Jock Currie PhD - Reconstructing historical baselines

Measuring ecological change on the Agulhas Bank and reconstructing historical baselines in South Africa's inshore trawl grounds.

Jock Currie is a SAEON PDP PhD student being co-supervised by Dr Lara Atkinson of Egagasini, as well as Colin Attwood (UCT) and Kerry Sink (SANBI). Jock’s research involves interrogation of a collection of historical research survey (1897-1949) and commercial landings (1897-1960) data, which were recently digitized for the first time, and comparison of these with more recent survey and commercial landings data. Jock will investigate the distributions of inshore fish species from historical periods and the present, assessing changes in light of climate change and developing fishery pressures. In subsequent chapters, repeat surveys will be performed at early (1897-1904) inshore trawl survey sites, imitating methods and using a specially-constructed trawl net that replicates the historical design, in order to make quantitative comparisons between then and now. The repeat surveys will allow estimation of baseline community structures and relative species abundances, as well as assessments of how these may have changed during the intervening century. The surveys will involve close collaboration with government (DAFF) and the South African trawl industry. Results will be discussed in terms of climate change and fishery pressures. Outputs will be of value to resource assessment scientists, ecosystem modellers and inform the management of fishery resources and their surrounding ecosystems. The duration of this PhD project will be July 2013 – July 2016.