My overall objective is to run a research group working in mathematical and theoretical biology, with a focus on ecology, evolution, and behavior and the broad goal of combining first-rate basic science with important applied questions. We use mathematical methods to solve problems in biological and ecological science (rather than problems in biological and ecological science to motivate mathematical studies). Our group is collaborative, sharing ideas and working together. Currently, the main themes in the group are 1) Quantitative Methods for Fishery Management: We are developing the tools that will be needed to make Ecosystem Based Fishery Management (EBFM) a practicable approach for fishery management in the 21st century. A wide range of tools is needed, and so our work covers a wide variety of methods and systems. 2) Evolutionary Aspects of Health and Disease: We are interested in aging in the context of life histories of organisms, the evolutionary ecology oxidative stress and antioxidant defenses and the developmental origins of health and disease, how one can adaptively manage disease interventions,the role of behavior in the transmission of disease, and the evolutionary ecology of stem cells. The group is unified by the tools we use: models (differential equations, stochastic dynamic programming and Bayesian statistical methods), experiments (either here in Santa Cruz or in collaboration with colleagues elsewhere) and field observations. We apply these ideas to a variety of systems, currently including southern ocean krill, steelhead trout, Pacific rockfish, mosquitos that are malarial vectors, and the red blood stem cell system. Although I worked for many years on insect parasitoids and tephritid fruit flies, we are not doing much with them just now.
"Uncertainty in Ecological Analysis: A Retrospective and Prospective", Workshop on Uncertainty in Ecological Analysis, Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University, April 2006
"Understanding the Decline of The Western Alaskan Steller Sea Lion: Assessing the Evidence Concerning Multiple Hypothesis", Frohlich Fellow Lecture, CSIRO Hobart, October 2006 The talk
"Combining proximate and ultimate approaches to understand life-history variation in salmonids, with application to fisheries, conservation, and aquaculture". Invited Talk, Sixth William R. and Lenore Mote International Symposium In Fisheries Ecology, November 2006
"Life History Plasticity and Stock Assessments: Beyond the von Bertalanffy". Invited Talk, American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists 50th Anniversary Symposium on The Future of Fishery Science in North America, February 2007 The talk
"Coming Out of the Ivory Tower: How to make sure that our modelling efforts remain applied and practical?" Guest Speaker, Populations Under Pressure. A graduate research symposium in applied population biology. Imperial College Centre for Population Biology at Silwood Park, March 2007
"Ecology, Conservation and Public Policy: A Vision for the 21st Century", Astor Lecture, University of Oxford, April 2007 The talk
"Why We Age, What Causes Us to Age, and What Can Be Done About It", Synergy Lecture, University of California Santa Cruz, May 2007 The talk
"Natural Resource Modelng in the 21st Century", Plenary Lecture, 25th Meeting of the Resource Modeling Association, Cape Cod, June 2007 The talk
"Compensatory Growth, Metabolic Syndrome, and Hormesis: Three Sides of the Same Life History Coin", Thematic Topic on Evolutionary Ecology of Senescence, Annual Meeting of the British Ecology Society, Sept 2007
"Understanding the decline of the western Alaskan Steller sea lion: An ecological thriller" The talk and "The Keystone Species and the Ultraviolet Catastrophe: Southern Ocean Krill, Krill Predators and Krill Fishery Management in a Changing Climate".The talk W.V. Kaeser Lectures, University of Wisconsin, March 2008
"Separating Environmental Science and Environmentalism in the Study of Marine Reserves" Pacific Islands Fishery Science Center, June 2008
"Mosquito Behavior and Malarial Interventions" Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics Workshop on Control and Management of Infectious Diseases, Pennsylvania State University, June 2008
"Ecology, Conservation and Public Policy: A Vision for the 21st Century", Toyota-ANU Public Lecture, Crawford School of the Environment, Australian National University, March 2009. You can see the lecture on Australian Slow TV or directly here Part 1 Part 2 The talk
"Doing Policy Relevant Science, Understanding Policy Relevant Science: The Essential Tension", Keynote Address, 2009 Fenner Conference on the Environment, Australian Academy of Sciences, March 2009 The talk
"Management Strategy Evaluation for Seal Conservation", Invited Talk, Science Session, Special Committee on Seals, July 2009
"Tools for large scale (ecosystem-based) and long-term (evolutionary) environmental risk assessment in the marine environment", Okeanos Workshop on Assessing the Cumulative Impacts of Underwater Noise with Other Anthropogenic Stressors on Marine Mammals , August 2009
Lamberson Ecology Lecturer Series, Humboldt State University, February 2010: "Combining Life History Theory, Experiments, and Field Studies in Setting River Flows for California Steelhead" (Video link ) The talk and "Doing Policy Relevant Science; Understanding Policy Relevant Science: The Essential Tension" (Video link )
A couple of other talks, given as seminars at research institutions in 2010: The Evolutionary Ecology of
Offspring Number and Size, and State Dependent Life History Theory and Stem Cell Biology