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Heather Hawk
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PhD Candidate in Oceanography, ULaval (2013–)
MSc in Marine Biology, MLML/CSUMB (2010) BSc in Ecology, UGA (2005) |
Candidate au doctorat en océanographie, ULaval (2013–)
Maîtrise en biologie marine, MLML/CSUMB (2010) Baccalauréat en ecologie, UGA (2005) |
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Supervisor: Ladd Johnson
Co-supervisor: Sarah Bailey (DFO-Bayfield Institute) E-mail: [email protected] |
Directeur: Ladd Johnson
Co-directrice : Sarah Bailey (MPO-Institut Bayfield) Courrier électronique : [email protected] Site personnel: heatherhawk.weebly.com |
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As they say, spatiotemporal heterogeneity is the spice of life! Heather loves “the weird and wonderful, the beautiful and bizarre”. Her research spans community ecology and biodiversity of marine invertebrates from genes to continents and uses advanced biogeographical, statistical, and molecular tools. Her PhD dissertation at l’Université Laval is a dynamic, policy-driven foray into marine biodiversity and non-indigenous species (NIS):
1) Are all NIS destined to become invasive? Invasive species are infamously known as “the great homogenizers” by out-competing, over-growing, or otherwise excluding other species in their introduced range. Heather is measuring contributions of NIS, both as individual species and as a whole group, to local diversity and spatial heterogeneity at introduction sites in Atlantic and Pacific Canada. 2) Biodiversity Footprint of a Marina Ports and marinas are hot-spots for NIS introductions, but they provide starkly different physical and biological conditions than surrounding shorelines. What NIS species are likely to remain inside introduction sites and which ones disperse or “spill” out? Those that escape do so at different rates based on their reproductive and larval traits. Using recruitment patterns and species distributions in a marina and along surrounding coastlines, Heather is creating a framework for assessing a marina’s unique footprint on biodiversity in British Columbia. 3) Sea Stars Can’t Jump! One of the factors that determine the resilience of a marine ecosystem against biological invasions is the ability of local predators to consume or otherwise exclude NIS. However, sea stars, which are some the most powerful mesopredators in Pacific Canada, have declined in recent years due to a wasting disease. These mesopredators, along with crabs and sea urchins, play a key role in consuming certain species, including some that have been introduced. Heather is exploring the community ecology of crawling mesopredators by pairing a survey of biofouling assemblages on artificial structures where mesopredators have or don’t have access (i.e., docks and pilings) with a field experiment that allows or excludes mesopredators. 4) NIS Detection: How to avoid sampling everything, everywhere, and all the time Heather worked in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and British Columbia to model the efficiency of different field collection methods for early detection of the great variety of marine and freshwater NIS across Canada. She is creating a decision framework for incorporating multiple field methods that maximize the detection-per-effort of NIS and other rare benthic invertebrates. |
Heather Hawk étudie l'écologie et la diversité des communautés d’invertébrés. Sa carrière de recherche l'a amenée à travailler sur les milieux marins d’Amérique du Nord et centrale et en Australasie. Elle s'intéresse à l'application des techniques innovantes pour découvrir les causes et les conséquences de la biodiversité sur une échelle locale, régionale et mondiale. Dans son travail de doctorat, Heather vise à utiliser des traits d'espèces, la probabilité de détection, et les biais méthodologiques pour déterminer la combinaison d’effort nécessaire par différentes techniques d'échantillonnage afin de détecter des espèces rares (ex, la détection précoce des espèces envahissantes) dans les ports marins et d'eaux douces de Nouvelle-Écosse, d’Ontario et de Colombie-Britannique. Elle utilise aussi les structures artificielles des ports marins pour établir l'importance de l'accès aux prédateurs benthiques dans la formation des assemblages et aussi pour définir les échelles spatiales pertinentes de la biodiversité dans les communautés « biofouling ».
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