Name:  Graeme C. Hays (Chair, Marine Biology)     Email:  g.hays@swan.ac.uk Tel:  + 44 (0)1792 295375

Research Interests

My group uses state-of-art technology to track a range of species (e.g. jellyfish, sea turtles, fish) over of spatio-temporal scales ranging from a few metres and hours, to ocean basins and several years. Current work attempts to look at commonalities in movements patterns across taxa. We are also looking at long-times series data from various marine systems to look at changes in ecosystem structure and links with climate change and overfishing.

Selected publications

For a complete list see: http://www.swan.ac.uk/bs/turtle/

• Sims DW, Southall EJ, Humphries NE, HAYS GC, Bradshaw CJA, Pitchford JW, James A, Ahmed MZ, Brierley AS, Hindell MA, Morritt D, Musyl MK, Righton D, Shepard ELC, Wearmouth VJ, Wilson RP, Witt MJ, Metcalfe JD (2008). Scaling laws of marine predator search behaviour. Nature 451, 1098-1102. doi:10.1038/nature06518
• Humphries NE, Queiroz N, Dyer JRM, Pade NG, Musyl MK, Schaefer KM, Fuller DW, Brunnschweiler JM, Doyle TK, Houghton JDR, HAYS GC, Jones CS, Noble LR, Wearmouth VJ, Southall EJ, Sims DW (2010). Environmental context explains Lévy and Brownian movement patterns of marine predators. Nature 465, 1066-1069. doi:10.1038/nature09116
• HAYS GC, Fossette S, Katselidis KA, Mariani P, Schofield G (2010). Ontogenetic development of migration: Lagrangian drift trajectories suggest a new paradigm for sea turtles. Journal of Royal Society Interface 7, 1319-1327. doi:10.1098/rsif.2010.0009
• HAYS GC, Fossette S, Katselidis KA, Schofield G, Gravenor MB (2010). Breeding periodicity for male sea turtles, operational sex ratios, and implications in the face of climate change. Conservation Biology 24, 1636–1643.doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01531.x
• Lynam CP, Lilley MKS, Bastian T, Doyle TK, Beggs SE, HAYS GC (2010). Have jellyfish in the Irish Sea benefited from climate change and overfishing ? Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02352.x

Projects

• The foraging ecology of sea turtles
• Long-term changes in marine ecosystems
• The movements and diving behaviour of jellyfish

Collaborators  

• Professor David Sims (MBA, Plymouth)
• Dr Chris Lynam (CEFAS, Lowestoft)
• Dr Tom Doyle (UCC, Cork)

Funding

• NERC
• ERDF, Interreg IVA. Ecojel, see: http://www.jellyfish.ie/index.asp
• Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, see: www.jellytrack.co.uk
   

Professor Graeme Hays's Homepage