Imperial College London
Division of Biology
Silwood Park Campus
Ascot SL5 7PY

timothy.davies08 @ imperial.ac.uk

In a nutshell

I’m interested in the human dimension of conservation and in particular confronting the uncertainty in how natural resource users respond to management. My research is exploring what influences where and when to fishers choose to fish and what the ecological consequences are when fishing effort is displacement of fishing effort from a marine reserve.

Current Research (in more detail)

In recent years the focus of marine conservation has swung towards the pelagic ocean. Inspired by the successes of marine protected areas in coastal areas there have been numerous proposals to expand the use of MPAs to these open ocean environments. However, with few examples of from which to draw conclusions, the benefits and drawbacks of pelagic MPAs are not yet clearly defined. In particular there is considerable uncertainty in how fishing fleets are likely to respond to the closure of their former fishing grounds and how changes in fishing effort dynamics will impact fish stocks and marine ecosystems.

The aim of this PhD to anticipate how a large pelagic MPA affects the dynamics of a commercial offshore fishery and to understand the ecological impacts resulting from these changes. More generally this work will contribute to reducing uncertainty in how resource users respond to spatial management, an area of research that remains underdeveloped. The PhD is centred around a case study of the western Indian Ocean tuna purse seine fishery and the spatial restrictions associated with that fishery, most notably the British Indian Ocean Territory marine protected area (hereafter the Chagos MPA).

This PhD brings together elements of the social and ecological sciences, drawing on behavioural theory and engaging with skippers in the Indian Ocean tuna purse seine fishery ultimately develop a model that predicts the spatial allocation of fishing effort.

The research has three objectives, as follows:

1. To identify the factors that govern fishing effort dynamics in the Indian Ocean tuna purse seine fishery and to qualify and, where possible, quantify their effect
2. To develop a model that accurately predicts the reallocation of fishing effort in response to spatial management
3. To investigate the ecological consequences resulting from effort reallocation under a number of alternative spatial management scenarios

Supervision and funding

This PhD is supervised by Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland (Imperial College London) with co-supervision by Chris Mees (MRAG Ltd), and is jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Publications

Davies, T. K., Martin, S., Mees, C., Chassot, E. & Kaplan, D. M. (2012) A review of the conservation benefits of marine protected areas for pelagic species associated with fisheries. ISSF Technical Report 2012-02. International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, McLean, Virginia, USA.

Presentations

25th International Congress for Conservation Biology, New Zealand, December 2011: “The Chagos/BIOT MPA: A cautionary case study on marine spatial planning” as part of the symposium “Participatory Marine Spatial Planning: Shared Approaches and Experiences”. Presentation slides available as pdf here.

Masters students (co-supervision)

Andreea Gaitan – “The social networks of wild edible fungi (WEF) collectors and their implications for conservation” (pdf)

Relevant CV

2009-2010: Consultant, MRAG Ltd

2008-2009: MSc Conservation Science, Imperial College. Distinction. Thesis: An assessment of the conservation status of the whale shark Rhincodon typus in the Republic of Maldives using photo-identification and mark-recapture techniques (pdf)

2008: Resident Marine Biologist, Four Seasons Resorts, Maldives. Co-founder of the Maldives Whale Shark Project.

2006: Field assistant, Tsaobis Baboon Research Project. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London.

2003-2006: BSc Zoology, University of Leeds. 1st Class. Leeds’ Naturalist Prize in Zoology.

2002-2006: Volunteer on three marine and terrestrial research expeditions with Frontier in Tanzania and Madagascar.

ICCS website

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