About me

I am a research biologist at NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and research fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz. My research focuses on the intersection of big data, statistical modeling, remote sensing, and decision-support science to predict and manage species and human activities that are dynamic and space and time. My work has spanned multiple systems and research questions: from dynamically modeling shark bycatch in Australia’s longline fleet, to identifying and tracking biodiversity surrogates in the Coral Sea, to projecting climate change impacts on marine species in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic, to developing a dynamic ocean management tool to reduce bycatch in a California swordfish fishery. Foremost in my work, I aim to produce practical methodologies and tools that can be widely applied, facilitating the applied management of our fundamentally dynamic world.

Research themes

Fisheries information systems
Fisheries data from Automatic Identification System (AIS) or Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) contain a wealth of information on vessel movements in space and time, allowing for investigations of fishing behaviors, relationships between fishing and the environment, and overlap between fishing and target/bycatch species. Relevant publications:
Welch, Heather, et al. One Earth (2024). [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Science Advances (2024): sciadv.adl5528. [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Conservation Biology (2023). [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Science Advances 8.44 (2022): eabq2109. [link]

Species in a variable and changing climate

Species distributions are mediated by climate (in addition to other factors like life history and physiology). As our climate changes due to episodic events like marine heatwaves and long-term warming, species distributions change with it. Relevant publications:
Welch, Heather, et al. Nature Communications 14.1 (2023): 5188. [link]
Nerea Lezama-Ochoa, et al. Diversity and Distributions (2023). [link]
Braun, Camrin D., et al. Science Advances 9.32 (2023): eadi2718. [link]
McHenry, Jennifer, et al. Global Change Biology 25.12 (2019): 4208-4221. [link]

Dynamic management tools

Dynamic management is the use of near real-time environmental, biological, societal, and/or economic data to recommend management actions that are aligned with current conditions, supporting the sustainable use of marine resources. Relevant publications:
Breece, Matthew W., et al. Ecological Applications 31.6 (2021): e02358. [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Ecological Indicators 98 (2019): 657-664. [link]
Hazen, Elliott L., et al. Science advances 4.5 (2018): eaar3001. [link]

Dynamic management nuts and bolts

The field of dynamic management is in its infancy. By looking at more established fields like weather forecasting and conservation planning, we can gain insights into dynamic management design and implementation. Relevant publications:
Welch, Heather, et al. Conservation Biology (2023) https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14201 [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Remote sensing of Environment 242 (2020): 111753. [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Conservation Biology 34.3 (2020): 589-599. [link]
Welch, Heather, et al. Journal of Applied Ecology 56.2 (2019): 459-469. [link]