwide but vulnerable to incidental harm from an expanding array of human activities at sea. Managing potential hazards to these highly-mobile populations increasingly requires a detailed understanding of their seasonal distribut ... Full text Cite

Geospatial approaches to support pelagic conservation planning and adaptive management

Journal Article Endangered Species Research · March 1, 2016 Place-based management in the open ocean faces unique challenges in delineating boundaries around temporally and spatially dynamic systems that span broad geographic scales and multiple management jurisdictions, especially in the 'high seas'. Geospatial te ... Full text Cite

Dynamic ocean management increases the efficiency and efficacy of fisheries management.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · January 2016 In response to the inherent dynamic nature of the oceans and continuing difficulty in managing ecosystem impacts of fisheries, interest in the concept of dynamic ocean management, or real-time management of ocean resources, has accelerated in the last seve ... Full text Cite

Tuna and swordfish catch in the U.S. northwest Atlantic longline fishery in relation to mesoscale eddies.

Journal Article Fisheries oceanography · November 2015 To analyze the effects of mesoscale eddies, sea surface temperature (SST), and gear configuration on the catch of Atlantic bluefin (Thunnus thynnus), yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), and bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) and swordfish (Xip ... Full text Cite

Spatial issues in Arctic marine resource governance workshop summary and comment

Journal Article Marine Policy · August 1, 2015 The rapidly changing Arctic marine ecosystems face new challenges and opportunities that are increasing and shifting governance needs in the region. A group of economists, ecologists, biologists, political scientists and resource managers met in Stockholm, ... Full text Cite

The emergent geography of biophysical dispersal barriers across the Indo-West Pacific

Journal Article Diversity and Distributions · April 1, 2015 Aim: To discover and evaluate potential dispersal barriers across the Indo-West Pacific Ocean and to develop spatially explicit hypotheses regarding the location of barriers and their capacity to filter taxa. Additionally, to compare model predictions with ... Full text Cite

Modeling the spatial and temporal dynamics of foraging movements of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

Journal Article Movement ecology · January 2015 BackgroundA population of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) spends the austral summer feeding on Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) along the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). These whales acquire their annual energetic needs during an ep ... Full text Cite

Biologically important areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters - East Coast region

Journal Article Aquatic Mammals · January 1, 2015 In this review, we merge existing published and unpublished information along with expert judg-ment to identify and support the delineation of 18 Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) in U.S. waters along the East Coast for minke whales, sei whales, fin whal ... Full text Cite

Biologically important areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters - Gulf of Mexico region

Journal Article Aquatic Mammals · January 1, 2015 In this review, we merge existing published and unpublished information along with expert judg-ment to identify and support the delineation of 12 Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico for Bryde's whales and bottlenose dol ... Full text Cite

Deterministic Factors Overwhelm Stochastic Environmental Fluctuations as Drivers of Jellyfish Outbreaks.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2015 Jellyfish outbreaks are increasingly viewed as a deterministic response to escalating levels of environmental degradation and climate extremes. However, a comprehensive understanding of the influence of deterministic drivers and stochastic environmental va ... Full text Cite

No Reef Is an Island: Integrating Coral Reef Connectivity Data into the Design of Regional-Scale Marine Protected Area Networks.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2015 We integrated coral reef connectivity data for the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico into a conservation decision-making framework for designing a regional scale marine protected area (MPA) network that provides insight into ecological and political contexts. W ... Full text Cite

Updated marine mammal distribution and abundance estimates in British Columbia

Journal Article Journal of Cetacean Research and Management · January 1, 2015 Information relating to the distribution and abundance of species is critical for effective conservation and management. For many species, including cetacean species of conservation concern, abundance estimates are lacking, out of date and/or highly uncert ... Cite

Delivering the Aichi target 11: Challenges and opportunities for marine areas beyond national jurisdiction

Journal Article Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems · November 1, 2014 In 2010, Contracting Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the so-called 'Aichi targets' in order to achieve global biodiversity conservation. Target 11 specifically provides that 'by 2020 (...) at least 10 per cent of coastal and marin ... Full text Cite

Habitat preferences of two deep-diving cetacean species in the northern Ligurian Sea

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · August 4, 2014 We used generalized additive models (GAMs) as exploratory habitat models for describing the distribution of 2 deep-diving species, Cuvier's beaked whale Ziphius cavirostris Cuvier, 1823 and sperm whale Physeter catodon Linnaeus, 1758, in the Pelagos Sanctu ... Full text Cite

Global patterns of marine mammal, seabird, and sea turtle bycatch reveal taxa-specific and cumulative megafauna hotspots.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · April 2014 Recent research on ocean health has found large predator abundance to be a key element of ocean condition. Fisheries can impact large predator abundance directly through targeted capture and indirectly through incidental capture of nontarget species or byc ... Full text Cite

Dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) distribution in relation to biophysical ocean conditions in the northwest Atlantic

Journal Article Fisheries Research · March 1, 2014 We analyzed temporal and spatial catch per unit effort (CPUE) of dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) along the U.S. east coast using pelagic longline logbook data (1999-2007). A zero-inflated negative binomial model was fit using a variety of oceanographic v ... Full text Cite

Data integration for conservation: Leveraging multiple data types to advance ecological assessments and habitat modeling for marine megavertebrates using OBIS-SEAMAP

Journal Article Ecological Informatics · March 1, 2014 Spatially explicit conservation efforts to identify, designate, and prioritize protected areas or biologically significant areas require analyses beyond basic species distribution and abundance studies, including assessments of migration patterns, habitat ... Full text Cite

Integration of passive acoustic monitoring data into OBIS-SEAMAP, a global biogeographic database, to advance spatially-explicit ecological assessments

Journal Article Ecological Informatics · January 1, 2014 We successfully developed an extension of the OBIS-SEAMAP database, a global biogeographic database specializing in marine mammals, seabirds and sea turtles, to integrate passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) data with other commonly collected data types (i.e. ... Full text Cite

The Convention on Biological Diversity's Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas: Origins, development, and current status

Journal Article Marine Policy · January 1, 2014 In 2008, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted seven criteria to identify Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) ". . .in need of protection, in open ocean waters and deep sea habitats". This paper reviews the history of the ... Full text Cite

Better integration of sectoral planning and management approaches for the interlinked ecology of the open oceans

Journal Article Marine Policy · January 1, 2014 Open oceans are one of the least protected, least studied and most inadequately managed ecosystems on Earth. Three themes were investigated that differentiate the open ocean (areas beyond national jurisdiction and deep area within exclusive economic zones) ... Full text Cite

Empirical move-on rules to inform fishing strategies: A New England case study

Journal Article Fish and Fisheries · January 1, 2014 Increasingly, fisheries are being managed under catch quotas that are often further allocated to specific permit holders or sectors. At the same time, serious consideration is being given to the effects of discards on the health of target and non-target sp ... Full text Cite

An ocean of surprises - trends in human use, unexpected dynamics and governance challenges in areas beyond national jurisdiction

Journal Article Global Environmental Change · January 1, 2014 The expanse of ocean which makes up all marine areas beyond national jurisdiction has been characterized as the last frontier of exploitation on the planet, a figurative final "Wild West". Existing users of areas beyond national jurisdiction, with the exce ... Full text Cite

Spatio-temporal assessments of biodiversity in the high seas

Journal Article Endangered Species Research · January 1, 2014 Biological diversity is one of the most important measures for marine conservation in the high seas. However, data and tools to assess and quantify biodiversity in the high seas are still not well developed. This hinders the development of the open-access ... Full text Cite

Pelagic movements of pacific leatherback turtles (dermochelys coriacea) highlight the role of prey and ocean currents

Journal Article Movement Ecology · November 20, 2013 Background: Leatherback turtles are renowned for their trans-oceanic migrations. However, despite numerous movement studies, the precise drivers of movement patterns in leatherbacks remain elusive. Many previous studies of leatherback turtles as well as ot ... Full text Cite

Marine population connectivity identifies ecological neighbors for conservation planning in the Coral Triangle

Journal Article Conservation Letters · December 1, 2012 Robust conservation plans seek to accommodate functional connectivity by establishing regional priorities and through decisions regarding the size and placement of protected areas. In marine systems, connectivity refers to the ecological linkages (primaril ... Full text Cite

Reproductive output and duration of the pelagic larval stage determine seascape-wide connectivity of marine populations.

Journal Article Integrative and comparative biology · October 2012 Connectivity among marine populations is critical for persistence of metapopulations, coping with climate change, and determining the geographic distribution of species. The influence of pelagic larval duration (PLD) on connectivity has been studied extens ... Full text Cite

Why ecosystem-based management may fail without changes to tool development and financing

Journal Article BioScience · May 1, 2012 Resource managers rely on tools to enact ecosystem-based management (EBM) principles and frequently express frustration at the difficulty of use and unreliability of available tools. EBM tool developers lack the consistent, long-term funding needed to deve ... Full text Cite

Designating networks of chemosynthetic ecosystem reserves in the deep sea

Journal Article Marine Policy · March 1, 2012 From the moment of their discovery, chemosynthetic ecosystems in the deep sea have held intrinsic scientific value. At the same time that the scientific community is studying chemosynthetic ecosystems other sectors are either engaged in, or planning for, a ... Full text Cite

Advancing Global Marine Biogeography Research with Open-source GIS Software and Cloud Computing

Journal Article Transactions in GIS · January 1, 2012 Across many scientific domains, the ability to aggregate disparate datasets enables more meaningful global analyses. Within marine biology, the Census of Marine Life served as the catalyst for such a global data aggregation effort. Under the Census framewo ... Full text Cite

Ecological niche modeling of sympatric krill predators around Marguerite Bay, Western Antarctic Peninsula

Journal Article Deep-Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography · July 1, 2011 Adélie penguins (. Pygoscelis adeliae), carabeater seals (. Lobodon carcinophagus), humpback (. Megaptera novaeangliae), and minke whales (. Balaenoptera bonaernsis) are found in the waters surrounding the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Each species relies p ... Full text Cite

Super-aggregations of krill and humpback whales in Wilhelmina Bay, Antarctic Peninsula.

Journal Article PloS one · April 2011 Ecological relationships of krill and whales have not been explored in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), and have only rarely been studied elsewhere in the Southern Ocean. In the austral autumn we observed an extremely high density (5.1 whales per km( ... Full text Cite

The relationship among oceanography, prey fields, and beaked whale foraging habitat in the Tongue of the Ocean.

Journal Article PloS one · April 2011 Beaked whales, specifically Blainville's (Mesoplodon densirostris) and Cuvier's (Ziphius cavirostris), are known to feed in the Tongue of the Ocean, Bahamas. These whales can be reliably detected and often localized within the Atlantic Undersea Test and Ev ... Full text Cite

Spatio-temporal management of fisheries to reduce by-catch and increase fishing selectivity

Journal Article Fish and Fisheries · March 1, 2011 Time/area closures have been widely used in fisheries management to prevent overfishing and the destruction of marine biodiversity. To a lesser degree, such spatio-temporal management measures have been used to reduce by-catch of finfish or protected speci ... Full text Cite

Community structure in pelagic marine mammals at large spatial scales as revealed by multivariate ordination

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · 2011 The understanding of a species’ niche is fundamental to the concept of ecology, yet relatively little work has been done on niches in pelagic marine mammal communities. Data collection on the distribution and abundance of marine mammals is costly, time con ... Full text Link to item Cite

Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools: An integrated framework for ecological geoprocessing with ArcGIS, Python, R, MATLAB, and C++

Journal Article Environmental Modelling and Software · October 1, 2010 With the arrival of GPS, satellite remote sensing, and personal computers, the last two decades have witnessed rapid advances in the field of spatially-explicit marine ecological modeling. But with this innovation has come complexity. To keep up, ecologist ... Full text Cite

Making marine life count: a new baseline for policy.

Journal Article PLoS biology · October 2010 The Census of Marine Life aids practical work of the Convention on Biological Diversity, discovers and tracks ocean biodiversity, and supports marine environmental planning. ... Full text Open Access Cite

Spatio-temporal gap analysis of OBIS-SEAMAP project data: assessment and way forward.

Journal Article PloS one · September 2010 The OBIS-SEAMAP project has acquired and served high-quality marine mammal, seabird, and sea turtle data to the public since its inception in 2002. As data accumulated, spatial and temporal biases resulted and a comprehensive gap analysis was needed in ord ... Full text Cite

A regional analysis of coastal and domestic fishing effort in the wider Caribbean

Journal Article Fisheries Research · February 1, 2010 Although regulated fishing effort is relatively well documented for fisheries in developed states, developing countries are dominated by artisanal fisheries that are characterized by large numbers of small boats, fishing in dispersed and remote locations. ... Full text Cite

Dynamic habitat models: Using telemetry data to project fisheries bycatch.

Journal Article Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2010 Cite

Temporal patterns of target catch and sea turtle bycatch in the US Atlantic pelagic longline fishing fleet

Journal Article Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences · January 1, 2010 Sea turtle bycatch in pelagic longline fishing gear is an ongoing threat to the conservation of sea turtle populations. However, these bycatch events do not occur uniformly in space or time. Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and loggerhead (Caretta carett ... Full text Cite

Diel changes in humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae feeding behavior in response to sand lance Ammodytes spp. behavior and distribution

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · December 1, 2009 Humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae have adopted unique feeding strategies to take advantage of behavioral changes in their prey. However, logistical constraints have largely limited ecological analyses of these interactions. Our objectives were to (1) ... Full text Cite

Fine-scale prey aggregations and foraging ecology of humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · December 1, 2009 Analyses of the foraging behavior of large cetaceans have generally focused on either correlations with environmental conditions at regional scales or observations of surface behavior. We employed a novel approach combining multi-scale analyses of simultan ... Full text Cite

OBIS-SEAMAP: The world data center for marine mammal, sea bird, and sea turtle distributions

Journal Article Oceanography · June 1, 2009 The science needed to understand highly migratory marine mammal, sea bird, and sea turtle species is not adequately addressed by individual data collections developed for a single region or single time period. These data must be brought together into a com ... Full text Cite

Evidence of resource partitioning between humpback and minke whales around the western Antarctic Peninsula

Journal Article Marine Mammal Science · April 1, 2009 For closely related sympatric species to coexist, they must differ to some degree in their ecological requirements or niches (e.g., diets) to avoid interspecific competition. Baleen whales in the Antarctic feed primarily on krill, and the large sympatric p ... Full text Cite

Rugosity-based regional modeling of hard-bottom habitat

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · March 18, 2009 Systematic conservation planning is most often directed at the representation and protection of marine biodiversity. However, direct observation and sampling of marine biodiversity is extremely time consuming and expensive. Due to these constraints, marine ... Full text Cite

Community structure in pelagic marine mammals

Journal Article Ecological Applications · 2009 Cite

Dynamic habitat models: A new approach to analyzing fisheries bycatch.

Journal Article Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2009 Cite

Striking the right balance in right whale conservation

Journal Article Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences · 2009 Cite

Fine-scale habitat modeling of a top marine predator: do prey data improve predictive capacity?

Journal Article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · October 2008 Predators and prey assort themselves relative to each other, the availability of resources and refuges, and the temporal and spatial scale of their interaction. Predictive models of predator distributions often rely on these relationships by incorporating ... Full text Cite

Understanding movement data and movement processes: current and emerging directions

Journal Article Ecol Letters · October 2008 ABSTRACT Animal movement has been the focus on much theoretical and empirical work in ecology over the last 25 years. By studying the causes and consequences of individual movement, ecologists have gained greater insight into the behavior of individuals a ... Full text Link to item Cite

The effects of prey demography on humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) abundance around Anvers Island, Antarctica

Journal Article Polar Biology · September 1, 2008 Baleen whales and Adelie penguins in the near-shore waters around the Antarctic Peninsula forage principally on Antarctic krill. Given the spatial overlap in the distribution of these krill predators (particularly humpback whales) and their dependence on k ... Full text Cite

Applications of network analysis for adaptive management of artificial drainage systems in landscapes vulnerable to sea level rise

Journal Article Journal of Hydrology · August 15, 2008 The vulnerability of coastal landscapes to sea level rise is compounded by the existence of extensive artificial drainage networks initially built to lower water tables for agriculture, forestry, and human settlements. These drainage networks are found in ... Full text Cite

A comparison of methods to spatially represent pelagic longline fishing effort in catch and bycatch studies

Journal Article Fisheries Research · August 1, 2008 Bycatch in fisheries has been recognized as a threat to many endangered populations of sea turtles, sea birds and marine mammals. Interactions between pelagic longline fisheries and critically endangered populations of leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys ... Full text Cite

Hierarchical state-space models of loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) movement in relation to turtle size and oceanographic features in the western Mediterranean Sea

Journal Article Ecol Appl · March 2008 Adapting state–space models (SSMs) to telemetry data has been helpful for dealing with location error and for modeling animal movements. We used a combination of two hierarchical Bayesian SSMs to estimate movement pathways from Argos satellite-tag data for ... Full text Link to item Cite

Raster modelling of coastal flooding from sea-level rise

Journal Article International Journal of Geographical Information Science · February 1, 2008 As rates of sea-level rise continue to increase due to climate change, land planners require accurate spatial analyses on the extent and timing of coastal flooding and associated hazards. Digital elevation data used to evaluate coastal vulnerability to flo ... Full text Cite

Modeling population connectivity by ocean currents, a graph-theoretic approach for marine conservation

Journal Article Landscape Ecology · 2008 The dispersal of individuals among marine populations is of great importance to metapopulation dynamics, population persistence, and species expansion. Understanding this connectivity between distant populations is key to their effective conservation and m ... Full text Cite

Temporal patterns of sea turtle bycatch in the U.S. Atlantic pelagic fishery

Journal Article Can. J. Fisheries and Aquatic Science · 2008 Cite

Geospatial web services within a scientific workflow: Predicting marine mammal habitats in a dynamic environment

Journal Article Ecological Informatics · January 1, 2007 Our ability to inform conservation and management of species is fundamentally limited by the availability of relevant biogeographic data, use of statistically robust predictive models, and presentation of results to decision makers. Despite the ubiquity of ... Full text Cite

Whale distribution in relation to prey abundance and oceanographic processes in shelf waters of the Western Antarctic Peninsula

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · July 18, 2006 The Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a biologically rich area supporting large standing stocks of krill and top predators (including whales, seals and seabirds). Physical forcing greatly affects productivity, recruitment, survival and distribution of k ... Full text Cite

OBIS-SEAMAP: Developing a biogeographic research data commons for the ecological studies of marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · July 3, 2006 Our ability to understand, conserve, and manage the planet's marine biodiversity is fundamentally limited by the availability of relevant taxonomic, distribution, and abundance data. The Spatial Ecological Analysis of Marine Megavertebrate Animal Populatio ... Full text Cite

Techniques for cetacean-habitat modeling

Journal Article Marine Ecology Progress Series · April 3, 2006 Cetacean-habitat modeling, although still in the early stages of development, represents a potentially powerful tool for predicting cetacean distributions and understanding the ecological processes determining these distributions. Marine ecosystems vary te ... Full text Cite

Carbon emissions from a temperate peat fire and its relevance to interannual variability of trace atmospheric greenhouse gases

Journal Article Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · March 27, 2006 The contribution of wildfire in peatlands outside of boreal and tropical regions to interannual variability of global carbon emissions has been relatively little studied. There are 0.19 to 0.88 million km2 of localized peat deposits in the tempe ... Full text Cite

Shades of Green: Measuring the value of urban forests in the housing market

Journal Article Journal of Forest Economics · December 1, 2005 Urban areas can contain public parks, protected forests, unprotected (or undeveloped) forest areas, and trees growing around a house or in the neighborhood surrounding the house. Each type of forest cover provides different amenities to the homeowner and t ... Full text Cite

Patterns of watershed urbanization and impacts on water quality

Journal Article Journal of the American Water Resources Association · January 1, 2005 Urban runoff contributes to nonpoint source pollution, but there is little understanding of the way that pattern and extent of urbanization contributes to this problem. Indicators of type and density of urbanization and access to municipal services were ex ... Full text Cite

Efficient flow computation on massive grid terrain datasets

Journal Article GeoInformatica · December 1, 2003 As detailed terrain data becomes available. GIS terrain applications target larger geographic areas at finer resolutions. Processing the massive datasets involved in such applications presents significant challenges to GIS systems and demands algorithms th ... Full text Cite

Dynamics of sediment discharge in relation to land-use and hydro-climatology in a humid tropical watershed in Costa Rica

Journal Article Journal of Hydrology · November 15, 2001 Hydrology in humid tropical regions is often characterized by considerable natural variability and uncertainty. Hydrologic and land-use data from the Terraba basin in Costa Rica are used to analyze dynamics in sediment discharge processes during the period ... Full text Cite

Spatial patterns of suspended sediment yields in a humid tropical watershed in Costa Rica

Journal Article Hydrological Processes · August 30, 2001 Humid tropical regions are often characterized by extreme variability of fluvial processes. The Rio Terraba drains the largest river basin, covering 4767 km2, in Costa Rica. Mean annual rainfall is 3139 ± 419sd mm and mean annual discharge is 2168 ± 492sd ... Full text Cite

Flow computation on massive grids

Journal Article Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Advances in Geographic Information Systems · January 1, 2001 As detailed terrain data becomes available, GIS applications target larger geographic areas at finer resolutions. Processing the massive data presents significant challenges to GIS systems and demands algorithms that are optimized for both data movement an ... Full text Cite

Forest gradient response in Sierran landscapes: The physical template

Journal Article Landscape Ecology · 2000 Vegetation pattern on landscapes is the manifestation of physical gradients, biotic response to these gradients, and disturbances. Here we focus on the physical template as it governs the distribution of mixed-conifer forests in California's Sierra Nevada. ... Full text Cite

Global climate change and natural-area protection: Management responses and research directions

Journal Article Ecological Applications · January 1, 1997 During the past decade, our understanding of the potential risks that climate change poses to ecosystem function and natural-area protection has increased. Simulation studies of expected changes in species ranges and changes in ecosystem dynamics have indi ... Full text Cite

Climatic controls of eastern North American coastal tree and shrub distributions

Journal Article Journal of Biogeography · January 1, 1995 The geographic ranges of six coastal tree and shrub species were assessed against paired combinations of climate variables in order to define the most precise climatic envelope for each species. Actual evapotranspiration and growing degree day indices, pro ... Full text Cite