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Trevor A Branch

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Assistant Professor, Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, University of Washington

I am most interested in solving real-life biological problems through synthesis of multiple data types and through fitting mathematical models to data. These core interests have led me in a variety of directions. My most recent research focuses on global scale analysis of fisheries, including their current status and future directions, whether fishing down marine food webs is detectable in catches and in ecosystems, and which factors influence patterns in fishery development. I also have a long-standing interest in the human side of fisheries, including fishing behavior and fleet dynamics, and the impacts of individual transferable quotas (catch shares) on target stocks, discards, and the environment. Another major field of interest is the status and trends of large whale populations, particularly blue whales but also humpback and minke whales, interests which have led to papers on abundance estimation, changes in population size over time, and the separation of blue whale subspecies.

Experience

  • 2010–present
    Assistant Professor, University of Washington

Education

  • 2004 
    University of Washington, PhD
  • 1998 
    University of Cape Town, MSc in Conservation Biology
  • 1995 
    University of Cape Town, BSc(Hons)
  • 1994 
    University of Cape Town, Bsc

Publications

  • 2013
    Does catch reflect abundance? No, it is misleading, Nature
  • 2013
    Impacts of ocean acidification on marine seafood, Trends in Ecology and Evolution
  • 2013
    Is the ocean food provision biased?, Nature
  • 2013
    Opportunistic depletion: an overlooked pathway to extinction, Trends in Ecology and Evolution
  • 2012
    The future of fish, Trends in Ecology and Evolution
  • 2011
    Contrasting global trends in marine fishery status obtained from catches and from stock assessments, Conservation Biology
  • 2010
    The trophic fingerprint of marine fisheries, Nature
  • 2010
    Fishery development patterns are driven by profit but not trophic level, PNAS
  • 2009
    Rebuilding global fisheries, Science
  • 2007
    Past and present distribution, densities and movements of blue whales Balaenoptera musculus in the Southern Hemisphere and northern Indian Ocean, Mammal Review

Honours

Leopold Leadership Fellow, 2013Ecological Society of America “2011 Sustainability Science Award”