Alec is an ecophysiologist interested in questions related to behaviour/physiology interactions in animals and their implications for individual and population health, with a focus on marine predators. He addresses these questions using a combination of biologging, drone observations and agent-based modelling. His project at MMRP seeks to understand the effects of multiple stressors on the behaviour, health and population status of humpback whales in the North Pacific to help focus mitigation efforts on their most important threats.
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Dr. Alec Burslem
Alec's Research Aims
Alec’s postdoctoral work at MMRP focuses on understanding, and ultimately forecasting, population consequences of multiple stressors in humpback whales and aims to:
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Collect and analyze empirical data to close key knowledge gaps in our mechanistic understanding of how stressors affect individual and population health in humpback whales including:
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The role of prey in shaping humpback whale behaviour and population dynamics
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How behavior-physiology interactions influence response to biological and anthropogenic stressors
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How individual whales adapt behaviorally to altered surroundings
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How individual fecundity changes across individuals and through time
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Use these empirical findings to inform forecasts of humpback whale population trajectories under varying strengths and combinations of stressors
These aims are addressed using a combination of biologging tags, drone-based photogrammetry measurements, agent based modelling frameworks.
Biography
Alec Burslem is a postdoctoral fellow at the Marine Mammal Research Program studying the behavior and energetics of humpback whales. Before moving to MMRP, he completed a PhD and postdoc at the University of St Andrews, focusing on the behaviour and physiology of sperm whales and killer whales, respectively. Prior to this, he obtained an MSc in marine environmental management at the University of York and worked in environmental consultancy in the UK and Oman. Alec’s methodological focus is on biologging, drone photogrammetry, statistics and quantitative analysis and agent-based model simulations.