Abstract:
The marine environment will play a pivotal role in achieving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) Vision 2030 goals. Marine biodiversity is vital in enhancing the health, food, and nutritional security of KSA, supporting economic diversification through tourism (particularly the giga-projects), fisheries, and aquaculture, and protecting KSA against the impacts of climate change. However, few marine species have adequate data to facilitate effective conservation and management. My vision is to utilise a century of evolution and ecology science to triage whole species assemblages, identifying species least resilient to human exploitation, and those vital to ecosystem health and the human communities dependent upon them. To achieve this, I will leverage widely available morphological traits and a suite of powerful machine learning techniques in a novel interdisciplinary approach that combines natural, social, and economic sciences. Fisheries are the greatest threat to marine biodiversity at the global level. This fellowship will address Red Sea fishes and facilitate the effective conservation, management, and policy actions needed to ensure KSA’s ambitious Vision 2030 goals are achieved.

Bio:
Andrew is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in the fields of ecology, fisheries science, and socioeconomics. His long-term goal is to improve the impact of conservation science by transforming the discipline from a reactive science, responding to species declines, into a proactive one. His research work focuses on the interactions between large marine vertebrates (marine mammals, sharks, rays, turtles, and large finfish) and anthropogenic impacts. He is especially interested in the impacts of fisheries, which represent the greatest threat to marine biodiversity. His research ranges from European waters to the waters of the Indo-Pacific and South America, as well as taking a global perspective.