My current research project, called the "Research Collaborative Pour la Peche a Moorea" (Collaborative Research for Moorea's Fishery), is exploring the interrelations between fishing practices, livelihood strategies, and shifting dominance of coral and algae in the lagoons around Moorea, French Polynesia. In collaboration with Sally Hollbrook (UC-Santa Barbara) and Andrew Rassweiler (Florida State University), our team is bringing cutting-edge techniques together in an integrated social, ecological, and modeling research program. We are using a mixed-methods approach including powerful new remote sensing technologies for mapping changes in coral reef habitats; participatory fisher-led data collection techniques where fishers use GPS enabled smartphones to document their movements; novel fish catch distribution surveys; social network analyses, and spatially explicit models. The research builds on work conducted for the Moorea Coral Reef Long Term Ecological Research Project (MCR-LTER). The MCR-LTER is part of a network of LTER's funded by the National Science Foundation.

 

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